Alright, I’m having problems. Here’s what I’m trying to do. I’m trying to export a 16:9 strip of film as a film strip from Adobe Premiere Pro 1.5 to Adobe Photoshop CS2 to do some special effects. Every time I do, the image is altered undesirably. Here’s further more details:

…and please, if you’re going to make a crack about not using Final Cut or Avid, cram it!

I shot a student film of my Canon XL2 in a 16:9 aspect ratio and in 24 p mode (NTSC). I captured it and put it into adobe premiere. Now I want to add a couple of layers to a few clips by exporting them to Photoshop CS2.

The reason I want to do this is because there is a cardboard cutout filter in CS2 that I couldn’t find in Adobe Aftereffects.

I’ve saved the clips as filmstrips but there are multiple aspect ratio settings. The top three are square pixel, D1/DV 4:3, and D1/DV 16:9 widescreen. I’ve tried all of them, including the ones I haven’t mentioned, and they all do not resemble the film aspect ration at all.

Here’s another thing, when I finally decided to save the filmstrip in D1/DV 16:9 widescreen just to test it out, I imported it into CS2 and found a pixel aspect ratio alteration. I set it to NTSC widescreen and poof! It’s back to the size I wanted it. The thing is, I can’t save it that way!!! When I save any alterations to it, (or with no alteration whatsoever) it just reforms it back into the same squished image!

Can anyone help me?

Geotis

Hi Geotis,

I'm not sure I understand your problem correctly, but I'll give it a try.

Digital Video pixels are always rectangular pixels, the aspect ratio depending on wether you shoot PAL or NTSC, 3:4 or 16:9. In Premiere (or any other NLE) and on your TV these aspect ratios are usually interpreted correctly so you see an "unsquashed" image.

Photoshop however, interprets pixels normally as square pixels because this is the norm in digital photography (or scanned images, for that matter). But you can tell photoshop to interpret the pixels as rectangular pixels. Photoshop then shows you the correct aspect ratio of the frame on the screen. But note, that this is just for viewing the frame on the screen. The actual pixels of the file remain in their original aspect ratio!

So, as I see it, all is well. You don't have a problem, provided I've understood the issue correctly.

In premiere, just interpret the aspect ratio as 16:9. Photoshop is strange.

In premiere, just interpret the aspect ratio as 16:9. Photoshop is strange.

Well, personally I think that DV is rather strange, with all the differerent pixel and screen aspect ratios. If we had just square pixels it would be so much easier.

Alright guys, thanks for the information and trying to help me out with my problem. I have finally found an answer. After tinkering around with Premiere and Photoshop, I’ve finally figured the settings you need in order to export a frame or a film strip from a NTSC widescreen video in Adobe Premiere and still maintain its true aspect ratio. You need to change the measurements 864 X 480 with a Square Pixel 1.0 aspect ratio. When you export it, you can import it with out any change in size.

So, in short…

When exporting a frame or a film strip from a NTSC Widescreen film, you must export it with the measurements 864 X 480 with a Square Pixel 1.0 aspect ratio.

If this is wrong, or this helps any one, please let me know.