Drone Video Landscape to Portrait, diminishes quality

[KF1915]

Hello, I am using Premiere Elements 2022 and am trying to create portrait orientation videos out of drone footage that is in landscape format.  I select New>Project>Portrait 9:16 1080p 30 fps, but when I drag my video to meet the margins of the new format, it diminishes the quality of my video.  I can't figure out how to keep the quality of my video the same in the new format.  Can anyone help?  Thanks.

[Bill Sprague]

I'm not sure what you mean by "quality".  The composition of the rows of flowers make the shot.  That can't be retained. 

During editing, you are seeing a real time "rendered" preview.  Depending on the computer, that may not be as high quality as the final output.  Have you tried looking at the same scene after an export with high quality settings? 

Assuming you've got your drone set to 1920x1080 HD, you have a little over 2 million pixels to deal with.  When you change the horizontal to vertical, you are discarding about a third on each side, so you have only about a third of the pixels left.  It can't then be the same "quality".    However, if you go through the output procedures you should get good enough quality for typical vertical phone viewing.   

If you change your drone to 4K shooting and put that into a 1920x1080 project, you can discard the sides and still end up with about the same number of pixels in an a vertical HD project.   

[KF1915]

Thank you for your help, as I am new to premiere and to video editing. By quality, I mean that the definition and clarity of the flowers, which is visible when viewed in full screen landscape, becomes blurry and less defined when changed to portrait.  I tried rendering and saving in high quality output settings but there is no difference. (I believe, but if you could detail this maybe that would help too?)

I don't understand why if I can view the image clearly full screen in landscape and I essentially chop off a third off each side, why can't I see the same image definition of what is remaining.  Yes, I am discarding two thirds, but if I was already viewing that piece of the clip at that size, why is it not possible to see that once I remove the edges?  I feel like I am lacking the vocabulary to describe this.  Do I need to change the aspect ratio or the pixel size of the new canvas?  I also read that drones film at variable frame rates, and this may be a problem?

The original video is 1920x1080, 30 fps.  

Thanks again.

[Ann Bens]

What is the resolution and framerate of the drone footage.