My text looks terrible - time for AE?

DriftRoot · Post by **DriftRoot** » Thu Dec 20, 2007 10:12 am

I was wondering what the best method is for getting extremely crisp, clear text - I'm using Premiere and I'm looking at my highest-possible quality Huffyuv exports, the compressed video looks even worse, of course.

Right now I’ve got a mixture of text created with the Titler, Illustrator and Photoshop in my AMV – the Titler text looks the worst, very pixilated, somewhat blurred and generally ugly. The text from Illustrator is the next worst and, amusingly enough, the true raster-based text from Photoshop is the best, though it’s still not good enough. Some of this text on screen is very, very large, so it needs to be very, very clean. I’m also using some of it for track mattes, which are suffering big time because (I assume) the text isn’t as sharp as it should be. (I’ve got anti-aliasing on the text turned off, btw, if it should be on I’ll rush right out and do so.)

Am I going to have to resort to After Effects? I’ve used AE for text in the past and never questioned the quality – it always was more than satisfactory – can Premiere’s Titler really not produce the same results? I’m not doing anything crazy with this text, for the most part there are no fancy effects or transitions applied to it that would be messing up how it’s displayed on screen.

Bauzi · Post by **Bauzi** » Thu Dec 20, 2007 11:34 am

Did you tried vector graphics?

I got some bugs with text in Premiere Pro 1.5 (wrong things when I blur it etc...). AE never dissapointed me with the text and effects combinations.

DriftRoot · Post by **DriftRoot** » Thu Dec 20, 2007 12:21 pm

Illustrator is vector, and as far as I knew Titler uses vector for its text/images, which is why I'm really scratching my head over this.

I'm kind of thinking that what's going on is that when Premiere renders/exports the video, it converts vector info into raster format differently than AE does. WORSE than AE does, because I've made text/brought vector files into AE, exported the comps as uncompressed AVI files, brought those comps into Premiere and then exported them once more and still had them look as crisp and clean as the day they were made. (Even post compression they're nice).

I've even got some text in PDFs that were converted to TIFF format in this AMV that look better than the text Premiere is making! It's ridiculous!

Bauzi · Post by **Bauzi** » Thu Dec 20, 2007 6:22 pm

Intressting.

BasharOfTheAges · Post by **BasharOfTheAges** » Thu Dec 20, 2007 6:36 pm

So have you not seen a difference with the anti-aliasing (something done to make jagged edges look smoother) turned on?

requiett · Post by **requiett** » Thu Dec 20, 2007 7:14 pm

DID YOU TRIED ASPECT RATIOS?

DayWalker B. · Post by **DayWalker B.** » Fri Dec 21, 2007 9:47 am

requiett wrote:DID YOU TRIED ASPECT RATIOS?

lmfao.

DriftRoot · Post by **DriftRoot** » Fri Dec 21, 2007 10:09 am

BasharOfTheAges wrote:So have you not seen a difference with the anti-aliasing (something done to make jagged edges look smoother) turned on?

Oh there's a difference - it gets worse, very blurry, which is why I had it turned off to begin with. I don't want to use to use AE for the text unless I absolutely have to...but it's looking like I may have to. It'll be interesting to see if it comes out any better. It's almost like Premiere is not handling the vector information the way it should...but I'm not sure if there are any settings in preferences or something where this can be fixed.

requiett wrote:DID YOU TRIED ASPECT RATIOS?

YA, ME GOTTED IT RIGHT Yeesh, I won't be messing up the aspect ratio for Advent Children again, promise. It's perfect this time (thanks dokidoki). And everything ELSE looks really great, too...everything but the text.

BasharOfTheAges · Post by **BasharOfTheAges** » Fri Dec 21, 2007 10:26 am

I think requiett was asking if your text's AR was the same as the project's AR.

DriftRoot · Post by **DriftRoot** » Fri Dec 21, 2007 12:06 pm

Yes, I know, and it's all good. I've seen what happens when stuff doesn't match up and this is not what's going on.

I should probably try to grab a screenshot so you guys can tell me I'm just being picky and then we can debate the merits of my complaint - that will have to wait, though, I'm at work right now.