I have a technical question about Premiere’s handling of still images, although this probably applies to other software as well. I’ve been building some semi-complex nested sequences with frame-held, cropped footage and it occurred to me that this might not be such a hot idea, in the long run. Sooo…in terms of maximum stability, quality and compressibility, what’s the preferred method when working with a still image from your footage? Frameholds or exported frames brought back in as still images?
Further complicating my question: These images can be cropped in several ways from within the program (with masks/track mattes, garbage mattes, nonmoving transitions, etc.) and without (i.e. in Photoshop). Right now my nested sequences are controlling what images show up when and where, however this could be done with alpha channel-dependent effects….but would that bog things down more or less in terms of how much information is there to process and compress? I’m not really talking about the rendering times, here, but about the final file size and quality.
I’ve already noticed that the image quality of the framehold is not as high as the exported frame (which I can also tinker with extensively if need be to improve its appearance), but I’m not sure if using an exported frame requires more or less labor on the part of all programs involved, when all is said and done.
My initial gut answer to my own questions is to NOT use frameholds, crop everything outside of Premiere and use simple nested sequences to control what shows up when and where.
What's better: frameholds or exported frames?
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It's faster with frameholds overall, but I'm more concerned with the end result. I think I'll continue with my current method of using frameholds to work out synching and then go back and swap everything out for still images later. Like I said, I can make any improvements I need to quite easily that way... and I don't have to worry about some program at some point deciding to hold the wrong frame or something.Minion wrote:frameholds are much faster for syncing purposes, IMO.
if you're in no hurry though, go with whatever looks better to you
It's about time one of my gut feelings about all this was right. Now if only I'd remembered my footage was square, not .9, and not wasted eight hours of work with the wrong project settings...