PE11: Image Transparency and Videomerge Pop Up

INTRODUCTION

Today at the Adobe Premiere Elements Forum  a very interesting report came up regarding maintaining transparency of a .psd file imported into a Premiere Elements 11* project.

However, a closer look at the dynamics of the matter suggests that this situation goes more to the trigger on the Premiere Elements Videomerge pop up than to the Photoshop CS2 Save As with or without a check mark for Maximum Compatibility



And, it was also found that Photoshop CS5.1 as well as CS2 involvement in this matter is the same.

To take a closer look at the situation, three 720 x 480 pixels documents were created in Photoshop CS2, each with a blue colored circle on a transparent background and Saved As

• psd with check mark next to Maximize Compatibility

• psd with no check mark next to Maximize Compatibility

• png

Each of them was imported into a NTSC DV Standard Premiere Elements 11 Windows 7 64 bit project, Video Track 2. Each triggered** the Premiere Elements 11 Videomerge pop up.

If No in the Videomerge pop up was selected in reply to the project's request to apply Videomerge, all three results were the same, that is, the area around the circle was transparent and the circle was not...just the way it was created in Photoshop CS2.

ISSUE

So, why was the Videomerge message stating "Clip being dropped contains solid background color" when the clip had transparency represented by black and did not have a solid background color?

Even more interesting was what happened if Yes was selected in response  to the program's request to apply Videomerge to create transparency for what it claimed to be seeing as "solid background color". The overall result was essentially the same for all three Yes cases, that is, the inside content of the shape became transparent and the "black which had represented transparency " became a "solid color". In the case of the .png file, the shape now appeared as a square rather than a circle and the "solid color" non transparent background was white. In the case of the .psd files, the shape was a circle, and the "solid color" non transparent background was black. There was no option in the Videomerge editing area to "Invert Selection" to try to correct the situation.

SOLUTION

To avoid the Videomerge pop up under these circumstances, in the Videomerge pop up, I would suggest placing a check mark next to the "Do not show again.", followed by No. When that is done, there should be no confusion related to the activities of the Videomerge pop up, and the Premiere Elements user should have no problems with the maintenance of the Photoshop created transparency in an image when that image is imported into a Premiere Elements project.

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* Results are also applicable to Premiere Elements 13, 12/12.1, 10, 9.0/9.0.1.
However, Premiere Elements 7 .png and .psd files presented with the circle shape and the transparency as created in Photoshop CS2 with either a Yes or No answer to the Videomerge message; consequently, there was no need to use its Invert Selection option for editing Videomerge. However, in Premiere Elements 8.0/8.0.1, the Yes maintained the circle shape and the transparency of the original Photoshop CS2 .png and .psd files only with the Invert Selection selected. After Premiere Elements 8.0/8.0.1, Invert Selection option is gone from the Videomerge Panel in Properties. There is no Videomerge in Premiere Elements 4. All results are for the conditions as described above.

**In this particular exploration, the Videomerge pop up seemed to appear consistently when the file was placed on a track above Video Track 1.