How do I precisely position images/video?

Dryslot

Newbie Joined: Mar 20, 2014 02:59 Messages: 25 Offline

Solved by

Apr 01, 2014 04:17

Hey guys,

Often I want to transition from a particular photo to the same photo (but a different image file because it has a different effect on it). In addition this image is likely zoomed and/or panned to a particular spot. So when I want image 1 to hand off to image 2, the second image must be precisely in the same spot as image 1.

I realize there is a grid available, but even the 10x10 is way to coarse for my work, and worse, when the image is zoomed and the edges are beyond the grid, the grid no longer works. But even if it did, I need something more useful, namely, a menu that shows me the XY coordinates of the image, and the percentage zoom level. I'm still learning my way around, can anyone point me in that direction? This is something I took for granted on previous editing software, I hope I'm just missing it!

Thanks! Windows 10 64 Bit
ASUS Z87 Pro MB BIOS 2103
i7-4770K Haswell OC'd to 4.3Ghz
16GB Corsair Vengeance DDR 1600Mhz
EVGA Geforce GTX 960 2GB GDDR5 v368.22
Samsung SSD 840 Pro 256 GB (Rapid Mode)
Power Director 14 Ultimate 64 Bit

ynotfish

Senior Contributor Location: N.S.W. Australia Joined: May 08, 2009 02:06 Messages: 9977 Offline

Apr 01, 2014 04:57

Hi Dryslot -

One thing that might help with that is to:
1. Copy the keyframe attribute from Image 1
2. Paste them onto image 2
3. Open Image 2 in Pip Designer
4. Click on the first keyframe(s) - right click > Duplicate Next Keyframe
- that way Image 2 should start where Image 1 left off

There is "a menu that shows me the XY coordinates of the image" - select the image - click Keyframe > Clip Attributes... but I've not used it in your particular circumstance.

Cheers - Tony
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Dryslot

Newbie Joined: Mar 20, 2014 02:59 Messages: 25 Offline

Apr 02, 2014 03:43

Hey Tony,

Thanks for your help. Indeed, you pointed me in the directions I was looking for, but even employing your advice has proven way more difficult then I ever imagined, especially after using the common sense and intuitive interface of Pinnacle over years past. Please forgive me, but I need to vent because I'm at the point now where I feel like I'm living in an alternate universe.

First, I cannot believe there is not an option to link the H and W so one can easily maintain the aspect ratio when resizing the image. Yes, you can resize it by grabbing the handles on the wireframe, but you quickly run out of real estate trying to make it larger. Ugh. So now I need to either undock the preview window, make it bigger to give me more room, or shrink the preview quality down to a postage stamp to accomplish the same. Second, why can the user not grab the keypoints at the far ends of the keyframe timeline and move them? Again, that makes no sense to me.

Finally, and this is the most bewildering issue by far. What on earth is the story with that timeline? It's as if I'm living in a Base 10 world and the timeline is marked off in Base 8! Last I checked, there are 30 frames in a second. First, why does the time line highlight bizarre points? (02:11;24, 20:12;19...) Why not 2:11:00, 02:11:15, 02:12:00 with each hashmark representing one frame (assuming you're zoomed in that far doing frame level editing)? When I hover my mouse over the timeline and watch the frames count off while sliding my mouse I see that each hash mark represents 2.5 frames. Huh? That's five frames every two hashmarks. Did I get a European version of PD12? Is this somehow a 25 fps timeline?

I'm just so frustrated right now, I'm ready to jump off a building, sorry for being such a baby!

Eric

Windows 10 64 Bit
ASUS Z87 Pro MB BIOS 2103
i7-4770K Haswell OC'd to 4.3Ghz
16GB Corsair Vengeance DDR 1600Mhz
EVGA Geforce GTX 960 2GB GDDR5 v368.22
Samsung SSD 840 Pro 256 GB (Rapid Mode)
Power Director 14 Ultimate 64 Bit

Dryslot

Newbie Joined: Mar 20, 2014 02:59 Messages: 25 Offline

Apr 02, 2014 04:32

By the way, I should have mentioned, I *do* have my timeline frame rate set to 30fps (NTSC). But I did just now set my "Use drop frame timecode" to "No" and that helped a little. The highlighted hashmarks make a bit more sense, but the in-between hasmarks are still spaced very oddly and it remains frustrating. Windows 10 64 Bit
ASUS Z87 Pro MB BIOS 2103
i7-4770K Haswell OC'd to 4.3Ghz
16GB Corsair Vengeance DDR 1600Mhz
EVGA Geforce GTX 960 2GB GDDR5 v368.22
Samsung SSD 840 Pro 256 GB (Rapid Mode)
Power Director 14 Ultimate 64 Bit