Pixel Aspect Ratio

For nearly 10 years, Chris & Trish Meyer have been my After Effects gurus. They still do a column a few times a year for DV.com. They are now doing a different series of articles on pixel aspect ratios--handy stuff to know for working in After Effects and Photoshop with video. Here are Part 1 and Part 2 in their series on pixel aspect ratio.

I now work in native aspect ratios because I compose in Photoshop on my NTSC monitor and not my computer monitor. With the AJA Kona cards and the Blackmagic Decklink cards, you can extend your desktop to a NTSC monitor. That way I know exactly what I am getting in terms of detail and color for video when I'm composing in Photoshop. The big drawback with this approach is that sometimes things need to be stretched out 110% to look correct--like circles and fonts. Because of DV's non-square pixels (read the tutorials by Chris & Trish) typefaces and circles look skinny when you work in a 720x480 image with square pxiels, like I do in Photoshop. Chris & Trish Meyer recommend working in 720x534 when composing a Photoshop image on a computer monitor, but because I'm actually composing right on a native NTSC monitor then I work at 720x480.