Friday, July 5, 2013

Using .EPS files in Final Cut Pro

A client sent me a slew of images the other day and some were CMYK while others were RGB, yet most were .eps files despite me requesting that they send them as RGB .jpg or .tiff to save time (ermagerd duh deadlinez!) [This is the same client who thought we'd edit the video over the course of a normal workday...day...as in single 8 hour day even though we'd shot for over two full days weeks earlier and I still had no script so no VO]

 FCP prefers images to be RGB so I had to convert the CMYK ones in Photoshop (or Pixelmator) but since these were .eps files I had to save them as .Jpgs or .tiffs or something. For some reason some clients really really insist on .tiffs in video projects "They're uncompressed!" they'll tell me. Depending on my mood I'll correct them or just plod along mindless nodding.

Anywho, when you open a .eps file in PS you'll see something like this:


I changed it to something like this:

Since it's a .eps file you can bump up it's resolution while you're here and have something nice a big and hi-res to work with in FCP. Just save it out as a .jpg or if the client is particularly persnickety a .tiff, dump it into FCP and be on your way.

3 comments:

Unknown said...

Changing to RGB is good for sure, but leave resolution at 72 - 300 is for print.

instead - to get best results change the width and height from inches to pixels - then change so the pixel width and height best match your intended purpose - like for instance if you want to use the GFX full screen for HD make the pixel hight and width slightly larger than 1920x1080

Amos said...

Please be aware that having still images larger than 4000 pixels can cause Final Cut Pro X to choke during export with a "Quicktime Error -50".

So I second Colin suggestion to leave the resolution at 72 dpi

Walker Ferox said...

It's a great tip. For me I often have to add moves to images timed with music or narration so I need them quite large to be able to move from point a to point b in a specific amount of time.