Sizing Images for a Better ‘Flow’

Since we’re on the subject of using images in ScreenFlow (see yesterday’s post “Using still images in your ScreenFlow movie“) our resident ScreenFlow support guru, Willow,  has written a follow up on sizing images for the best results.

By Willow Wray

Adding images to a ScreenFlow document is easy. However, you can sometimes end up with images that are unnecessarily large and will consequently slow down the rendering and export process.  A good practice for importing images is:

Resize all images so they are 2160 pixels wide and at 72 dpi resolution.

Resizing to 2160 pixels wide gives you enough data for pans and zooms without losing image quality; at that pixel size, (which is twice the width of HighDef TV (1080)) these images can be shown on an HD monitor without worry of pixelation.

There are many photo apps that will allow you to resize the pictures. If you have Photoshop you can easily use the “Image size” feature inside Photoshop to do the resizing, making sure that the “constrain proportions” box is checked when the resizing is done. Even iPhoto will allow you to customize the size of your pictures on export.  You can choose 2160 wide in the export settings under “customize.”

Evidently there is some speculation that Apple RGB color space, NOT Adobe RGB looks better with some applications. You can try both color profiles side by side if you have the ability to do so and then import into ScreenFlow and see which one looks better.  I personally think they look identical. To convert the profiles, use the “image—mode—assign profile” feature inside Photoshop.

Save at the highest jpg level (12).  If all your photos are reduced in size you will find that everything “flows” better in ScreenFlow.