Any automation features in new version?

[markoc398]

I'm just starting to work with ver 5.1 and am wondering if there are any automated features to make a quick show with pans and zooms? For example, in proshow gold I can select a bunch of slides and apply random zooms and pans to the images, then save and run the show. From what I can tell so far in pte is that I have to manually create each pan or zoom, etc. for each slide. I want to get some shows going quickly in pte. Is there an easier way?

[fh1805]

I'm not aware of the sort of features which you seek. Nor can I understand why you would wish to seek them. I firmly believe that the use of panning, zooming, animation and even transitions should always be done in order to achieve a specific artistic effect. That implies a measured degree of conscious thought, a process which is entirely at odds with the use of randomly chosen effects.

Don't delegate the creativity to the computer, let it come from within yourself.

[markoc398]

Hi Peter,

On custom shows I can see editing each slide for the effect desired. However, I want to quickly create a slideshow of portrait images to present clients of their portrait session. I just spent almost an hour adding a pan/zoom effect to about 75 slides. Not really making good use of my time. Multiply that with a couple hundred sessions that we need slideshows for. You get the picture. I thought I could create one, then make that a template, then just replace the images, but that doesn't seem to work.

Any ideas anyone?

[Lin Evans]

Sorry Mark,

If you want automated random pans, zooms, etc., PTE isn't the right tool. The assumption is that each slideshow you create is an individual creation with images which are unique and require different types or degrees of animation when and if they require animation at all.

Some freeware Windows slideshow programs do this as does ProShow Gold but it's not something which fits the philosophy of PTE or most sophisticated professional presentation slideshow software. Movement for the sake of movement doesn't really add anything to a presentation in my opinion. I understand what you want to do but this is not the right tool for that type thing.

Best regards,

Lin

Hi Peter,

On custom shows I can see editing each slide for the effect desired. However, I want to quickly create a slideshow of portrait images to present clients of their portrait session. I just spent almost an hour adding a pan/zoom effect to about 75 slides. Not really making good use of my time. Multiply that with a couple hundred sessions that we need slideshows for. You get the picture. I thought I could create one, then make that a template, then just replace the images, but that doesn't seem to work.

Any ideas anyone?

[JudyKay]

I am NEVER contentious. But...we enjoy randomized transition effects without tarnishing PTE's professional sophistication, why not some simple quick zoom/pan choices such as templates or randomization of selected zoom or pan effects. I think Google Screensaver accomplishes this quite tastefully with subtle pan/zoom. http://pack.google.com/screensaver.html

This may not be so important as some things the programmers are now working on, but if it could really quickly be done by just adding a tiny button or two...

Just a thought,

jk

[markoc398]

Lin, thanks for letting me know that these effects are not available with PTE.

Although I have really enjoyed using the program for quite a few years, I am quite surprised that including some basic pans or zooms does not fall under the philosophy of the authors. Being that there had seemed to be an unending slew of forum threads concerning if the rollup/rolldown shade effects, or the endless swipe effects worked as designed, I wonder if these were of much value to the professional caliber PTE user as some here may believe.

I think if one were to look at the actual client base for this program, you will find many professional wedding and portrait photographers are among them. I will bet you that they really do not want to create a pan/zoom effect on each and every one of their 700+ slides for a show to present to the bride and groom. Granted, if your making a tiny slide show of 30-40 images and have all day to do it, then doing it manually is where pte is fine.

If I want a life away from the computer, then I guess I have to turn to Proshow, or Show it on the web, which had had this effect for many years now. I had waited through the countless PTE betas to find out that the end product is more complicated and not as intuiative as hoped for. Considering that the user manual is like 130 pages, that's surprising in this day and age of programs. I even thought that if I at least created one show manually and made a template out of it, then I could replace the images and still have the effects. unfortunately that doesn't work, so I guess the templates only apply to the vanilla version of pte.

I really do hope Igor and his team will consider adding some simplicity a really great program.

Mark

[fh1805]

The more I think about this the more I think Mark's suggestion has merit. What better way could there be for a "newbie" to get a grasp of the use of keypoints for animation than by studying a PTE sequence that had been built automatically? A picture (in this case a sequence) is worth a thousand words, as they say. And that is, in no way, meant to detract from Lin and Jeff's marvellous User Guide.

[markoc398]

Peter, thank you for the support of my case. The pan/zoom effect is probably why many "newbies" buy one slideshow program over another. It's so commonplace on slideshow programs, and it's implimentation is easy on them. Why PTE chose to make its use completely manual, with no initial setting that can be added to a bulk of images, than tweaked if desired, is a bit puzzling. I still believe that PTE is a well designed program in many aspects. Unfortunately, many of the competitors are more "polished", and that appeal untimately leads to more profitable sales of those programs.

My goal is to encourage the developers of PTE to make their program more "user friendly", and to recommend it to my associates when I lecture about photography, and presentation software.

[alrobin]

Mark,

As others have mentioned, PTE does not provide for automated extrapolation of PZR effects over the other images in a presentation. It would likely be very difficult for Igor to program such a feature into the present version of PTE, and its usefulness over the whole population of PTE users is questionable.

However, I have put together a pdf document outlining a workaround which might make the replication of PZR effects over several slides a little easier than simply repeating all of the actions for each slide. You can view this document HERE. Hope this helps some.

[markoc398]

Mark,

As others have mentioned, PTE does not provide for automated extrapolation of PZR effects over the other images in a presentation. It would likely be very difficult for Igor to program such a feature into the present version of PTE, and its usefulness over the whole population of PTE users is questionable.

However, I have put together a pdf document outlining a workaround which might make the replication of PZR effects over several slides a little easier than simply repeating all of the actions for each slide. You can view this document HERE. Hope this helps some.

Al, thanks for taking the time to post a workaround. I've printed it out and will give it a try.

Mark

[JudyKay]

I am so amazed at the wonderful people here! Thank You Al. That is easy and makes sense to me.

jk

[brian65photo]

Al,

Many thanks for your tutorial pdf. I have found it very useful.

Brian

[JudyKay]

Can this Board do survey's?

What do we know about the actual user client base for PTE?

• Age?
  
• Profession?
  
• What they do with PTE?
  
• What they want to do with PTE?
  

What drives the direction of PTE development?

• Present user client base?
  
• Potential user client base?
  
• What niche does PTE occupy that other programs do not?
  
• What niche's could PTE penetrate and be better than others?
  

What if there was a "Basic" Menu and an "Advanced" menu?

Basic could contain some of the simple, easy-to-do features -- cool, HQ shows could be made quickly with templates

Advanced for those of us (huh-hum) who like to get our fingers greasy under the hood.

jk

[dechols]

Mark,

I hear you. I am a professional photographer who spends too much time already with post processing and I'm very concerned about the extra time needed with this software. I have been using P2E for nearly 5 years and I learned about this program at a professional photographers convention. I know this was the BEST program available to do presentations a few years ago. Now that technology has progressed, I'm concerned that others have caught up or maybe passed with certain features. I'm not trying to create an art piece, I'm just trying to present my photographic art in the most cost effective, but with the latest technology that's available here. I know some of the most talented and nicest guys in this field are on this forum and I don't want to make them mad, but I'm very limited with my hours each day and I don't need to be waisting them in front of the computer.

[markoc398]

Mr Echols,

Thanks for your contribution. Many of us are doing the same thing. We want some effects to our slide shows, yet I see no need to customize each slide for each show. It just takes too long. Proshow gold and producer have been offering these effects for years now. To stay in this market, you have to have similar features or something better. As a professional I am gonna use products that do the job. Pic2exe in its basic form is very fast in creating multiple, similar designed shows using templates, or the last show created format. Unfortunately, creating a template of a show with pans and zooms doesn't work. None of the effects are applied to the replacement slides. When I need just plain fade in and fade out effects I'll use pic2exe. Other than that I have to go elsewhere if I intend to have a life away from the computer.

[Lin Evans]

Since you are a professional photographer, it seems you would want to present your images in the very best quality possible. The very best quality possible is with PicturesToExe. I'm also a professional photographer and have been using the "majority" of available presentation software for many, many years. Personally, I find P2E to be "the" software to present my images in the very best way possible.

What "extra" time is necessary with P2E which is not necessary with other presentation slideshow software? If you want to present your images in the best possible way you would absolutely "not" want to use automated pans and zooms. As a professional surely you realize that what works well in a pan or zoom for one photo absolutely does "not" work for another. I know many professional photographers around the world and none of them use automated pans and zooms to display their photographs, but perhaps that or something similar is unique to your operation.

As someone who has used PTE for five years and joined the forum here in 03, I'm surprised that you have only posted here since December less than a month ago. This perhaps means that you have not yet learned to use version 5 of PTE and perhaps after you learn how to use the new version you will feel more comfortable with your concerns that others have or have not surpassed PTE. Of course the best way to find out is to use other products and there is nothing wrong with doing that. But from the questions you have asked, I feel that you have not yet learned this 5.0 software and perhaps need more time before making an informed decision.

Best regards,

Lin

Mark,

I hear you. I am a professional photographer who spends too much time already with post processing and I'm very concerned about the extra time needed with this software. I have been using P2E for nearly 5 years and I learned about this program at a professional photographers convention. I know this was the BEST program available to do presentations a few years ago. Now that technology has progressed, I'm concerned that others have caught up or maybe passed with certain features. I'm not trying to create an art piece, I'm just trying to present my photographic art in the most cost effective, but with the latest technology that's available here. I know some of the most talented and nicest guys in this field are on this forum and I don't want to make them mad, but I'm very limited with my hours each day and I don't need to be waisting them in front of the computer.

[markoc398]

Lin, I have been pleased using pte for 5 years and have always hoped that it would incorporate simple pan/zoom features since its inception. Through all the upgrades this was never added. If I wanted this effect I had to use proshow gold. You are right though that it didn't work as well when incorporating those effects, so I stuck with pic2exe and just did fade in and fade out effects. The other effects in my opinion are for amatures. When ver 5 was in beta I tried using it a few times but it was just impossible to do anything with it because many of the features were disabled. I have better things to do than to sit at the computer being a tester. That doesn't put food on the table for me.

Also, you seem to feel that if I want something automated to present my clients, that this is not professional and not giving my clients the best. Let's get real here. How many portrait clients would know the difference? If I feel that I need to customize these effects, then I will. But manually setting each slide is time consuming and not cost effective. If you read many of the posts on this forum you will see that many want these effects, so I am definitely not alone. Some of these were posted two years ago, and Igor responded that he chose not to pursue it. That's not listing to your customers requests, but instead putting things into a program for personal desires. That's good if you are making this for yourself, bad if you intend to sell something to others. Pretty much all of the slideshow generators incorporate these effects. They learned what the public wants and provided it.

Oh, I have made many suggestions over the years for pte. Many of them were implimented. So I am not a lurker here. I come here when I want to learn something new from contributors like yourself, and contribute when I can. But as I said, I want a life too.

Be well,

Mark

[Lin Evans]

Hi Mark,

Actually, my reply was to Mr. Echols - rather than to you but you said yourself that "it ddn't work as well when incorporating those effects". The point is that portrait photography is but one of a number of subjects for professional photography, but since it's the one which is important to your business let's discuss the application of automated pans and zooms with portrait photos.

Why didn't the automated pans and zooms in PSG work for you? My guess is that automated pans and zooms either or all done the same way as with some of Microsoft's freeware products or they would have to be randomized. If all done in the same manner then zooms would by chance "sometimes" zoom on the subject and other times zoom on an area of the portrait where there was no subject. Perhaps it would work if the portrait were only of one person but then what about group frames? Who gets the benefit of the zoom - maybe aunt Bertha or Uncle Joe or maybe just the background behind them. What if you are a landscape photographer or a wildlife photographer? What if you are an archetectural photographer? How does one design an automated zoom and pan to even remotely work well with the vast array of possibilities in photography? The reason PSP's automated zoom and pan doesn't do well is exactly the reason Microsoft's doesn't do well. It's simply zoom and pan with no intelligent design rhyme or reason and is simply motion for the sake of motion.

Would your clients "know the difference?" I don't know. Maybe yes and maybe no. The real question is if they wouldn't know the difference would they even care whether there was pan and zoom?

As for Igor "not listening to his customer's requests" that's truly ridiculous. Igor has implemented more of his customer's request than any single company in this business has ever done. When is the last time that you requested a feature from Microsoft and had it implemented? How about Adobe? How many features requested by users have been implemented by the presentation software competition? Wnsoft has consistently listened to their market and gone way beyond what a normal software development company would do even to the point of bending over backward to please their users. Some things are not simple to implement and do well and only the developers know what is feasible. If this random pan and zoom were feasible then Wnsoft would have done it.

You expressed the opinion that only fade in and fade out were ostensibly for professionals and the other effects were for amatures. Perhaps true, perhaps not. Perhaps others feel the same way about randomized pans and zooms? We all have our opinions and choices.

On beta software. Yes, in early beta stages some of the features now present were disabled. That's the nature of beta testing. By limiting the number of features available in early beta products the majority of bugs are swatted before they become major problems as they have with some presentation software products. Also the more people involved in beta testing the more bugs can be discovered and fixed before a product is released. Most companies don't let users anywhere near beta products so if you are too busy to play with the beta software wait until the release version. I'm not certain at all what your point is? Wnsoft was nice enough to let users share in the development process and the majority of users feel very fortunate to have been included in the process.

I've read the posts and understand that "some," not "many" would like to see these effects. It's not exactly been a subject of intense desire by the majority of users of PTE. You say pretty much all the slideshow generators incorporate "these effects". That's certainly not been my experience and I have nearly every major current presentation slideshow product available.

I have no dog in this fight and really have nothing except my opinion but a random, automated pan and zoom is not something which I personally would care about or ever use. My clients would laugh at me if I presented my work to them in such a way. On the other hand having a feaure which I would not use but others would certainly would not diminish the quality of PTE so don't think for a minute that I have anything against there being such a feature, just that I feel it would not be used by the majority. If it were something simple to implement then probably the development team would have already done it.

PTE is not like any other presentation slideshow software available today. It uses hardware rendering both for the slideshows and for the Video/DVD. This gives not only the finest quality images and executable code available in "any" presentation slideshow software but also the very fastest DVD production of "any" company. The developers are very busy implementing features which have been under consideration for an extended period and whether this random or automated pan and zoom is among them I have no way of knowing. I do know, however, that no other company I've ever had the pleasure of association with as a customer has been as accomodating to their users as Wnsoft.

Best regards,

Lin

Lin, I have been pleased using pte for 5 years and have always hoped that it would incorporate simple pan/zoom features since its inception. Through all the upgrades this was never added. If I wanted this effect I had to use proshow gold. You are right though that it didn't work as well when incorporating those effects, so I stuck with pic2exe and just did fade in and fade out effects. The other effects in my opinion are for amatures. When ver 5 was in beta I tried using it a few times but it was just impossible to do anything with it because many of the features were disabled. I have better things to do than to sit at the computer being a tester. That doesn't put food on the table for me.

Also, you seem to feel that if I want something automated to present my clients, that this is not professional and not giving my clients the best. Let's get real here. How many portrait clients would know the difference? If I feel that I need to customize these effects, then I will. But manually setting each slide is time consuming and not cost effective. If you read many of the posts on this forum you will see that many want these effects, so I am definitely not alone. Some of these were posted two years ago, and Igor responded that he chose not to pursue it. That's not listing to your customers requests, but instead putting things into a program for personal desires. That's good if you are making this for yourself, bad if you intend to sell something to others. Pretty much all of the slideshow generators incorporate these effects. They learned what the public wants and provided it.

Oh, I have made many suggestions over the years for pte. Many of them were implimented. So I am not a lurker here. I come here when I want to learn something new from contributors like yourself, and contribute when I can. But as I said, I want a life too.

Be well,

Mark

[markoc398]

Lin,

Ok, you've made some valid points about what's possible with pix2exe. My reply to you came from some things I wrote that were quoted by you ( been using for 5 years, etc), so that's why I thought you meant me.

Anyway, I know how hard Igor and his team has worked to impliment features, and how the whole program was basically re-written. I only spoke about making the program more automated since I thought the reason of creating a great slideshow program was to sell it to as many people as possible. When someone compares features, the lacking of some automation to a program can be a deciding factor on its purchase. Many of the portrait/wedding photographers I speak with use pan/zoom as part of their slide show presentation. Creating this effect on each slide is, as I say again, way too much work with pic2exe. Granted, the final show is better than you can get with proshow, but not many buyers would know that.

"Why didn't the automated pans and zooms in PSG work for you? My guess is that automated pans and zooms either or all done the same way as with some of Microsoft's freeware products or they would have to be randomized"

My problem with proshow gold was that the slide show with music would stutter during the presentation. This was a few years ago, and PSG's advice was to get a bigger computer with a high end graphics card. I would have a hard time telling my client to do that. Pic2exe ran smooth as silk on pretty much every computer I put the show on. That's why I use it instead.

So, I respect your knowledge about the program, and all you have contributed to it. You will forever know more about the ins and outs of it, than I ever will. I am just asking to respect my requests for features that will make it better and more usable to others.

Mark

[Lin Evans]

Hi Mark,

Yes, understood and I agree. The issue with PSG is not all that different than the issues with PTE as far as hardware goes with one possible important exception.

PSG, like all other presentation slideshow software except PTE uses the CPU of the computer to do most of the processing and playback and this makes it subject to not only the power of the computer but the amount of processing going on in the background by other programs. So the "environment" used by the person playing the slideshow is highly variable depending not only on the power and resources of the system itself but also on the way it's being used. For example if memory hogging virus programs are running in the background or if there are other programs sharing resources at the same time, the playback will be affected to the degree of resources available to the program.

With PTE there are similar issues except PTE users the GPU (graphical processing unit) in the video card to do rendering for both executable and DVD so that the CPU itself is of less importance. Fortunately it's possible for PTE to gain exclusivity of the video in a non-windowed show so that leaves fewer variable to deal with but still requires a powerful video card for "some" slideshows. Depending on the number and size of objects and images in the slideshow this can require anything from a simple 32 meg old-fashioned video card to an ultra-modern gaming card. Some PTE shows absolutely require a very modern and powerful video card to play smoothly. So both approaches have strengths and weaknesses but since Mcrosoft elected to make Vista a graphics intensive operating system, the newer computers being sold are much more likely to be amenable to the hardware rendered graphics intensive possibilities with PTE because loading on CPU's "could" still become problematic in some cases.

What I'm getting at is that the fact that you had issues with stuttering and such with PSG "may" no longer be an issue with newer and more powerful computers being sold just as problems with jerky pans and zooms some have experienced with PTE will also be less likely in the future. Fortunately, the future is brighter for both approaches but as you know PTE still enjoys being the ultimate in presentation quality due to the input equals output of hardware rendered images.

I fully understand your desires for automated pans and zooms but with a bit of practice it's quite easy to create pans and zooms with PTE nearly as quickly as simply viewing the image itself. For a slideshow of 75 frames it takes me about 10 seconds per frame to put in a precision pan and zoom. That's a bit over twelve minutes which isn't too bad for a show of 75 frames. Yes, it indeed would be quicker to set an automated and universal key, but I generally want to see each slide anyway so not a major issue for me. I actually just put a stop-watch on doing this and it worked out to just a bit less than 10 seconds per slide for a show with 25 slides so perhaps with practice you will be able to greatly speed up the process time. I usually set project options to give a reasonable time and apply this to all slides then for nothing except pans or zooms it's left click the mouse on the time line and hit the insert key then with the view set to about 25% its simply left click one of the corner squares and drag for the zoom then a quick left click inside and drag the image to the precise position you want.

Best regards,

Lin

Lin,

Ok, you've made some valid points about what's possible with pix2exe. My reply to you came from some things I wrote that were quoted by you ( been using for 5 years, etc), so that's why I thought you meant me.

Anyway, I know how hard Igor and his team has worked to impliment features, and how the whole program was basically re-written. I only spoke about making the program more automated since I thought the reason of creating a great slideshow program was to sell it to as many people as possible. When someone compares features, the lacking of some automation to a program can be a deciding factor on its purchase. Many of the portrait/wedding photographers I speak with use pan/zoom as part of their slide show presentation. Creating this effect on each slide is, as I say again, way too much work with pic2exe. Granted, the final show is better than you can get with proshow, but not many buyers would know that.

"Why didn't the automated pans and zooms in PSG work for you? My guess is that automated pans and zooms either or all done the same way as with some of Microsoft's freeware products or they would have to be randomized"

My problem with proshow gold was that the slide show with music would stutter during the presentation. This was a few years ago, and PSG's advice was to get a bigger computer with a high end graphics card. I would have a hard time telling my client to do that. Pic2exe ran smooth as silk on pretty much every computer I put the show on. That's why I use it instead.

So, I respect your knowledge about the program, and all you have contributed to it. You will forever know more about the ins and outs of it, than I ever will. I am just asking to respect my requests for features that will make it better and more usable to others.

Mark

[Guest Auser]

How about some way to select the point on interest in the photo and then have the randomized pan/zoom work from that point of reference. That way you could for example select the face on your portrait shots and then the random pan/zoom engine would know that it needs to concentrate on that area of the photo.

[markoc398]

Hi Lin,

Yes, the issue I had with PSG has cleared up with newer computers. The old addage of "The cart before the horse" comes to mind in this computing world.

A question though. You mentioned using the GPU in the video card to render the exe and the dvd of shows. Does that mean that if I upgrade my pic2exe version to the one that creates dvds, that the dvd will burn faster than what I am experiencing now using Nero? That would be great if it did since it takes quite a while to render a 50 slide show now.

Tom95521 came up with a random slide generator that is somewhat of a workaround to get some basic pan/zoom effects into the slideshow. Although it takes a few more steps to use it, it's a start. I'm gonna time using the generator vs doing it manually and see what the difference is. I'll practice in hopes of getting better at creating a show faster. Thanks for the tips on adding the effects in. Right now I was using the buttons on the interface.

Mark

[Lin Evans]

Hi Mark,

Yes the hardware rendering in PTE version 5.1 takes advantage of several hardware specific features of newer systems to render the DVD at up to 400% faster than conventional methods. The degree of improvement with your system will depend on several factors including the type of video card you have and the type of CPU. Here's a link to the announcement from Igor concerning this:

http://www.picturestoexe.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=7783

This new system won't increase burn speed because that depends on your DVD burner and media, but what it does is greatly increase rendering speed which is the primary bottleneck. Most DVD burners are pretty fast and the actual burn process is much, much faster than the rendering process.

Best regards,

Lin

[markoc398]

Hi Lin,

thanks for the info and the link. I'll download it and see if it gets the process done faster for me.

Mark

[dechols]

Lin,

I’m sorry if I offended you or any one else on this forum. IF I could create a slide show as fast as you I would not have any issues at all. I’m just asking/stating that I would like to see an automated option available for some of us who are less gifted. The application I had in my mind as I made this request would be applicable to many high school seniors. I do not want to create a piece of art, I just want to give them a disk that they can use to show their pictures and make print orders from. I have more comfort knowing they will not be taking the disk to a local retailer to have prints made.

I offer DVD’s in some of my wedding packages. And I do spend more time with these presentations because I want the DVD to be used as an artistic media showcasing a special time the new couples lives. Weddings are filled with emotions and anxiety and it gives me satisfaction when clients can feel this in a presentation.

Hopefully some will understand what I’m trying to say.

Thanks