My text looks terrible - time for AE?

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My text looks terrible - time for AE?

Postby 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.
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Postby 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.
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Postby 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!
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Postby Bauzi » Thu Dec 20, 2007 6:22 pm

Intressting.
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Postby 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?
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Postby requiett » Thu Dec 20, 2007 7:14 pm

DID YOU TRIED ASPECT RATIOS?
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Postby DayWalker B. » Fri Dec 21, 2007 9:47 am

requiett wrote:DID YOU TRIED ASPECT RATIOS?


lmfao. :lol:
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Postby 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. :evil:
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Postby 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.
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Postby 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.
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Postby DriftRoot » Fri Dec 21, 2007 11:39 pm

Ok, here's what I'm talking about: four separate instances of vector text/graphics behaving badly. This is what it looks like on screen after compression, I didn't change the resolution at all (the white area represents the screen area), but it looks similar at the full 848 x 480, uncompressed size. That "B" makes me feel like my eyes are out of focus.
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If nothing jumps out at anyone as an obvious explanation for for this problem, I'll have to give it a shot in AE and see if that makes a difference. If it doesn't...I'm really in trouble. :(
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Postby BasharOfTheAges » Sat Dec 22, 2007 3:18 pm

Are you working with a 1.0 PAR or a .9 PAR?
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Postby DriftRoot » Sat Dec 22, 2007 4:35 pm

1.0...why? What did I screw up this time? You do realize you just initiated a mild stroke? :shock: *thud*
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Postby BasharOfTheAges » Sat Dec 22, 2007 8:26 pm

DriftRoot wrote:1.0...why? What did I screw up this time? You do realize you just initiated a mild stroke? :shock: *thud*


Just curious - I remember working with 0.9PAR footage in a 0.9PAR project and the titles were, for some reason, created with a 1.0PAR.
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Postby DriftRoot » Sat Dec 22, 2007 9:01 pm

PHEW!! Still...darn it all, I didn't want to have to resort to AE for this...it's going to complicate everything. Thanks for throwing out that PAR possiblity, though. :)

The aspect ratio of Title sequences seems to override the aspect ratio the original the footage in some instances (maybe all, I don't know). I found this out a few months ago...I accidentally set my project settings at .9, but my footage was 1.0 (or vice versa, can't recall). After export, everything looked just fine up until the moment the text appeared on screen, at which point its PAR took over and distorted the footage. When the text disappeared, the aspect ratio went back to "normal." Took me awhile to figure out what the heck was going on, thanks to that "now you see me, now you don't" act.

I've also seen Photoshop insist footage is one aspect ratio when it's something else entirely, but I haven't bothered to figure out why (yet).
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