Resizing Background Menu Image

[Doomed Space Marine]

Hi,

I was wondering if someone could tell me how to resize my image I am going to use for my main menu. I am using Photoshop CS and Encore. When I import my background into Encore, alot of the image is outside of the safe area. The image is 1000x1402 and originally a jpg. I am trying to resize it so the entire image fits into the safe zone. I have been trying to mess with this for quite some time.

I am very new to Photoshop still and I am aiming to get better with it. When I use image resize in Photoshop and use 720x480, it doesn't seem to make a difference in size when I import the image into Encore. I read somewhere that I should add borders but I wasn't totally sure how to do that. Any help would be nice.

[guns1inger]

Make a test graphic at 720 x 480. Draw border lines at 10 pixels in all round, 20 pixels, 30, 40 etc. You will have a set of concentric boxes. Load this into Encore and work out where the safe areas are (both Action Safe and Title Safe). Load this back into PS and use it to create a guide for your menu graphics. Personally, I would not add borders because the overscan area of one TV is not the same as another. Instead, just make sure the important parts of the menu are within the safe areas, while letting the background still flow to the edges. It will look much more polished than having incongruous black lines at the edges.

[Doomed Space Marine]

Thanks for the reply Guns. I am slow so I don't really understand what exactly you mean. So I will try to be more precise in my question and show you a picture of what I mean.

http://img99.echo.cx/img99/7893/help7ze.jpg

I want to get the entire image inside the safe zone so the whole image is visible on the tv. As you can see its not. Could you clarify how to make it fit. Sorry for being a nub when it comes to this stuff. This is my first time making a menu without using a template.

Thanks again for any help.

[guns1inger]

Open photoshop. Open a new image at standard NTSC res of 720x480 (should be a setting in the drop down)

Open your image and resize it to 328 x 460 (It is going to be very skinny on the page because it is not a standard aspect ratio). Select all and copy. Click on the new, empty image and paste. This should be centred. You will see a lot of the background visible because of the shape of the image. There isn't much you can do about that unless you are happy to crop or distort the image.

Save this and load it as your background in encore and see how you go. If it is too far inside the safe area (and only use the action safe, or you find the border visible on all TVs) or too hidden, try again in photoshop with different resize %'s until it fits to your liking.

[Doomed Space Marine]

Thanks for the help Guns.