dvd Maestro assigning "still' button feature question

[mazinz]

i am making another photo type dvd and i use dvd maestro. I was wondering, i already know of a few methods of doing it other ways, but for my disc i am not making it as a slide show, so each pic has infinite time (easy enough).
What i was curious about is, if (or more of how) can i assign it so my disc actually uses the "step" feature on the dvd remote, instead of next/previous or menu buttons, etc? thanks again--

PS someone once posted that using targa or gif instead of jpegs gave better quality after authoring and I just wanted to confirm if that was true?

[BJ_M]

targa maybe yes -- but certainly not gifs ...

nothing wrong with jpeg's either if not compressed to much ..

[mazinz]

i will try targa. i had some jpegs with some writing on them, clear as day but after authoring it was barely readable. i do keep the quality of the jpegs themselves as high as possible, and it was the first time i really noticed a a difference. So i want to explore a bit more. thanks for the info

[BJ_M]

oh -- txt is a different thing with jpegs for sure .... i have seen in many cases a gif look better than jpeg for txt (as a powerpoint to dvd conversion)

for images (as in a movie or photo) , jpegs are far better than gif's ..

targa will be better yet -- but larger file size , they come as compressed and uncompressed and bottom up or top down encoding..

[mazinz]

size is not an issue as i will still come nowhere near the 4.37 file size limit. Since i have never really messed with targa files would you recommend top down or bottom up encoding? i do have photoshop as well

[BJ_M]

top down

[freestyler]

I prefer using TIFFS. Give those a try

[mazinz]

ok, i tried all of the formats discussed, but no luck. The pic itself is fine, but i used photoshop to write a name on the guy's arm in the pic (tattoo). Upon saving it as targa, tiff, jpeg, etc. the pic with the writing is very clear. After using it as a still menu in Maestro however, the tattoo is very fuzzy and hard to read. Any suggestions? thanks again

[timmmay]

try using ntsc-safe colors to write the guys name then save it as bmp.

[mazinz]

Hey Timmmay,
i do love photoshop and i am not that horrible in using it, but where might i make sure ntsc safe colors are being used? The color of the tat i'am using is a general red. thanks again

[SLK001]

NTSC safe colors is found under FILTERS>VIDEO in PhotoShop.