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michelec80717588
Participant
October 4, 2018
Answered

JPEGS imported into Premiere lose quality

  • October 4, 2018
  • 4 replies
  • 9802 views

See 3 x pics below. JPEG (still) images imported from Photoshop Elements into Premiere Elements* lose quality as soon as you press play on the timeline.

However, they show fine if the timeline is paused see fig 1 so they seem to get into Premiere ok. So I'm therefore wondering if there is an interleafing problem or similar.

Note, To try and narrow this problem down further I've also just tried this with the just the 'horses' image on its own on a blank background;

in a new Premiere Project without any motion paths and still the same degradation occurs to the JPEG image once I press play on the timeline (i.e. this is not now relating to overlays or motion paths, but a generic problem with JPEGS).

*I'm guessing that this would apply to Premiere Pro as well as Elements and MAYBE i'll get more responses from that forum?!

[Here is the list of all Adobe forums... https://forums.adobe.com/welcome]

[Moved to the correct forum... PE is not the same as PPro… Mod]

This topic has been closed for replies.
Correct answer Steve Grisetti

The closer your photo resolution is to your video resolution, the better your final output will look.

So, for a 1920x1080 video, size your photos to 1920x1080. If you need a bit more resolution so that the photo will fill your 16:9 video frame, increase it to more like 1920x1440 (although you'll lose a bit off the top and/or bottom of the photo). If you want more resolution so that you can do some panning and zooming over the photo, a good rule of thumb in 2500x1875.

4 replies

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franka19393313
Participant
October 11, 2020

I had the same problem with my jpg images, the solution I use is : I start a new project with a 4K setting (QFHD) then I set all my jpg photo files to 3840x2160, the same as 4K video size. When my project is ready to export, I export it in fullHD (1920x1080) and my photos looks much better in that format than before !

williebegoode
williebegoode
Participating Frequently
October 12, 2018

I use a lot of jpegs in my videos set to 970 x 800 with the remaining window taken up by video from an iPhone. During editing the jpegs are pretty dicey, but actually running on YouTube, they are fine: The graphics on the left are from a jpeg (text is part of the graphic.)

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Steve GrisettiCorrect answer
Legend
October 10, 2018

The closer your photo resolution is to your video resolution, the better your final output will look.

So, for a 1920x1080 video, size your photos to 1920x1080. If you need a bit more resolution so that the photo will fill your 16:9 video frame, increase it to more like 1920x1440 (although you'll lose a bit off the top and/or bottom of the photo). If you want more resolution so that you can do some panning and zooming over the photo, a good rule of thumb in 2500x1875.

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michelec80717588Author
Participant
October 12, 2018

Many thanks Steve, that's good to know.

I've now completed further experiments and in my case, the basic constraint remains the low quality of the original print image, 4 1/2 inches in height, so there's only limited benefit in scanning at higher resolutions as this wont necessarily result in a better final output.

The only other thing worth mentioning (for any other readers to this thread) is that from the timeline view is the option: Right Click / Playback Quality (Auto or Highest). I'm guessing this is computer resource intensive so you may not choose 'Highest' with a larger project, but in my case it sharpened up the images as shown above. Of course, this relates to Timeline View quality only and doesn't in itself impact the final exported output. 

I think from your responses I can now mark this issue as closed.

Many thanks for your advice

Kind Regards

Michele

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    Steve Grisetti
    Legend
    October 4, 2018

    Try rendering the timeline (press Enter). This will create a cleaner preview. (Though even this preview is just a preview and will not look as good as your final output.)

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    michelec80717588Author
    Participant
    October 10, 2018

    Hi Steve, many thanks for replying (I'm a big fan of your Premiere 'how to' videos, with its very clear and concise narration!).


    For my particular question, yes - rendering content on the timeline would indeed help, but I'd already done this, as per the previous screen shots. But after further experimentation the problem was more fundamental, the poor resolution of my original source JPEGS. I've now managed to double the resolution of these source images which improves quality considerably (See comparison screenshots of low vs hi-res).


    Am I right in thinking the max res of any full screen JPEG input into Premiere is 720 pixels high? or is that just a figure matching with output of default Quick Export settings? If I could get a higher res scanned JPEG input, and process that through Premiere before outputting at say one of the 4K export settings would that work and would that produce a better quality final image?


    FYI - I am limited in that my original historic art work (a Victorian fold out panorama) is only 4 1/2 inches high, but a massive 12 foot long.

    I've scanned and stitched together using photoshop into 2 x 6 foot lengths (the maximum size I could get handles onto the image in Premiere for the purpose of using Pan & Zoom tool). Onto these 2 consecutive gently scrolling background panoramas are 200 individual superimposed objects (humans, horses etc) all with individual motion paths, so I'm guessing I'm testing the limits of PE in this respect!

    Many thanks  

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