Any way to keep scaling of clips identical in relation to Sequence size?

[vanlazarus2013]

Is there any way, when copying clips from a 5k sequence into a 2k sequence to keep the scale and position of clips identical in relation to the frame size?

For example, if a clip is zoomed in 15% on the 5k, is there a way to copy it and have it zoomed in 15% on the 2k?

I've played with the project settings and have Default Media Scaling set to 'Set to Frame Size', but this just ensures that my 5k footage is massive in the 2k sequence, and not looking the same as it was in the 5k sequence.  If I've done any framing adjustments, they are all screwed up when copying to the smaller sized sequence and I have to set them from scratch.

I'm editing a large project and it's a huge pain to move all of my sequences to the smaller size, but I'm forced to because Premiere has a rendering inefficiency/problem where 2k media in a 5k sequence that is rendered at 2k looks far worse than if I place that 2k media in a 2k sequence and render to 2k.  I'm forced to make this move now because all of our visual effects are being finished in 2k.  I thought it would be great to keep all of our 5k footage in a 5k sequence in case we wanted to render it in 5k, but now it's biting me.

[Warren Heaton]

The Scale parameter travels with the clip, so you're going to have to further reduce it after the copy and paste.

Have you tried using Paste Attributes to quickly move the Scale to other clips that you've pasted after adjusting a 1st one? 

Also... you're 5K Sequence is loosing quality when exported at a 2K setting, correct?  When exporting, is "Use Maximum Render Quality" enabled in the Export Settings dialog box?  That's specifically meant for when footage is scaled below 100%.

[vanlazarus2013]

That's unfortunate.  I just want the clips to look exactly the same as they did in the larger resolution sequence.

I am familiar with copy and pasting attributes but that doesn't help me in this situation.  Many of the clips have unique framing tweaks that are completely destroyed when moving to the 2k sequence.  Sometimes with keyframes that change throughout the clip.  It's truly a mess and moving clips to a new resolution sequence undoes all framing work done on the previous sequence.

Thanks, I will try the maximum render quality setting you refer to..... but admitedly, I'm very skeptical that this will preserve the quality of 2k media in a 5k sequence rendered to 2k.

[Warren Heaton]

Switching to a different Sequence frame size can indeed be a headache.

Is the 2K source that looks fine a down-conversion of the 5K?  If so, what are you using to get from 5K to 2K with picture quality that you like? 

[vanlazarus2013]

2k source looks worse when scaled up in a 5k sequence that is rendered to 2k.

My work around is to render the 2k source to a 5k intermediate.  Then, when that 5k intermediate is placed in a 5k sequence and rendered to 2k, it still looks good.

To get an extreme example of the problem, take a 720p clip and place it in a 5k sequence and render to 720p.  Instead of looking like the 720p source material, it looks awful. 

[Ann Bens]

Bad idea to first scale footage up and then scale it down.

If you insist on upscaling try Red Giants Instant 4K plugin.

[Warren Heaton]

Yikes!  Of course it looks aweful.

I thought you were not liking 5K to 2k, but it’s 2K scale to 5K?  To expect that to look good is extremely unrealistic when working with a raster based format.

However, some workflows, like documentaries, do require up-conversion of some footage.

Red Giant Instant 4K does an excellent job and has a “quick” mode and “draft” mode to work quicker that can be changed to “best” when exporting an edited master.  They provide a trial version so you can test it with your footage before purchasing it.

Of course, you can always send clips to After Effects and apply Detail-preserving Upscale.

Important notes:

- Software up-conversion is usually pretty slow.  Use as powerful of a system as you can.  If fast turnaround is a priority, consider a hardware option (like Taranex, now owned by Blackmagic Design).

- Footage that’s been up-converted will never look as good as footage originally shot at the higher resolution.

- Video graphics always look terrible when up-converted.  When possible, use textless footage and generate to graphics at the higher resolution.

-Warren

Sent from my iPhone

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this post has been edited  by mod.

[vanlazarus2013]

You're both misunderstanding my expectations and the problem this post is about.  Of course 720p footage is not going to look as good as 5k footage.   But scaling of footage is not rocket science and software does this with every image displayed.  My issue is with Premiere's apparent bug in scaling something up and then down.  Take a photo in Photoshop, scale it up 10x, and then scale it down 10x.  It should look nearly identical.  I just did this in Photoshop with excellent results, so Adobe has the ''technology'. When Premiere does this, there is some kind of major inaccuracy that reduces the quality vastly. 

And I fully understand that doing this scaling up and down is not desirable regardless.  The point if my post is not to lament this poor scaling implementation, rather Premiere's inability to adjust scaling and position keyframes when moving clips from one sequence resolution to another. It should be able to do this effortlessly and provide visually identical frames, provided the aspect ratio of both sequences is the same.  If a 5k footage scale setting shows 75% of the image in a 5k sequence, then Premiere should be able to set that scale to show 75% of the 5k frame in a 2k sequence.  It's simple math and a computer's forte.  Yet this simple feature is unavailable in Premiere.  Clip scale implementation is very clunky and confusing in Premiere.  Why not have the scale setting be a function of the clip's relation the the frame size?  Then a setting of 80% scale would result in the same look regardless of sequence resolution.

[Warren Heaton]

You're right that Photoshop has better options than Premiere Pro for increasing image size, especially as of CC2018 with the introduction of Preserve Details 2.0.  Instead of expecting good results up to 200%, you can push images up to 400%.   Of course, the results vary based on the source.

If you've gotten good results at 1,000% (10x), please post samples!  I would love to see them.

If I remember correctly, Premiere Pro uses Bilinear when footage is scaled above 100%, which allows you to get to 125% easily, sometimes as high as 140%.

It would be great if Adobe ported Detail-preserving Upscale from After Effects to Premiere Pro so that we don't have to jump over to AE (although, with Dynamic Link it's never been easier).

Have you tried doing a pre-render pass on your 2K clips in Photoshop?  That's take some time, but could be worth it.

I encourage you to try Red Giant Instant 4K (Red Giant | Getting Started with Instant 4K).​  Being able to stay in Premiere Pro makes it well worth it and in my usage at least it's a little bit better than Detail-preserving Upscale (by just a bit).

You could also post a feature request here for better up-conversion in PR: Premiere Pro: Hot (3581 ideas) – Adobe video & audio apps

Another option that might be worth mentioning is to send the clips in your 5K PR Sequence to After Effects where you can nest the resulting 5K Comp into a 2K Comp, fit to 2K, and then enable Collapse Transformations.  That forces AE to see back to the original course and your scaled 2K clips should be as sharp as you'd expect them to be if you hadn't scaled them at all.

[vanlazarus2013]

Thanks for the info Warren.  I'll look into some of those other options for scaling. 

But in regards to my main problem... preserving framing when moving to a different sequence resolution... I think I'll just have to redo hundreds of unique framing changes in the 2k sequence.

[Ann Bens · Accepted solution]

If you nest you timeline in an other timeline and keep all the settings. Just adjust the scale of the nest.

[vanlazarus2013]

I'll try it.  Just concerned that it'll result in the same scaling degradation of the 2k VFX shots.   I'll do some tests.  Thanks.

[Warren Heaton]

If anything, the scaled nest can provide a guide for the footage you copy and paste.