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A
Afterglow
Known Participant
April 10, 2018
Question

Stills issue?

  • April 10, 2018
  • 4 replies
  • 1165 views

I'm trying to finish a short 8 minute documentary that has lots of historic stills but the stills won't export with the rest of the film. Instead I get black holes where they should be. Worst of all, it seems to be pretty random so of 15 stills, six won't work.

The stills are jpegs around 4000 pixels wide and usually 3000 high, all set to RGB. I've experimented with psds and pngs and tiffs and haven't had better results. I've read the bizarre recommendation by some posters that stills be no more than twice the size of the sequence.

Because of the live action footage source, I was editing in a XDCAM sequence at 25fps, HD. Then I switched to a pro res sequence but no better results.

Regardless of outputting a low res or HD file of the finished film, there's always a few black holes.

PPRo has been shutting down constantly, at least once an hour and I've trashed the preferences and cache/

I have been using RG Colorista III for grading and thought it might be this so installed Col IV but still the project shuts down.

Honestly, I only started doing all our work in PPro affter years of mostly happily sticking with FCP7 and it's shocking to think I've wasted almost two entire days chasing this problem.

Specs: Mac Pro 5,1 2010, 3.3ghz 6 core x 2, 24gb RAM, El Capitan, NVidia 980 ti 6gb, Premiere 2018 12.0

Thanks

      4 replies

      Kevin-Monahan
      Community Manager
      Kevin-MonahanCommunity Manager
      Community Manager
      May 16, 2018

      Still facing this issue, Afterglow? Let us know so we can assist you further.

      Thanks,
      Kevin

      Kevin Monahan - Sr. Community & Engagement Strategist – Pro Video and Audio
      A
      AfterglowAuthor
      Known Participant
      June 9, 2018

      Back on this issue. I've been slack in not responding to the above posts and suggestions in them. Almost all are things I'd tried - checking specs of stills, punctuation of titles, etc. It's incredibly frustrating.

      In answer to above questions, all the still images had moves on them, most had some grading with Lumetri or RG Colorista.

      I know that dpi doesn't count in the video world but a previous poster had suggested it was always better to change all stills resolution to 72dpi before bringing in. Agree/disagree?

      The previous project was finalised but required separate exports (as Pro Res) of different sections depending on which stills appeared and which didn't. With the first export, only one still image didn't come out. So I checked its specs in Photoshop, sized it down slightly - but not too much because I needed to crop into the middle of it - then as a test re-exported just that section of the video. It was fine! So I tried re-exporting the whole video but again the previous still was black. Finally I did a simple cut and paste to make it complete.

      Right now I'm starting on another project with a significant stills presence. Again, the same things are happening.

      Here's something interesting,  sometimes still images in Premiere will stop appearing in the sequence window if the cursor is stopped and the frame will be black.  Sometimes there's an abstract image like this http://www.afterglow.net.au/ClientAccess/GANHRI/Screen%20Shot%202018-06-09%20at%201.46.51%20PM.png

      Then if I press play it appears. In this case, it seems that my graphics card Nvidia GTX 980 Ti 6gb is working and displaying the image but the CPU of my Mac Pro isn't. Would that be right? Or is it the reverse? The graphics card was newly installed late last year.

      How can I tell if I need more than the current 24gb of RAM?

      So is this a question of keeping the max size of still images in pixels and data low?

      Another option is to re-install Premiere (2017 version is currently installed).

      E
      eikonoklastes
      Legend
      June 26, 2018

      This is a long shot, but try going to your Project Settings and changing the Renderer to Software Only. Delete all your cached renders and try to export again.

      Regarding your DPI query - no you don't need to touch the DPI. You only need the right pixel dimensions and you're good to go.

      C
      Community Expert
      Carlos ZiadeCommunity Expert
      Community Expert
      April 20, 2018

      Better share your 'Effect Controls' while having one of your stills selected, best the ones having probs selected

      another option is to right click on the jpeg causing trouble, choose 'reveal in project' and in the project panel, right click on

      the highlighted jpeg and under 'Pixel Aspect Ratio' choose 'Conform to' ... 'Square Pixels'

      see if that works please

      yenaphe
      yenaphe
      Inspiring
      April 10, 2018

      I'm pretty sure it's not that, but could it be that one of your video track is not active?

      Also, check that your jpeg files are not CMJN. Happened to me once and had an issue similar to yours.

      Hope this helps,

      Seb

      A
      AfterglowAuthor
      Known Participant
      April 11, 2018

      It's a strange form of insanity.

      It is completely random which still images successfully get exported without leaving a black hole in the sequence.

      In order to deliver a version with no black holes, I've  exported the sequence twice along with smaller sections so I can re-edit these back into the full length export to cover the black holes. One particular still which is used twice in the sequence shows up in one place at 2min and then not again at the 7 minute spot. This is the still: ClientAccess/Richmond_Gaol/Stills

      In answer to the suggestion about video layers, I have three video layers and each has something on it. Or by "active" did you mean if it had its blue box clicked "on" in the settings to the left of the sequence??

      What about rendering? Why doesn't Premiere seem to render still images? Even after rendering the sequence, the still images still have that blurry pixellated look of unrendered material.

      Thanks. Hoping someone has an answer to this madness. Perhaps I can re-install PPro? Where can you find the older iteration 12.0?

      Mick

      A
      AfterglowAuthor
      Known Participant
      April 20, 2018

      No more ideas? Anyone? I've checked that the jpegs are rgb. I've tried to minimise them to ease the processing - but then again I want to be able to move in on them and track around so usually like to have stills at a minimum of 4000 pixels along the widest edge.

      I do a lot of editing with stills and so my confidence level with PPro is dropping quickly.

      Pretty funny that I just watched the promo for the new version of Premiere and was thinking cool stuff in there but why can't they improve the handling of jpegs etc, especially given so much Adobe software is built around their stills work????

      E
      eikonoklastes
      Legend
      April 10, 2018

      Is it possible for you to share one of these images that refuse to export?

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