Blurry Output from Timelapse

[Allen Birnbach]

I'm working on a project in Premiere Pro v22.6.4 on a MacBook Pro, ios Catalina.  The project is set up as 5760 x 3240, but I have a timelapse in it at 1920 x 1080.  When I imported it, I chose "set to Frame Size."  When I export the project at 1080p, the timelapse is blurry.  I tried adding Sharpening from the Effects panel, but even though it looks sharp at 100% on screen, the timelapse is actually more out of focus than a straight export when I export that clip.  I'm hoping someone has a suggestion as to what may be happening and how to resolve it.

[Ann Bens · Accepted solution]

It looks blurry as you are blowing the timelaps up to fit the 5760 x 3240. That will cost you image quality.

The only way to fix this is to set the timeline to 1920x1080.

[Allen Birnbach]

I understand that that would be the case if I was exporting to 5760 X 3240, but I am exporting to 1920 x 1080, which is the native size of the timelapse.  I thought that if it was imported using "Set to Frame Size" that the file is not altered so if it were exported to 1080p it would be OK.  That's what's confusing for me.  

[Ann Bens]

As soon as you scale an image up regardless of the export settings, you loose image qualtity.

Look at the scale amount when setting the 1080p footage in the 5760 x 3240 timeline. Even with Set to Framesize it will be way over 100%, it will be 300%. You cannot reverse that by simply exporting to 1080p.