Improve details in videos

[Foghiker]

Hey There

I just got my very first Mac. And with it Final Cut Pro & the Adobe Creative Cloud.

Here some questions:
Question A.
When I slide through the Gallery, pictures taken on the iPhone first appear in a neat resolution, but a tenth of a second later, the image starts to blur.
Have a look at the screen recorded video here:

Screen Recording 2023-02-03 at 17.48.03.mov

Shared with Dropbox

www.dropbox.com

Question B.
I impored 4, consecutive, Live Photos into the downloads folder on my Mac, which came out as 4 JPEG with 4 .mov files.
1. What format (resolution) should I use in Final Cut Pro, to keep up the the very same quality as in the original movies?
2. How can I cut those 4 movies together, to get a 8 to 10 second fluent movie. In the photos app all 4 Live Photos play smoothly, one into another.
3. In the 4 clips are birds, which I would like to refine, even if I have to do it frame by frame. --> Is Final Cut pro the right tool for this, or will I need a product from the Adobe Creative Cloud?

Kind regards
Howard

 

[JW5566]

3. In the 4 clips are birds, which I would like to refine, even if I have to do it frame by frame. --> Is Final Cut pro the right tool for this, or will I need a product from the Adobe Creative Cloud?

It depends what you're refining, can you be more specific?

Usually you add an "effect" to the video (eg. for sharpening) or use the video clip tools (top right) to adjust colour, brightness, etc. Frame by frame stuff is usually only needed if you're doing something that moves around from frame to frame, like a mask.

2. How can I cut those 4 movies together, to get a 8 to 10 second fluent movie. In the photos app all 4 Live Photos play smoothly, one into another.

To chain videos together, import them and then drag them to your timeline. You can drag and drop to reorder them. To make a nicer transition between each one, use a transition (bottom right) such as cross fade.

 

[Foghiker]

The birds are flying through the sky.
See the original files here:

Transfer - Dropbox

Dropbox is a free service that lets you bring your photos, docs, and videos anywhere and share them easily. Never email yourself a file again!

www.dropbox.com

I try to make a perfect transition. Each clip only is 3 seconds long.
I tried some cutting last night and I am continuing today.
I only got 2 hours per day to learn.

Any idea about my first question?

 

[JW5566]

Yes, but what "refinements" are you wanting to do? Until we know what you want to change it's hard to advise you.

3 seconds might be too short to work in a transition. You can try adding one then dragging the edge of it to narrow (shorten) it as much as possible.

I'm not sure about your first question. You need to inspect the source file and see what dimensions it is. Your .HEIC file shows to me as 4032 × 3024 and your .mov file as 1920 × 1440.

 

[JW5566]

I'm going to take an educated guess after downloading your files that you want to stitch these together into one smooth clip?

The problem is, they overlap each other, so you won't be able to just put them in a line, in the timeline. You'll need to stagger them as shown in the screen shot attached, so that they line up (this will be trial and error). I have left the first file out, as it appears very similar to the second one. The resulting video is also attached.

You will need to mute the audio of some of the clips and/or cut the audio of subsequent clips so that multiple audio tracks don't play at the same time.

Hope this is some help, sorry if I have completely misunderstood what you want to do.

 

[Foghiker]

Awesome guys!
I just managed myself, by cutting frame by frame.
I wish the wings were more visible / pointier.
What you did quickly took me about 40 minutes. ;D
I will retry your method, with putting image over image.
The castle seen is the one in Sully-sur-Loire.

About the resolution:
While importing it seemed impossible to choose the original resolution.
Likewise while exporting.
I only could export a large 1.3 GB file (1.8 GB were estimated), a 2890 x 2160 13.7 MB file or a 1920 x 1435 8.8 MB file.
I added the 8.8 MB file.
Watching all 3 videos on the MacBook 16" screen does not show a difference to me. But I do not have a trained eye.

Is there a way to let creative frames between the frames, for having a more fluent image?
It seems to hop a bit.

 

[ColdCase]

When you say hop do you mean stutter or the image shifts/jumps. For the later you can crop each video a little and then move the crop area around in each clip such the image stays in the same location, or is smooth enough.

 

[sahnert]

2. How can I cut those 4 movies together, to get a 8 to 10 second fluent movie. In the photos app all 4 Live Photos play smoothly, one into another.

It seems like you have figured this out in your editing software, but one more option that might save you some time:

On the iPhone or iPad where you took the live photos, you can select the multiple live photos that blend with each other and choose "Save as Video" to have them stitched together automatically. Then you can import that video into your editing software for additional tweaking if desired. (There may be a way to do this in the Photos app and Mac, but if so I haven't found it, I always do it on my iPhone)

 

[Foghiker]

JW5566, I just tried that staggering out.
Interestingly the fourth clip always goes below the second - and attaches right to the first clip.
I will play around with it.
Edith says: Just managed to move the fourth clip above the third clip.
I appreciate it really how kind you guys all are helping a complete newbie out.
I set the stakes high, buy getting such a device and program without any potential guide near me.

Coldcase, I mean hopping the amount of frames per second in the Live-Photo. There are 30, ass I reckon.
Is there a way to calculate (like extrapolation) images in between?

Sahnert, my iPhone, with iOS 16, does not show this option.

 

[ColdCase]

There are software packages that could extrapolate and add frames to smooth motion, Topaz I think. The learning curve is steep if I recall correctly. Boris may sell a plugin for FCP, dunno. I believe what you are looking for is similar to effects that make slow motion smoother.

 

[Foghiker]

Coldcase, yes exactly!
I will google that.
I am a smart brain and a slow learner at the same time, since I go really deep, when researching something.

Any idea about my very first question, Question A.?
Pictures tend to blur, as they seem to be processed right before being shown.

 

[sahnert]

Sahnert, my iPhone, with iOS 16, does not show this option.

Interesting, here is what works for me on my iPhone on iOS 16.3.1


In the Photos app, in library or an album, tap Select then tap on multiple consecutive live photos.

Tap on the three dots button on the bottom right of the toolbar to get the Save as Video option that I shared in the earlier screenshot.


I have various levels of success with how smooth the resulting video is (sometimes perfectly blended, other times dropped frames where the live photos were stitched together), so you might be better off with the method you are using. But it is certainly fast and convenient when it works.

 

[sahnert]

Any idea about my very first question, Question A.?
Pictures tend to blur, as they seem to be processed right before being shown.

Since the photos in your example are RAW files, my guess is that you are seeing the embedded jpeg file with sharpening applied first, and then as the RAW file loads you see the unsharpened RAW (or something like that). Is this an Adobe viewer? I don't use adobe but maybe there's a setting to control this behavior.

 

[Foghiker]

Sahnert, this is exactly how I tried, but did not succeed.
I currently have more than 200'000 (two hundred thousand) images and over 17'000 videos on iCloud and my iPhone.
The iPhone could not back up for the past 488 days. *smile*
Hence the purchase of the MacBook, to safely all my data.

This is the built-in photo app on the MacBook, as on the iPhone, as well.


By the way, I am currently trying create an "Optical Flow", like this guys in minute 1:02 :

But rumor has it, this ain't possible, since my project and clips match the same frame rate.

Conform frame sizes and frame rates

In Final Cut Pro, modify a clip’s frame size or frame rate to match the project settings.

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