When using still images in Final Cut Pro and Final Cut Express, drop them into the Timeline in whatever format they started (JPEG, TIFF, PNG, GIF) because Final Cut Pro and Final Cut Express do not care what format they are and will work with all of them.

If you want, tweak the settings for individual images in other programs (ie: Photoshop or iPhoto) to make them look better and/or give you a better size to work with (for zooming and such) before editing in Final Cut Pro and Final Cut Express.

• JPEG (Joint Photographic Experts Group) is a compressed and lossy (small file size).
• TIFF (Tagged Image Format File) is uncompressed and lossless (large file size).
• RAW is an unprocessed image (huge file size) and usually way more information than you need in video.
• PNG (Portable Network Graphics) and GIF (Graphics Interchange Format) are usually used for web work.

Please remember that if you shot your photo as a JPEG in the first place, the resulting TIFF image will have only as much pixel info as the JPEG image could provide. Think of it as pillow: You can fluff up a JPEG pillow and make it a TIFF pillow, but you haven’t added any feathers. And if you look closely, you can see the space between the feathers in the TIFF pillow.

In iPhoto ‘08 - Double-Click on your image.

Click - Adjust (iPhoto 5 does not have Adjust)

Adjust your photo to how you want it to look and then Click - Apply (or Paste) to apply your new settings.

You can also crop your photo so it doesn’t come into Final Cut Pro or Final Cut Express with black bars around it.

Click - Crop
In the Constrain drop-down menu choose (according to your project’s aspect ratio):

4 X 3 (DVD)
- or -
16 X 9 (HD)

Position your aspect-ratio-constrained window over the image, adjust it from the corners if needed, and then Click - Apply to apply your new image crop.

Then use File - Export (or, if using iPhoto 5, use Share) as:

TIFF (if it was originally a TIFF)
- or -
JPEG (if it was originally a JPEG)

And Save it to wherever you are storing your project’s assets for importing into Final Cut Pro or Final Cut Express.

Any questions?

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