Fountains Abbey

[Barry Beckham]

http://www.beckhamdigital.co.uk/freestuffdigslidesw3.htm

[JEB]

Barry,

I think there may be something wrong with the frame in the 1024 show.

My screen is set to 1024x768 and I am seeing the frame's extreme (outside) left and right edges with the underlying images extending beyond these edges to fill my monitor.

Hope I've explained myself.

Regards

John

[JudyKay]

Hi BB,

You are amazing!! The subtle colors in the stone define the meaning of "petina." They also make them alive and cause them to transcend time. I would love to know the story of that old Abbey--if you have a minute to spare

PHOTOGRAPHY/GRAPHICS (Out of 5) Easy 5

SOUNDTRACK (Out of 5) Perfect 5

TIMING (Out of 5) 5

PTE MASTERY (Out of 5) No show off stuff, just done right - 5

WATCHABILITY - Couldn't finish / Watched Once / Would watch again / Would watch many times

OVERALL SCORE AND COMMENT (Out of 20) 20

I have a question: In another post you talked about fading from soft to sharp--and that if you do that you should really "sharpen" the picture? Can you elaborate a tiny bit? Do you actually make a one picture soft and another that is over-sharp (or very sharp)--if so, how much?

jk

[fh1805]

Hi Judy

Try this link for info on Fountains Abbey

http://www.fountainsabbey.org.uk/

[dpeterso]

http://www.beckhamdigital.co.uk/freestuffdigslidesw3.htm

Masterfully done. Thanks for showing us what's possible.

Dave

[stonemason]

Excellent AV, with images and soundtrack all perfectly matched.

I enjoyed it very much

Geoff

[baldsparky]

hi Barry

I have my monitor size at 1440 x 900px resolutiion, could you tell me please, if this is what I would be expected to see with the 1024 x 768 show?

Not sure if this is something similar to what John mentioned in an earlier post.

many thanks

kind regards

paul

[JEB]

Paul/Barry

That is exactly what I was trying to describe.

John

[Barry Beckham]

JEB

No, you should certainly not be seeing the effect described and shown in the gif. Its a dreadful mistake and one I must sort out and put right.

I created the show for 1280*1024 monitors, but made the size slightly smaller than 1280 to retain the format I wanted. I created one version at 5:4 format, which was the one I worked on and viewed.

Then I thought I would adjust it so that those with 1024*768 monitors at 4:3 format would see it as I wanted. Of course the frame used on the 1280 version is not really relavent to a show being played full screen at 1024 768, this comes from trying to be too clever I suppose, creating a show that plays on both formats without thinking things through.

I have now put that right, (I think) and if you want to view the slide show again, it should look much more presentable in 1024*768 format now.

http://www.beckhamdigital.co.uk/freestuffdigslidesw3.htm

[Barry Beckham]

JudyKay

In the post you are referring to I was trying to make the point that if you are going to use the audio visual technique of moving from an unsharp/filtered image to a sharp one, the image that is meant to be sharp, must be sharp. After all, you are drawing attention to that sharp image by using that particular technique. If, when we view the show, the image isn't really sharp enough, the technique fails and both images are now spoilt and out of place in the show.

The point is, that if you use this technique you must start with a sharp image. In this case the author had an image that was really quite soft, by filtering the image an improvement was made, but in my view it was a mistake to then use the unfiltered/unsharp one in the sequence.

Most of these techniques can be created at the shooting stage or at the image editing stage. There is nothing to stop us from helping matters along by softening or sharpening a selective part of an image, to help the technique/effect we are trying to get accross.

If there is a medium in digital phoography where we can push the sharpening process, it's AV. We can take quite a few liberties with our images for slide shows and really add a much higher degree of sharpness than we would ever get away with on a print.

The reasons are that our AV image is on screen for just a few seconds and the extra sharpness can be fully acceptable in the show. There are always limits of course and we will get to a point where our show will be much stronger by disgarding an image rather than trying to use one we really shouldn't.

Audio visual is all about creating a mood and presenting a number of images that flow from one to the other. We should not do anything that interupts that flow and the mood of the show. In some cases we must even disgard good images, if they don't really belong.

In my view the success of good AV is probably more down to what the author decided not to show, his/her editing of the sequence is THE most vital part.

[baldsparky]

Hi Barry

you are pprobably already aware of this, but I found the same problem that John and I mentioned in earlier posts with your show 'Haworth'.

By the way I enjoyed watching both your shows.

many thanks

kind regards

Paul

[Barry Beckham]

I am aware that the same issues are showing on Haworth.

It just goes to show how complicated this must all be for a beginner, image size, resolution and format.

One of the great things about PTE is the layers we can use in the Objects and Animation screen, but they don't seem to like being played on different formats when the images were originally made bigger.

The only real option is to make the show at the size you want it, save in zip and use the zip copy to adjust the size of a second show for other monitors. I have used a Photoshop action to reduce the main images, then created a frame (that was causing the problem in the first place) at the right size for a 1024*768 monitor.

There doesn't seem to be any other way. Using the frame can be disgarded when no amimation is used, but we don't always know that at the start. The frame allows the best of all worlds and can be changed on all images at a stroke.

Barry

[JudyKay]

JudyKay

In the post you are referring to I was trying to make the point that if you are going to use the audio visual technique of moving from an unsharp/filtered image to a sharp one, the image that is meant to be sharp, must be sharp. After all, you are drawing attention to that sharp image by using that particular technique. If, when we view the show, the image isn't really sharp enough, the technique fails and both images are now spoilt and out of place in the show.

In my view the success of good AV is probably more down to what the author decided not to show, his/her editing of the sequence is THE most vital part.

Thanks Barry. I thought I responded to this a day or so ago, but I guess it didn't "stick."

Anyway, You helped me think differently--something clicked in my brain. Generally I don't like to oversharpen pictures because those teensy, contrasty, noise dots are so annoying. But....in AV, they matter less. Less than transitioning from a soft image to a sharp image that never gets sharp. I get it!

The hardest part of all is throwing out perfectly good pictures...but your encouragement helps.

Thanks again,

jk

[Barry Beckham]

Further to this, I would say that I would never take the sharpness of a picture to the stage where it was easily seen in a slide show image. If you really have the need to sharpen an image to the degree that you start to see that ugly pixelization effect, something is wrong with your basic technique.

Because our software is powerful we must not make the mistake of thinking it can sharpen a clearly unsharp image. Unsharp mask in Photoshop is for sharpening a sharp image, if that makes sense.

We can increase the appearance of sharpness in a sharp image, we cannot sharpen a burred picture. The best place for those is in the bin because they have no place in our slide shows.

Get the image sharp at the time you take it.

[cjdnzl]

I am aware that the same issues are showing on Haworth.

It just goes to show how complicated this must all be for a beginner, image size, resolution and format.

One of the great things about PTE is the layers we can use in the Objects and Animation screen, but they don't seem to like being played on different formats when the images were originally made bigger.

The only real option is to make the show at the size you want it, save in zip and use the zip copy to adjust the size of a second show for other monitors. I have used a Photoshop action to reduce the main images, then created a frame (that was causing the problem in the first place) at the right size for a 1024*768 monitor.

There doesn't seem to be any other way. Using the frame can be disgarded when no amimation is used, but we don't always know that at the start. The frame allows the best of all worlds and can be changed on all images at a stroke.

Barry

Firstly, I think your treatment of the images in this show is very artistic, the cropping and muted colors are very attractive, as is the music, and the choice of title font is great.

However (after that first sentence you just knew there would be a 'however'!), I am rather puzzled by your framing technique.

I took the liberty of measuring the dimensions of your images, and I find that the overall size is 1024*780 including the frame, which leaves narrow black bars on the sides of a 1024*768 monitor (the image is scaled by the graphics chip to fit the vertical dimension, which shortens the horizontal by about 16 pixels). The size of the actual image is 963*635 pixels (more or less) which gives an aspect ratio of 1.52:1, slightly wider than a 35mm or 3:2 digital frame.

Do you have a reason for not simply sizing the show to 1024*768 without any frame, so it exactly fits a monitor - and a projector - with those pixel dimensions? If the image has a 3:2 ratio, or is shown on a 5:4 or a 16:9 ratio screen, the image will simply fill one dimension, and leave black bars in the other.

Colin

[Barry Beckham]

Well, this could be a long answer, firstly I am greatful you think the slide show was artistic because that was my aim from the start. I took a lot of time and trouble to create the images and make the slide show, because I wanted to try and capture a mood and the artistic approach was one way to do that.

The muted colours wasn't such a leap as I have found this technique attractive years ago and often return to it when the subject is right. In addition the images didn't have any colour that was worth playing around with so it was either black and white, sepia or perhaps even a light blue tone. Sepia was way out in front of the others when viewed.

If you download the correct show for your 1024*768 monitor you should not now have bars down the left and right. I have corrected the file sizes for that size monitor so it fills the entire screen, well the framing does, not the images.

Generally speaking I am not a great lover of slide shows that fill the entire screen. If we crop the images from our camera for a 1024*768 - 4:3 ratio screen we lose quite a bit of the left and right of the image. If that is what you are happy with, then there is no problem with that. If we do the same with 1280*1024 - 5:4 format we lose even more and our image is now beginning to get to close to a square for my liking.

Most of us now use screens of 1280*1024 for this type of work and when I create a show, I want to retain the format from my camera. I also don't like the practice of images being stretched to touch the left and right of the screen, while leaving a gap top and bottom. What I do is to reduce the image size, so I not only retain the format that I feel gives the best image to view, but I create a border around the whole image. This is much more pleasant on the eye in my view and is pictorially far better than bars top and bottom.

If I am going to have a gap anywhere, it will be around the entire edge of the image just like a frame or border of a print. For my 1280 monitor I size the images at 1000 pixels or thereabouts and let the height take care of itself.

The problem comes of course if I want to animate an image, any animation would then be seen outside my base size of my image between that and the monitor edge. Thats where the frame comes in and it serves two purposes.

1. To alow me to animate and retain format. (any format I choose)

2. It allows me to select the colour, tone, texture around my images for the best pictorial result I can get.

The only issue for me when I want to make sure those with 1024*768 monitors can also view the show. Then I have to resize the images and the frame. Not a great chore, but one that tripped me up earlier because I never checked it on my 1024*768 monitor before posting

The size of my show doesn't have a great bearing on the projector. When I am doing a demo and running 1024*768 through a Digital Projector and I want to show a slide show made for 1280*1024 pixel monitors, I simply change the resolution of the screen to 1280*1024 while I run the show, then change it back to continue the demo.

[Guest Dick Le Bleu]

Barry,

You take my breath away! Once again you prove beyond a doubt that you are the master.

I just happen to be reading Follett's "The Pillars of the Earth" and here you SHOW me all the design features of building a cathedral! The book was not quite so clear.

I love the over all color theme of the piece. Was that the natural color of the stone, or did you modify the basic hue? Perhaps a trade secret, but I want you to know it is effective.

Here in my part of the world, we don't have any ruins that are quite that old, but you have inspired me to revisit a hundred year old monastery that was destroyed by fire some 25 years ago.

Thanks again!

Dick

[Barry Beckham]

Dick

I did bring our the colour that was already in the stone via the Raw palette in Photoshop CS3. The colour controls and the new vibrance slider is very good for that, but if you get the light tones and dark tones right the colours emerge almost naturally.

Barry