Resolution to scan images to put in DVD-Video?

[harpe025]

Hey all, I don't know if this is the right forum, but I can't see a better one so here goes:

I want to scan family photos and put them into premiere and add sound and such for a birthday video. Music, songs, etc. What resolution should I scan the pics. Keep in mind I may crop and enlarge them to fit the screen. I just want to know the best resolution so it looks good, but minimizes disk space on the DVD. Thanks!

[ronnylov]

PAL: scan 768x576, resize to 704x576
NTSC: scan 640x480, resize to 704x480

But still picture takes minimal space on a DVD. You can get the same image resolution on a Video CD with still pictures. Make slideshows with Ulead Pictureshow 2 (without transition effects otherwise you'll loose 75% of resolution) and put them on a VCD with menu. You can also have backgrond music and store all the original photos on the CD. The program will rezise the pictures automatically so you don't have to think about this step. You can use any resolution on your pictures but stay above the minimum resolutions listed above.

If you want to use the photos on a DV tape (like in Premiere as you say) then the resolution is 720x576 in PAL and 720x480 in NTSC, but you need to resize to 704x576/480 and then add 8 pixels black borders on right and left to get correct aspect ratio. I don't know if this is taken care of automatically in Premiere or not. Do some tests and watch the results.

[housepig]

I would say you're going to need to do some math. You want a final resolution of at least 72ppi (pixels per inch). so if you scan a picture that's 10 inches wide x 6 3/4 high, at 72ppi, you'll end up with a 720x480 image (approximately).

but if your picture is 3x5, you would need to double the ppi to get the same resolution - scanning it at 150ppi or so for a full screen.

and if you want to do the Ken Burns pan & zoom, you'll want to figure out what the smallest area you want to fill the screen is, and go from there - if you have a 8x10 picture, but you want to get in a super-tight 2x2 closeup on Aunt Minnie, you would need to scan the whole thing at 300ppi so you could focus in that tight without pixellation.

smaller the photo, the higher the scanning resolution to get it to fill the screen.

[navatweb]

Forget scanning. Set up your high resolution digital camera on a tripod, and "take pictures" of your photos.
You can prepare for DVD burning hundreds of photos in minutes. And I have seen that there is no degradation in quality. And no messing around with editing software, no math, no nothing
You'll save hours and will have good looking slideshows on a DVD.
Make sure that you do not use any flash. Take photos when there is enough light, preferably indirect/defused.
Try both scanning and this method, and you'll realize what I am talking about.
I used my Canon G2 for this purpose. I set myself up against a large window in the afternoon when there was no direct sunlight. I did not even use a tripod. I just positioned the photos on a table, set up the macro mode, and took photos.

I mean I have thousands of old photos. How am I going to possibly scan all of those?

[harpe025]

I would say you're going to need to do some math. You want a final resolution of at least 72ppi (pixels per inch). so if you scan a picture that's 10 inches wide x 6 3/4 high, at 72ppi, you'll end up with a 720x480 image (approximately).

but if your picture is 3x5, you would need to double the ppi to get the same resolution - scanning it at 150ppi or so for a full screen.

and if you want to do the Ken Burns pan & zoom, you'll want to figure out what the smallest area you want to fill the screen is, and go from there - if you have a 8x10 picture, but you want to get in a super-tight 2x2 closeup on Aunt Minnie, you would need to scan the whole thing at 300ppi so you could focus in that tight without pixellation.

smaller the photo, the higher the scanning resolution to get it to fill the screen.

I understand ppi vs. dpi concept-wise, but does anyone have a conversion chart? What would scanning at 150ppi be in dpi? I don't they are the same are they? Thanks!

[housepig]

actually, I was using ppi as dpi, I was just thinking that it might not make a lot of sense to say dots-per-inch for display, rather than print.

so something that was 1" wide scanned at 150dpi would appear 2" wide on the screen.

for my post, consider them equivalent.

[bmiller]

Here is a link to scanning photo's.I haven't taken the time to figure it out yet myself.
http://www.scantips.com/