mhwarner

As a skier, I very much enjoyed this show. I have skied a lot of the Utah areas but I'd never heard of this one. I was impressed by the luxury of the dining room where you were photographed. Doesn't look like the typical ski area cafeteria. I assume it's an upscale restaurant or a private club? You've got me thinking about putting together a show of some of my Colorado ski trips. Thanks for sharing.

Perhaps somebody else will jump in with a better solution, but in the meantime ... It's not really automatic, but it seems to me it might be easier than adding a comment to each slide. Go into objects and animations and add a text object to a slide. For the newly added text object, click on "Insert text template" and <%SlideIndex%> will show up in the text window. Set the text parameters (color, size, font, etc.) as you wish. Then select it down in the objects window and copy (Ctrl-C) to the clipboard. Now in the upper corner of the O&A window, click the right arrow key to advance to the next slide. Now paste the text object by hitting Ctrl-V. Press the right arrow again to advance to the next slide. Not automatic, but with a few keystrokes you could work through quite a number of slides.

Maureen, Happy New Year! Bravo on another success! Another appropriate title for the show might also have been "Moody" as the various slides seem to evoke a number of different moods. The music you chose is quite appropriate. I especially like the very first slide with the boats and the 5th one with the golden trees in the foreground and the rocky crags almost obscured by mist in the background. Definitely another keeper for me. Thanks again for sharing. And have a wonderful time on your northern coastal voyage. Can't wait to see slides from that one!

Well, I certainly hope no new members of this forum or new users of PTE have gotten into this thread by mistake! What a sarcastic, crabby bunch of old men seem to be lurking here this holiday season (if any of you are actually pleasant young women, I do apologize ). This discussion seems to have descended to a more personal level rather than truly a discussion of the pros and cons of Barry's slideshow (though I will admit that his opening post was an invitation to more sarcasm). In any case, threads like this certainly do not inspire others to post their slideshows here. Could we have a bit more civility in the new year? Perhaps some of the petty potshots could be taken to the private message area.

Malcolm, Outstanding photography! I love the way you mixed the landscape/cityscape images with the detailed images and the people portraits. Your photography is exquisite and you make great use of depth of field. My favorites were a close-up near the beginning of some sort of detailed fabric (almost looked like a peacock design) and the one of the three bicycle riders in multicolored raincoats going riding into the mist. I think you made a very good selection from what I can only imagine must have been a huge collection of photographs. And of course, you can't go wrong with one of Dom's templates. I'm sure your family and friends are awed by this presentation. Thank you very much for sharing. This is a definite keeper for me.

Daniel, Thank you for sharing this interesting show. The costumes were just incredible, as was the face painting. The ladies weren't bad looking either, but some of your camera angles indicated that you were aware of that. I am guessing these were some sort of "clubs" participating, much like the crewes which participate in the Mardi Gras celebrations in New Orleans. It's too bad the location was such you couldn't step back a bit, but everything appears to have taken place in the narrow space between the walls. As photographers, we sometimes have to take what we can get and try to be happy with it. I liked the way you transitioned the portrait shots into the show.

Thank you sir! I typically do not put spaces in my folder or file names (a carryback to the old DOS days when they weren't allowed). However, I see that when I installed PTE several versions back, there is a space in the install folder "PicturestoExe 5" which is exactly where the selection stops. I often use a number of TheDom's templates which include many objects beyond just a single picture slide. And I usually have to duplicate the slides multiple times or copy/paste from multiple versions of the template to add several hundred additional "slides". This is where a lot of the renaming comes in. Obviously, this is not something that a lot of regular users do. I typically create a copy of an existing template in a new folder in my "PicturestoExe 5\Templates" folder and go from there. So until Igor might considering implementing my suggestion, or either of the two that you have suggested which would work equally as well, I guess I will think about reinstalling PTE into a folder that has no spaces. Or maybe it would be easier to just change the location of my "templates" folder and move it higher up the tree.

Thanks Dave. Appreciate your response. I long ago developed the practice of backing up my files. I have 16 external backup drives ranging from 80 gigs to 1.5 TB (as well as a multitude of DVDs). My photos and data are backed up multiple times on different media and some are stored offsite. My photos are stored with the folder naming convention of "mwpics\2010\20101118\IMG_whatever.jpg" (the second and third folders are year and date taken, respectively and are created by my downloading program automatically). In addition, I create templates from each of my PTE shows and back them up separately as well. It never hurts to be redundant!

Thanks Dave, but that really has nothing to do with my request. I just want an easier way to manually change the filename for one or more picture objects in templates (or even pieces of templates) that I use. I know most of the tricks for keeping project files together. I am just asking for a wider file name entry box for the reasons stated above.

Hi, It's not actually a question of "seeing" the full filename, but rather one of changing it. In the simplest example, I might be copying a slide (which is fairly complicated and has many objects) and I want to change the main picture by perhaps one digit in the filename. If the path/filename is fairly long, it will only show the left part. To change just a digit at the end of the filename, I have to click into the box, then hit the "End" key, then click again to actually change the new number. Yes, I know I can click on the picture icon and bring up the file selector, but sometimes that's more of a PITA. Also, sometimes I want to copy the entire path/filename to another object on the slide and I have to go through virtually the same procedure. It doesn't seem like moving the box down one line and making it wider is that big of a deal. I understand that it might not always show a REALLY long path/filename, but in most instances it would suffice. Thanks for listening. (I might add that when I have a lot of filenames to change, I often edit the PTE file in Notepad++ and do a find/replace, which makes the job significantly easier.)

A small request, but it would make life easier in using templates or copying slides. It's a bit annoying to always have to move the cursor right or hit the "End" key to see the full file name of a picture object. There seems to be enough room to maybe drop the entry box to the line below the "Picture" label and make it the full width of the Properties dialog area. Thanks, Igor, for any consideration!

Maureen, What a wonderful show! The music was most appropriate and the photography was absolutely stunning! The shot of the stag was incredible. You certainly captured some exquisite lighting as well. I wondered what you had been up to lately. Thanks for sharing another great show that goes into my folder of KEEPERS!

Colin, Nicely done and very relaxing to watch. Made me wish I lived closer to the beach! I liked the opening intro and transition. I did not, however, think that the ending frame transition added anything to the show. It looks like it was kind of thrown in as an afterthought and seemed odd because there weren't any other "frames" in the show. Maybe some sort of reverse transition similar to the one used in the beginning would have been better (from my perspective anyway). Also, there were one or two horizons near the beginning which need a bit of straightening. Your whole Turkey series was a nice travelog. Thanks for the trip!

Nicely done, Colin. The music was well chosen, as were the photographs. Very clever use of David's program. Gives me lots of ideas. Thanks for sharing!

Just to reiterate ... It doesn't work if you have two separate copies of PTE open at that same time. In that case, the "paste" command will be greyed out in the first instance of PTE (as Dave originally pointed out). The copying and pasting must take place within the same single instance of PTE.

Well, David, I can see where this program will be a huge time waster. I mean that in a good sense however. I have already spent the last hour playing with it (when I should have been working on other projects). It really does some interesting things and certainly creates unique files. I can see manipulating these files even further in Photoshop. One very useful feature I found was the ability to import and tile. For those creating albums and book projects, it's a great way to use all those downloaded web page background files to create album covers. I created a couple of interesting "papers" as well which I think would be of tremendous interest to scrapbookers. You should find a couple of scrapbook forums or sites and post the program there as well. Thanks for your efforts and for sharing this program.

Dave, Just to add my two cents ... you cannot have the two shows open during the process. You open one show, select and copy the slides, close that show, open the second show and paste (it is not necessary to close PTE down, only the individual show). I seem to remember that it might have worked with two shows (with two separate copies of PTE open at the same time back) back in some previous version, but this is no longer the case. Even if you only want a few non-contiguous slides from a different show, copy the whole string of them, paste in the new show and then delete the ones you don't want.

Gary, You have some lovely pictures of what appears to be a beautiful area! While I probably will never do the trip it, your show definitely made me want to visit. Aside from the scenery, I liked the interesting sequences of market fruits and vegetables and "shoe" closeups. The music seemed quite appropriate as well. On the negative side, the show was a bit too long for me and I confess to using the right arrow to move through it a bit more quickly. For me, I guess the issue (and one I struggle with as well) is putting together a show that is appropriate for more public audiences and one that is of more interest to family and friends. While I know the show is meant to be a memory of your trip, I would have enjoyed seeing less photos of your partner and some of the hotels/buildings where you spent the night. I would have cut the time on the opening map sequence as well and perhaps edited out a few more photos as well. But I also realize that there isn't always the time or inclination to prepare two separate shows. In any case, thank you for sharing these travelogs. I have enjoyed them.

Andrew, Your link doesn't work.

Mark, I enjoyed your show. We were just there last week and it seems you had much better weather (although I did see some patches of snow). We had clouds, mist, rain, wind and just enough sun to make a hike down and back on the Navajo Loop, although it started to rain when we were 2/3 of the way out. We did get to see some pronghorn antelope, deer and wild turkeys as well. I never cease to be fascinated by the formations. I'm working on a little show to post as well.

Greg, TheDom also has a very elegant template available for purchase which does pretty much what you are looking for and the price is reasonable. You can download a demo here: http://thedom.fr/index.php?option=com_jdownloads&Itemid=54&view=view.download&catid=14&cid=215 and you can purchase the template here: http://thedom.fr/index.php?option=com_digistore&controller=digistoreProducts&task=view&pid=37&cid=1&Itemid=58 It might save you some time and at the very least would provide a good foundation to learn from and to create exactly what you are looking for.

Nicely done. Interesting show and I really liked the way you put the "old" album together. My only negative comment is that you spelled "cronological" incorrectly on the second page. It should be "chronological" with an "h" (unless you spell it differently in the UK than we do here in the US). Anyway thanks for sharing and for the inspiration. Your show gives me some great ideas for modifications of Barry's template with some of the interesting old book graphics I have downloaded previously.

Barry, Could you elaborate a bit on what software you use. Thanks!

Gary, Wow! Thanks for sharing this. I don't believe I have ever seen Vietnam quite so personally. I have seen movies and newsreels, of course, and I know many guys who served there, but to see someone's personal slides was a unique experience. One thought I had while watching was that you were all so young. We must be about the same age. I graduated high school in '64. Anyway, the length of the show was just fine and somehow the dust and scratches actually added to the experience. The music was perfect. My only negative comment would be on the the opening titles. The mixture of different fonts and white shadows mixed with the animations were a bit too flashy for my taste, but to each his own. Thanks for sharing this and I'm glad you made it home!

Xaver, Since you asked, my primary interest in AV (as you call it), is strictly to present my photography in an interesting and pleasing manner to (1) my friends and family, (2) customers who have purchased a CD/DVD of from me of photographs of an event or activity that I have taken, or (3) others to whom I may be trying to sell one or more prints of my photographs. While I understand that they are a big deal in Europe, in the US, there are not many "AV Clubs" at least not that I know of (or maybe there are some in larger cities that I am unaware of). So I have no interest in preparing sequences to be shown at an AV club. While I can see that others may enjoy telling stories with an AV sequence or preparing a show just for the heck of it or because they have found a piece of music around which they would like to create a show, although I might enjoy doing so, my time is not unlimited and there are other activities I prefer to pursue. When I download shows from the forum, I will have to be honest that I am primarily looking for good photography, interesting locations and scenery, pleasing transitions, and well-chosen music. The "A" as you refer to it, is for the most part, a very personal choice. If I look at a show and the music seems appropriate to the show and doesn't start or end abruptly, I see no reason to comment on it. I might not necessarily have chosen that piece, but hey, it's not my show. As for spoken commentary, I personally am not a big fan of it. I'd rather see subtitles or scrolling text (or even some street signs to indicate where the photos were taken). That's not to say it shouldn't be done, of course. I guess what I am saying here is that it sounds as if you are looking for comments similar to those you would get if you showed a sequence at an AV club to a group of people who probably used to do this with multiple slide projectors and film cameras back in the day. That's not me (although I did use slide film and I owned a slide projector) and, I'd be willing to bet that I represent a whole bunch of other members here who are just trying to find fun and interesting ways to present their photography, whether it is vacation pictures, family photos, or other collections of shots. We like to learn and we certainly can benefit from the shows and comments posted here. However, you shouldn't expect to get the same kind of technical feedback from us. I feel qualified and comfortable commenting on the photography in a show, on the quality or the number of those photos or the order in which they are presented. If the music seems relevant to the show and I don't find it annoying, I'm not likely to say anything. Sorry, but that's all you're going to get from me and if it isn't enough, then I will refrain from making any further comments.