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Hi everybody, Here's the Slideshow with the couple of Styles. Someone may find them useful. The link to the You Tube video and downloading files provided. Just replace Placeholders with Photo or Video of your choice. Best Alex55

Lake Ainsworth is a 12-hectare freshwater, tea-tree lake in Lennox Head, NSW, known for its dark, tannin-stained water from surrounding paperbark trees. It is a popular spot for family-friendly swimming, paddleboarding, kayaking, and canoeing, with amenities like paths, barbecues, and picnic tables. The lake is located at the northern end of Pacific Parade in Lennox Head, NSW. The area has undergone recent improvements and features pathways, picnic tables, barbecues, and toilets. The lake can be affected by blue-green algae, which can be harmful.

Simple backlight frame using two masks and gaussian blur. LED backlight is sometimes known as Ambilight available on certain model Philips HDTVs. https://www.philips.co.uk/c-e/so/tv-buying-guide/what-is-ambilight-tv It is slightly different than the Border Simple Style in PTE AV Studio. Thanks, Tom Update: New version should work with any aspect ratio. LED Backlight Frame.ptestyle

Hi Alex Thanks for commenting, I appreciate you taking the time to reply. I don't see many people fishing in the lake as I think the strong tea tree tanim staining/environment might stop that. The other thing is that the Pacific Ocean is less than 50 metres away, so most people go surf fishing there. This 360-degree image will give you a better idea of the location. https://kuula.co/share/Ngn5m?logo=1&info=0&fs=1&vr=1&sd=1&initload=0&autorotate=0.02&autop=5&thumbs=1 As for the 16:9 aspect ratio, it means cropping some of the top and/or bottom as the width remains the same. For this style of image that I want to show the ground and the trees, I much prefer the 3:2 for this presentation/location. On saying that, I do sometimes crop to 16:9, especially for drone images or where I want to accentuate something in the image, which I did do for one shot below. For me, it did not work as well for the remainder of the images. I was using a wide angle lens 14mm on most and a ND filter to blur the water. Thanks again Mark

Nice, Looks like a fishing also is on attraction list. Why don't you use 16x9 ratio for this kind of pictures? Alex

Affinity 3 (Canva) is now free - I have used affinity since version 1. In Affinity it is possible to create transparent pages in SD, HD, Vertical video, Social Media Portrait post, QHD, UHD (4K) DCI 4K and 5K2K video sizes. While this has been available in many programs over the years, the fact that Affinity is now free will give more people access to its tools. You can then create text, logos, pictures, borders or anything that you would put in any publishing programme and export it complete with transparent backgrounds. If you want to put scrolling text with logo's or whatever, you can stretch theAffinity page's length to anything you want export it as a .png then import it into PTE and scroll it between two points - if you work at it, you can have scrolling from bottom to top (or vice versa) and from left to right. All you need is the imagination!

The Rainbow Bee-eater is found throughout mainland Australia, as well as eastern Indonesia, New Guinea and, rarely, the Solomon Islands. In Australia, it is widespread, except in desert areas, and breeds throughout most of its range, although southern birds move north to over winter. A rainbow bee-eater regurgitates a pellet of indigestible parts of its prey, like insect wings and exoskeletons, to expel them from its body. This is a normal and healthy process, not a sign of sickness. The pellets are often collected by scientists to analyze the bird's diet and monitor local insect populations. Rainbow bee-eater pellet diagnostics were introduced to the NBPSP program in 2022, following its success in detecting Asian honey bees during the National Varroa Mite Eradication Program (NVMEP) in Queensland, which concluded in 2019. This technique is now employed in both Queensland and the Northern Territory to help mitigate the risk of Asian honey bee incursions. During 2023 the QLD Department of Agriculture and Fisheries (QDAF) and the NT Department of Industry Tourism and Trade (NT DITT), respectively collected 30 and 18 rainbow bee-eater pellet samples, at ports as part of the NBPSP and no exotic bees were detected. “Over five years we collected 225,000 bird pellets which contained 1.6 million bee wings, of which 79 were identified as Asian honey bee wings,” Roger said. “Once Asian honey bee wings have been identified, other surveillance methods are used to find the nest. The birds definitely helped us to achieve eradication.”

Happy Wrensday The Superb Fairy-wren is found in open eucalypt woodland forests of south-eastern Australia. It inhabits dense understorey, and is usually seen in pairs or small groups. Also adapted to urban parks and gardens, and exotic weeds such as lantana. The breeding plumage of the male Superb Fairy-wren is unmistakable – a light blue cap, ear tufts, and cheeks; a black eye-stripe; dark blue-black throat; brown wings and white breast and belly. Beak of the adult male is black and legs are brown to dark brown. The adult female is mostly brown, with white throat, breast and belly. The beak is orange-red, with a similarly coloured eye-stripe; the tail is brown with a faint pale blue-grey tinge. The female has the same plumage year-round. The non-breeding adult male looks similar to the adult female, except that the male has a black beak, and navy-blue tail – the Superb Fairy-wren is the only species of fairy-wren where the non-breeding male has a navy blue tail. All other fairy-wren non-breeding males have much paler tail colouration. The species forages mostly on the ground, more so than other species of fairy-wren; also forages in low canopy areas of shrubs and trees. Eats mainly insects, including grasshoppers, ants, larvae, small seeds and fruits. Hops over ground and in shrubs and pounces on food.

The first AV consists of just over 1200 images taken in the morning over a period of approximately 65 minutes. The Australian rainbow bee-eater has a unique method of preparing prey by rubbing venomous insects on a branch to remove stingers. They can consume up to 300 insects daily, which minimizes their need for drinking water. In this AV you will see them fly off and catch insects near the roosting branch. Sometimes seen hitting the insect on the branch to remove the sting. Additionally, communal colonies are now common in the area in summer, where sandy soil is perfect nesting material. Sometimes creating tunnels up to 1.6 meters long, and their mating is monogamous, with pairs potentially returning to the same nesting sites year after year. Often, juvenile birds from a previous brood assist the parents in feeding the next lot of chicks. You will see up to 4 birds that were feeding the same nest. While capturing the sequence for this AV, I witnessed the family bomb diving a small snake that ventured into the area. This is a very short AV with limited display time for each image. The second AV has about 180 images from the time-lapse of the birds in flight. I struggled with the number of images from the series and the duration of the AV to hold the viewers' attention. The duration of this AV is around 4 mins and 37 secs. I was back at the nesting site this morning to get some more images, as they are very restful to watch them come and go. Mark

A wonderful project and song selection, everything is true to the songs, we were young and believed, but the years..., I hope your loved ones liked it.

Here are a couple of short AV's of consecutive images of Rainbow Bee-eaters coming in to feed chicks in the nest. The rainbow bee-eater is the only species of bee-eater found in Australia and is monotypic, meaning it has no accepted subspecies. Its closest relative is most likely the olive bee-eater (Merops superciliosus) of southern and eastern Africa, but molecular phylogenetic analysis places the rainbow bee-eater as the closest relative to the European bee-eater. It was first described by John Latham in 1801. The generic name is Ancient Greek merops, which means 'bee-eater' and the specific epithet is Latin ornatus 'ornate, adorned'. The birds do not only eat bees with other insects part of their diet, including dragonflies, march flies, damselflies and other flying insects. The nest's end is large enough to fit two adult birds and the chicks. The birds also rely on adolescent chicks from a previous clutch to feed the new brood. This particular nest had 4 birds providing food for the chicks. The birds generally land on a nearby branch as a lookout perch. I had placed a dead branch on a dead tree as a lookout perch. Often, taking some time to peruse the area and be comfortable, it is safe to enter the nest. They do become comfortable with people/photographers and are always on the lookout for other birds and snakes as they nest in the ground. I had hoped to record the unusual sound of the birds calling, but this generally happens in flight while chasing insects. Unfortunately, there is too much background noise. The first one is a flyover and the second one shows the bird disappearing down the nest in the ground. Regards Mark

Hi Digatral, Thank you for sharing these two beautiful videos and for the information about them. Always great to learn about other bird species. Rosemary

I made a couple of AV's recently of infrared images at a local tea tree lake. The first one features the scene without the ND filter and some images have an ND filter applied in the following image to smooth the water. The second AV features just the ND images, and it is a shorter version. I am also working on a version of monochrome IR images with colour added in post-processing. Interesting that Youtube features the same image as the thumbnail. Cheers Mark

It is so easy for judges to influence what we do. I once made a judge bait sequence with every arty dissolve I could find. I only inflicted on one judge as I could see the palpitations

Hi Mark They certainly have impact although I did find the snap changes a bit repetitive and some of the images appeared to be duplicated. Perhaps some long dissolves would fool the eye into not realising that a dissolve had taken place. The music would have to change and be more soothing ng

Open your project / save it using a new name (this helps to keep your original project) / open the new project / make a right click into the Slide List / choose random order / create an Executable file for PC

There is a new feature in Photoshop called "Harmonize" which will do a little more than just colour correction. Not sure if it will work on layers so you might have to merge your two layers, apply harmonize, then extract your object again or something similar, but I think that I would give it a try. (It does work with layers). There are a few YT videos explaining the procedure - try this one to start.

have you updated Photoshop? You may need to re-establish the Link to the new version. Jill

Yes, looks like a surf fishing paradise to me! Immediately see a couple of spots to go... By 16x9 I mean it fits the screen right away. Of course you use whatever better serves you. Thanks Mark Best Alex

Looks like an interesting place Nice production

Un grand Merci Alex !! le père Noel a plus d'un mois d'avance !!!! Henry

Aleina, Thanks for the comment Alex55

Thank you! This is thery beautiful project! Aleina

Thanks very nice as usual!

I ordered a P950 and probably a monopod next. This photo of a Sandpiper sunning on a rock at high tide was taken with my old FZ150 a few days ago. We also have many ducks, pelicans, herons, and egrets at our local wildlife sanctuary, https://photos.app.goo.gl/1z59MEWwsT9irKnT8 Thanks, Tom

The new Affinity all in one app (Pixel, Vector, Publisher) is now available and basic functionality is free. If you want the AI features then it is US $15/month subscription. I don't know if AI is local or cloud based. Canva is a competitor to Adobe. https://www.affinity.studio/get-affinity

Thanks for backstory again Mark I liked the freezes, gave me a chance to see the bird A bee eater is one bird I have never seen, let amone photograph.

Beautiful bird. Nice captures. Thanks for the info re the bird. I've been to Australia twice and seen them frequently, never got a decent shot of one because they never settle I like the freeze frames - would prefer them to be a bit longer. While I like time-lapse productions, I would prefer this one to be a video (just a personal preference) Keep up the good work!!

That should be interesting. Thanks, Tom

Here is a link to a quick AV with about 700 images using the Timelapse Style made by tom95521. Although not a time-lapse sequence, it is a series of images taken at our recent Agricultural Show. For something different, I captured them with my IR converted camera.

My list of image comparison software that supports Mac and Windows. For the Mac and Windows there is the free XnView MP image viewer. https://www.xnview.com/en/xnview-mp/ For Windows there is the free FastStone Image Viewer and IrfanView. https://www.faststone.org/FSViewerDetail.htm https://www.irfanview.com/ If you want to purchase software there is ACDSee Photo Studio which has image comparison option. https://www.acdsee.com/en/photo-editing-software/ Sample Comparisons Irfanview https://share.cleanshot.com/mM1X6Vl3 XnView Windows https://share.cleanshot.com/1BsSw8Dd XnView Mac https://share.cleanshot.com/vxLzy7cF Software that I have been testing recently. AI is now very common for image resizing, subject masking, and noise reduction. Win/Mac Free RapidRAW https://github.com/CyberTimon/RapidRAW Mac Image Restore AI https://www.neuralmoon.ai/image-restore-ai Tom

It's fun to experiment with PTE. I created 2 more versions with more blending steps. It seems to improve deflicker on the 20 to 60 version. Thanks, Tom Timelapse Blend 20 fps.ptestyle Timelapse Blend 10 fps.ptestyle

Sample of frame blending using dissolve transition. Comparison with single step frame at the end. Taken from an indoor security camera pointed out window towards the sky. It's been overcast and raining so I can't go outside with my camera to capture photos with a better camera. Waiting for the weather to improve. Two Styles. Style 15 fps publish at 30 fps Style 30 fps publish at 60 fps Missing Style 25 fps publish at 50 fps (just modify one of the others to .040 for slide and dissolve time). Thanks, Tom Timelapse Blend 30 fps.ptestyle Timelapse Blend 15 fps.ptestyle

Jill--I find that a stationary image that does nothing is kind of boring so I do tend towards using Ken Burns typically but I try to be subtle about it. The old program that I had used would allow for applying an effect (like Ken Burns) to multiple slides without affecting the duration and also there was a "randomize" option. Still I always needed to do some tweaking after the fact which is unavoidable. AleAle--again better feature would be the option to keep the original duration imo.