And there's a shortcut for it! Never used Quickmask, but I will now. ... View more

I've just put your script through its paces on a test file, and it works. Placed at the end of my Actions that crop and save to other formats, it causes PS to revert to the Tiff file at the head of the "Recent Files" list.   Now I'll put it through some real life tests over the coming weeks. Instead of my previous method of… saving as Tiff LZW running the Action re-opening the Tiff saving as Tiff Zip… I can now Save As when the Action finishes, and choose Tiff Zip.   Ques: Is there any way to automate that last step, the save as Tiff Zip?  – but in a way that does not lock up PS.         ... View more

In all my Actions, under the "Save" step it says:   as:  JPEG in:  A-Data:Slide Temp: With Copy   I'll try the script and see how it goes. I can alter my workflow to only work on one file at a time – I think. ... View more

I only just saw your reply. I wasn't notified by email, or the email went to spam.   I  entered the script into Apple Script, but I'm not allowed to Save, Run, or Compile it (see attachment). I know very little about scripting, but if it can be fixed, let me know and I'll try it. Over the next 18 months I expect to run the Actions several thousand times, so the script would be a great help.   A Concern One thing I'm concerned about is the "opening the most recent file" thing. My wording was unclear. I may have several files open in PS, and the one I'm actually about to run the Action on, may not be the most recent file that I opened. The Action has to re-open the same file that it started on.   To reword my original post: I want to generate new Actions that, right at the end (after the jpg or whatever has been saved), that the same Tiff file I was just working on (and that I just saved) is automatically opened again, saved as Tiff > Zip, and closed. i.e. it runs in the background, while I go inside Premiere to look at the result.   Another concern Thinking more about this, what I want may not be desirable in an Action because I'll be locked out of doing anything else in PS while the file is re-saved as Tiff > Zip. That could take a minute.   Me smarter than computer! How come this flash computer I've got, can't automatically do what I can easily do manually: Save the file as Tiff > LZW (takes seconds) Run the Action (takes seconds) Re-open the file (takes me seconds to look through the "Recent Files" list and find it) Save as Tiff > Zip (takes the computer a minute). But I'm free to do anything else – work on another PS file or jump into Premiere.   Anyway, if you can think of a method, please respond.   ... View more

I agree with that "bizarrely" statement about Anchor Points. They went stupid on one occasion, positive, negative, all over the place when I moved them by dragging.   Thinking about this problem a lot more, I think transforming the background while trying to keep Aunt Leila and Gil fixed on the ground, would have to be manually constructed with multiple keyframes. One person at a time can be done by two keyframes at the start and end of the transformation, but not both persons at the same time, with just two keyframes each. I may have to put up with some "jitter" in one of them, as it quickly moves off-frame during the tranformation.   But I still want to know the mathematics behind some of this. Here is my post in the Physics forum, about the mathematical aspects of re-aligning an image when the Anchor Point is changed. It's probably a very simple equation, but I can't work it out.   Why all this? The attached show what this is all about. Move 1 is the original painting. It will appear on screen first up as Move 2 (Aunt Leila's farm). Young Gil, in 1964, turns up on his bike (Move 3)…    sees Fred trying to get his car started (Move 4)…       and then kicking his car when it won't start (Move 5).   A true story. And I want to bring it to life as a small part of an AV about old Freddie, who was a local identity here in Devonport, Tas. ... View more

I think this problem cannot be solved with the info I have provided. Anchor points have to be specified, both for the background and Aunt Leila, specifically the location of her foot on the ground so she stays in place. I've done it manually, but it was time consuming because there's a second person that I also want to remain in place relative to the background. And I haven't been able to do that yet.   I'll take this problem to the Physics Forum, in case I ever have to do it again. I'll be asking (with a lot more explanation than what follows):  given an image in the Program Window that has six parameters (Position X, Position Y, Scale Rotation, Anchor X, Anchor Y), and I then change the Anchor Point, what values of Position X and Position Y do I have to enter so the image in the Program Window appears unchanged?   If I receive an answer, I'll post the equation here. ... View more

Thanks for the reply, Richard, but there are dropped frames. It took me quite a while to find them by comparing the original capture with the version inside Premiere, one frame at a time, slowly stepping through. Very difficult to detect when you're only looking for one every second. I'm used to seeing half a dozen every second when going from NTSC to 23.976.   So it's turned out that theory and practice match in this case. ... View more

Thanks, Neil, for the suggestion.   No need for any more responses for the moment, as I think this is more of an AE question, so I'll post over there. ... View more

Macs, running under OSX 10.9.5 and 10.6.8. I have a few capture devices and VideoGlide software. Also a PC borrowed from a friend, but I'd rather use Mac. ... View more

Thanks for all the suggestions. Time now to get serious about the capture equipment. No show without that. ... View more

Hi again Neil, Thanks for the response. Now for some more technical aspects.   Frame Rates I'm pretty sure I can't capture at anything other than PAL or NTSC frame rates. I'm using good-quality consumer grade devices (final capture device not yet decided), but even if they did offer frame-rate conversion I wouldn't use it. So, these captures are pure PAL and NTSC.      The tapes date mostly from the late 1980s through to 2002, and will be a mixture of film-based source material, video as source, and whatever TV stations were using in that era to capture news. The plan is to have three different results: Version 1. The unedited raw captures in ProRes 422HQ will be heading to the Tasmanian State archives (if they want them), on a hard drive. Version 2. Edited versions of these files (full-length; colour and contrast corrected; cropped; and minor adjustments) will end up on a Blu-ray as separate timelines, probably around 8mbps. i.e. no mixing of sources and frame rates, just the pure NTSC or PAL captures, but prettied up. But maybe I'll just put them on a USB stick at a higher bit rate. Version 3. Another version, shown publically from a blu-ray folder (my Oppo player can play folders; saves me burning disks), will consist of the best of the above, coming from a mixture of sources, encoded in 2-pass at 20-35mbps.   Version 2 - separate timelines for PAL and NTSC You've recommended 1920 x 1080 at 24fps. For version 2, why is that the best option? Most of the original source material was not film, but video, so I'd be degrading the videos by pull down and speed alterations if I choose a 24fps timeline. I think my only decision to make is -- do I use the 1440-wide, or the 1920-wide interlaced options, at 25 or 29.76 fps, simply because there are no "P" options at those frame rates. Two questions 1440 or 1920 for 4:3 source material? Blu-ray disk or USB stick?   Version 3 I want to edit NTSC and PAL in the same timeline for this version, but what frame rate do I choose?      The video that is most dramatic was captured on film, live before an audience, and then sent to NTSC tape. To preserve that at the best quality, I should choose progressive at 23.976 fps, so that if interlace and pulldown is removed succesfully in Premiere, I've replicated the original film source.      For the PAL material on the same timeline, I'd interpret that at 23.976. The result will be that each particular video has a longer runtime (slowed down), but no frames are dropped. Or I could leave the PAL material at 25 fps, and frames would be dropped. The runtime is now correct, but there is a frame-jump every second.   What's less obvious to an audience: slowing down the entire video, or dropping frames? Interpreting PAL at 23.976 or at 25.00? ... View more

Hi Neil, Aren't you the fella somewhere in the UK, who was inhabiting the Encore forum about 10 years ago? Answering some of my questions about the Star Trek Blu-ray, and lots of other questions? I can't go back and check, because Dumbo Adobe removed the forum.   Compatibility This project will end up on burnt Blu-rays, so compatibility is not an issue, I hope.   Background The project is about Hans Vonk, the conductor. He died in 2004, and his wife, Jessie, lives nearby here in Tasmania. She started up the Hans Vonk Music House in his memory (you'll see the photo I took in that Wikipedia article). Late last year Jessie gave me all the VHS tapes she and Hans had accumulated. There are several documentaries that were aired on German TV, home movies, TV new stories, recordings of concerts, TV interviews in St Louis when they lived there, and one or two tapes that are probably the only ones in existence. Their neighbour in St Louis was some sort of TV personality, and did an interview with Hans and Jessie, that I suspect was never produced. It was a one-camera affair, with the personality asking questions off camera. Then Jessie and Hans departed, and the personality faced the camera and asked all the questions that he'd already asked. They would have mixed the two takes together later, for a finished product. But I doubt it was ever finished.      Most of the material is unlikely to ever see the light of day again. Here's the response from one of the documentary makers:   Hallo Guy Burns, I am very sorry, I cannot help you, at that time we did not produce digitally and I have no copy of the film. Toooo long ago.... You could contact WDR [Westdeutscher Rundfunk] and ask there, if they have the film in their archives and could sell you a copy. Best wishes Annette v. Wangenheim   Source Material PAL and NTSC tapes, some original, others professional, the rest are home movies and copies of TV broadcasts provided to Hans by TV stations. It's the 20th anniversary of Han's death this August, and once I've digitised all the tapes, Jessie and I are planning on a public showing of edited excerpts in memory of Hans. For instance, there's a wonderful tape of Han's first performance with a particular orchestra. He introduces the concert, explaining why he chose Beethoven's Ninth. It's wonderful stuff if you're into Hans Vonk. He was asked about popular music during one interview. He was quite dismissive, and was then asked: "What about the Beatles, then?" "Oh, that's different. That's art".      He's a minor conductor internationally, but a bit of a hero locally to anyone interested in classical music.   Digitising  So I'm digitising the tapes. What a pain. What a lousy technology in terms of image quality. But they contain history, 7-8 hours of history. At a planned 8mbps, H.264, I'm hoping it all fits on one disk, with little loss of quality. Most of the SD extras on the Blu-ray movies I have, seem to be encoded under that figure.    Then I'll use Encore to build a Blu-ray and give copies to people who are interested. A few locals (maybe), one or two for Jessie, a copy for the archives in Hobart (and separately on a hard drive, in ProRes 422HQ format), at least one to a musician who worked with Hans in St Louis, and one to a biographer in Germany. An edited version of the Blu-ray, maybe 60-90 minutes, will be shown locally once or twice.   Captures, Timelines, Exports I've never exported to anything other than 1080P. All this 480i and 576i stuff is new to me, so I want to make sure I end up with the least degradation of the source material. That begins with the way I capture the tapes, and then the way I set up the timelines and exports.   Any suggestions on how to digitise VHS tapes? I've accumulated a thousand dollars worth of equipment so far, more to come, but there may be a better way rather than trying to do it at home.   ... View more

I was confused about "horizontal resolution", and now I'm confused about interlacing.   The attached file (from the same video as the stills above), clearly shows interlacing in QT7, VLC and Premiere. However: When I import it into Premiere, it comes up as "P", not interlaced. In the timeline, the interlacing is clearly visible. If I select Field Options > Always deinterlace, the interlacing is still there. But if I render or export, the interlacing disappears.   QT7 Pro does not report interlacing for this file, and neither does Media Info (maybe they never do).   I'm wondering about two things: How do you determine if a file is interlaced? Maybe there's a bug with my CS6. If someone is interested and has the time: does this file report as "P" in a more recent Premiere? ... View more

Thanks for the suggestions, but I must apologise for posting this question. I'm still learning about VCR captures and made a big mistake. I was confusing horizontal resolution with vertical resolution. I thought the specs of the VCR player, meant there were ~200 horizontal lines, but Horizontal Resolution actual means what it says: there are ~200 vertical lines across the screen. These are upscaled during capture to 720 to meet the DVD standard of 720 x 576.   The vertical resolution (the number of horizontal lines) is 576, meaning that interlacing artifacts, born of moving letters, will be clearly shown. They would not be visible, of course, if the vertical resolution was only 200.   Anyway, below is my explanation of what the two captures show, both taken with professional level gear, an AJA unit, similar to this one, which is selling for more than $1000 second hand. The software used was AJA VTR Xchange, exporting to ProRes. My observations below are the result of several hours spent with a knowledgeable friend, comparing all 40 captures, taken with a variety of equipment and software.   All captures are progressive (720 x 576), but the source is PAL interlaced. Video 9a shows a rolling credit. Because the letters are moving upwards, the letters, when originally scanned and interlaced, had interlacing artifacts – they have been stretched vertically. These artifacts are baked into the VHS tape. Video 11a does not show this interlacing. It was captured using different version of the software, software that was able to succesfully remove the interlacing on the fly, during the capture. None of the other 39 captures were able to do that. A superb result, and to me, a surprising result. Those AJA people have gone to a lot of bother to achieve that.   Again, thanks for the suggestions. I've learned a lot in the last day or so about VHS captures.   ... View more

Thanks, Willi, for the feedback. Colour management in InDesign is not the problem. For some reason, the OKI printer in combination with OSX 10.15, works as it should with: Text Edit files (created and printed in OSX 10.15) PDFs out of Text Edit and then through Preview (created and printed in OSX 10.15) iText Express files (created in OSX 10.9, printed in OSX 10.15) iText Express files, output as PDF (both created in OSX 10.9, printed in OSX 10.15)   But the text in PDFs out of InDesign does not print as it should. Some intereaction between my OSX 15, Preview and the OKI print drivers, is causing PDFs coming out of InDesign to mishandle text – the blacks are CMYK and the edges are jagged.   I doubt there is a solution, other then OKI updating their print drivers. But if someone has some suggestions, please come forward. But I've already been through virtually every possible combination of colour management and output format from InDesign. ... View more

Thanks Steve, solved. ... View more

Thanks for the suggestion. I spent a couple of hours with Shutter Encoder, which not only can rewrap, but it can also merge files into one big file. Worked well.   With my Oppo, when I tested fast forward and then reverse (imagining during a presentation, that something has gone haywire, and I have to find the 'haywire' spot), the Oppo went stupid, jumping all over the place. On the other hand, my el-cheapo LG player handled forward/reverse perfectly – but if I jumped to next chapter on the remote, it jumped to the next video file on the USB stick. Looks like as long as I don't have to move about within the video, Shutter Encoder might prove useful.   Then I came across MakeMKV. Very nice. I could drag the BDMV folder onto the interface, select a destination, press Make MKV, and away it went. Amazing. Even more impressive, was the fact that my Oppo could now pick up the chapter breaks. I could jump between chapters with the Oppo, but not with the LG player.   Ques: the 28GB MKV file looks like one file to me. How does the Oppo blu-ray player know there are chapters inside?       ... View more