Crop for video frame
size
Photos
you plan to import into your family history video project most likely are a
variety of sizes and orientation, whereas every frame of the video has a single
dimension for those photos to fill. Crop you photos to the video frame
dimension to avoid wide black bands on either the sides or top and bottom of
your photo.
Video aspect ratio guide
Use
the following table to determine what size to crop your photos for import into
your family history video project.
Cropping for video frame size
Open
a photo from, the photos for video file, in your photo editing program and
select the crop tool. Set the crop dimensions to the original dimensions (see
video aspect ratio table) appropriate for your video format. Not sure which
video format? Check your videotape case. Select the area to be preserved with
the crop tool, crop, and save in a photo format compatible with your video
editing program (Tiff, PNG, PSD). Aside from any other photo editing you may want to do to the
photo, you’re done. If you’re planning for your video to be viewed on a
television, there’s one more step to do—change aspect ratio.
Using free programs. I
have had no luck making the above adjustments in Picasa (Google’s free photo editing program), but was able
to come close using Microsoft Picture Manager (feature of Windows). It takes a
little bit of trial and error. If the best you can do is close, go over by a
few pixels.
-
Open the photo in Picture
Manager and click on the “Edit Pictures” button.
-
In the new window, click
on “Crop.”
-
Grab the edges of the
photo and crop to an estimated 4:3 or 16:9 size. As you move the tool, you
will be able to see the pixels change under “Picture dimensions”, “New.”
-
Now, click the “Edit
Picture” button again and, in the new window, select “Resize” under
“Change Picture Size.”
-
In
the new window check “Custom width x height” and insert the appropriate
dimensions, starting with the Width. Check the “Size setting summary” to
see if the dimensions are close enough. If not, uncheck the “Custom width
x height” box and put your dimensions in again but start with the Height
first.
You
may have to go between Crop and Resize a bit. It’s okay if width or height is a
little larger than the targeted size, but neither should be smaller.
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Copyright September 2009 Family History Coach All rights reserved Last update April 27, 2010
