Does FCPX handle large images better?

I have an upcoming project that will need several scanned images inserted and I'll need to zoom in quite a bit on different sections of the scanned images. I would like to scan at around 350-400dpi (8.5x11-ish inch documents) and then have free range scaling to and fro within the editing app. This is obviously a big no-no in FCP7 but how about FCPX? Does it just matter on my RAM amount? I've got a whopping 8GB of RAM and an ATI 5770 graphics card with a whopping 1GB of RAM. Or would I be better off using Photo to Movie for the scans? I won't need them to be able to play back without dropping a single frame in real time as I'm editing, I'll just need it to not crash. Good to go or no?

I have worked with image sizes of 3000x4000 in FCPX without any issues. How many scans are we talking about?

Best wishes,

Ronny

A bunch. Dozens.

Good to go.

With 8GB RAM make sure to scan to JPEG if you have to animate many high res scans on the same timeline.

Best wishes,

Ronny

Yeah that was going to be my next question. TIFF or JPEG. TIFF obviously has larger file sizes by JPEG must be decompressed in real time. I don't want to be skimming around too fast for the latter and then it gets hung up. But then again JPEG is pretty easy to decode.

Thanks Ronny!

Also, I'm trying to use the Smooth Move filter that you showed me on some of these images. But Smooth Move chops off the sides of the image. Any way to fix this? I can't seem to figure out why it's doing it.

You mean the Crop > Ken Burns Type?

Make sure Spatial Conform for the still is set to "Fit". Then it will always frame your Start and End selection to fit inside your video frame (see Pic 1).

For strictly linear moves (no ease-in or out) with keyframes use Crop > Crop Type. Creates perfect linear moves (pic 2)

Do not create keyframed moves using the Transform tool (neither in Viewer nor Inspector). This produces weird results because of a keyframe placement bug in the Position tab.

Best wishes,

Ronny