still picture problem

[skicat]

I was wondering if there is a way to get rid of the black side borders that show up when you put a "portrait" style picture on the timeline. When a picture is in landscape, it fills the whole space. In portrait, the picture touches the top & bottom, but there is a black "border" on either side of the picture that is very distracting. Could I resize it somehow in PSE 4? That's where I'm importing it from.

[ATR]

Hi,

You can resize your photos in Elements.
There is a technique where:
File/New/Blank File. In the dialog box, go to the drop down list in Preset.
You select NTSC D1 Square Pix 720 x 540 pixels. Based on this, you can resize your photos to these dimensions. Details to follow if necessary. But, Premiere Elements will do the same thing for you automatically.

You can resize your photos in Photoshop (I have 7.0) by File/Automate/Fit Image. Again, Premiere Elements will do the same thing for you automatically.

For that black border business, you need to read up on "JPG Images for the Television and DVD" at
http://www.scantips.com/basics1f.html
It is difficult to avoid them with those portrait type picture. Some people advise planning horizontal and vertical photos for random placement in the DVD.

Another article that you might want to look at is HDTV Frequently Asked Questions at http://www.digitalconnection.com/FAQ/HDTV_7.asp.

ATR

[ATR]

Just a quick add on:

For Resizing Using Photoshop CS2:

Check out Photoshop TV Episode 33 (June 5, 2006) for feature by Rich Harrington on video actions for creating DVD slide shows from images

More info at http://www.photoshoptv.com

Photoshop TV is a podcast hosted by Scott Kelby, Dave Cross, and Matt Kloskowski.

ATR