I agree with John T., on Scaling the Still Image for Video in Photoshop, or similar. Encore is ill-suited for Still Image editing, and that is basically what you are asking of it, when you Import overly-large Still Images. There is zero to be gained with overly-large Stills, and much to be lost, such as quality, and tons of processing resources. Even PrPro CS 5.5, that has some great Scaling algorithms with MPE and a CUDA-capable card, can easily run out of resources, bringing the computer to its knees. Encore is not nearly as capable of Scaling, as is PrPro CS 5.5, and not nearly so good as Photoshop.

John T's first link in Reply 7 will even give you tips on automating the Scaling in Photoshop, or Photoshop Elements.

Good luck,

Hunt

As I often have mega SlideShows, with maybe 3000+ Still Images, I Scale my Images to exactly what I need. With a great quantity of Stills, an extra handful of pixels can be compounded and can tax resources.

When I need more pixels in my Still, than the Frame Size of the Project, say for a long Pan, I will Scale to what I need, maybe 3000 pixels, but will then Crop the vertical to exactly the Frame Size, say 480. I do not want extra pixels, having to be processed.

On a normal SlideShow Project, I will usually Scale the majority of Stills to exactly what the Project's Frame Size is. If I do need more pixels, in either direction (horizontal for a Pan, or vertical for a Tilt), then I calculate exactly what I need, and Scale (often Cropping the other dimension) to that. I usually end up with one folder with the majority of Still Images Scaled to exactly what I need, maybe two others, where I needed more pixels, but the amount is different. Never had a Project that required more than three Scaled dimensions, though it certainly could happen.

With the advent of PrPro CS5 (now CS 5.5), some things have changed a bit, if one has the proper hardware, in that the Scaling algorithms have been improved (expect to see those trickle down to PS by CS 6), but there is still the resource issue.

I'm about to embark on another mega SlideShow, probably topping out at about 2500 Images. As soon as I get the specs. for the display, I will then begin my Scaling. Right now, I feel that the majority will be exactly to the Frame Size, with but a few needing more pixels, but in one dimension only. I have my PS Actions Saved, but might need to tweak one, or two, depending on what the AV department tells me.

John T's analogy is a good one, and when he's not looking, I might "steal" if from him.

Good luck, and please let us know how it goes,

Hunt