goddi

==================== Snapcam, After the record hot summer we have been having, it is a bit refreshing to watch your 'cool' slideshow. From a photographic standpoint, I noticed in the first few snow shots that the snow was not as white as it could be. When taking snow pictures, the camera tends to reduce the exposure because of the brightness of the snow. The result is the snow is not as white as it should be. So you have to compensate by opening the f/stop by one or two stops. Or, lock in the exposure on something that is closer to 15% gray which will get a better exposure to get whiter snow. Or it can be fixed, maybe, in Photoshop.... With a digital SLR, it is easier to do than with a Point and Shoot camera. I used to be more careful with exposure setting when I shot slidefilm, but I admit I tend to get forget these effects with digital, unfortunately. My other comment is about the lack of user controls. I know this is a very sensitive topic but let me bear my chest on this. Some say, let the slideshow run as the author intended with no user controls being available. The only control your show has is the right mouse button that allows advancing to the next slide. Not even a pause control was available. I always hope that if the NAV bar is not active in the slideshow, at least put in the next/previous/pause keyboard controls. This lets the viewer watch the show as created and also lets the viewer go back or pause during the show. If it is a long show, as I tend to make , it give the viewer a chance to get more popcorn, or answer the phone, without having to start all over again. It gives the viewer the best of both worlds. If we can pause/forward/rewind movies, why not slideshows??? Just my point of view... I am not telling everyone to do this but to keep this in mind. Gary

=============================== I see what you are talking about. I put together the sequence of my slideshows mostly as the images were taken. You can't really help getting pictures of the sea in many different locations. For example, we took the local bus from the Old City up to where the cruise boats come in. That's where the fish market is...and more sea. Then we walked back to the Old City...more sea pictures. We did the walk around the wall of the Old City...more sea pictures. Couldn't really group them. Then driving down to Kotor...more sea pictures. They are the same...but different. We were rushing to get to the entrance of the point where you start your walk around the city wall before it closed. These dancers/musicians came out of nowhere to put on a concert in the middle of the town. I wish I had taken better pictures, but I just stood there in their path and snapped away. Same thing with the concert pictures. We hear some music coming through a door and we poked our heads in and found it was a free concert given by the local high schools music class. It was like their final recital. You just never know when something will happen. I love these serendipity moments. Thanks... Gary

====================== nobeefstu, Yes, you are right. I was referring to an external audio editor like Audacity. I did not know you could edit the titles of menus. Cool. But I think Igor needs to review the names of many of the menu items. Many of them just don't tell me WHY I would want to use them and what they do. It would be a great help if mouseovers were developed for many of the items with a more detailed explanation as to what they would do. Thanks for the tip on editing titles, but that would come in handy only after I figured out what it did. Gary

=============== Greetings, Thanks for the comments. It is so very interesting how other people 'see' what I don't 'see'. I do appreciate the comments. Actually, I had already taken out some other aerial shots. The flight in, looking at the coast line, is so spectacular, hard to exclude. Yea, I thought of cutting one or two of the pageant images, and I should. The fish...Croatia is a place for fish. Being a coastal country, fish is king and I found it interesting to see their variety of catch. But, I don't share the feeling that verticals can't stand alone without some horizontal background. I will play around with your suggestion but sometimes I find the vertical overlaid over another image is distracting, at least to me. Interesting point, though. 25,000 images!!!! Ouch...you have a job for life. Thanks... Gary

=============== David, Yes, LONG seems to be the word. Before we invite people over for a viewing, I'll get out my machete and hack away!!! I see I am in big trouble now since I have about 20 more days of images from this trip to get into a slideshow(s). Excuse me now, I have to go find a knife sharpener. Glad you enjoyed it... Gary

================ Greetings, Actually, it would probably take me about 6 months or more after a trip to as brutal as I need to be to reduce it down to 10 minutes, and I can not argue with the need to do that. Less really is more...just hard to do it when, as I said before, having an emotional attachment to each image. Each one evokes a memory. I agree with your comments on change of pace and maybe more animations and formats. My problem is an inherent lack of creativity. But comments like yours will open my mind. I am not sure of what you mean by 'having a start and finish and not going back and forth'. It started in Dubrv. and ended in Kotor. Please explain. Thanks for the comments... Gary

=============== Greetings, Yes, I understand it was a bit long. It is always a bit difficult to get music that you can chop off or fade out to establish a particular length of a show. So I tend to fill in the music's length with images. The music is usually too long or too short. But I think music is just as important as the images for an enjoyable show. I really should make two shows...one for me, and one for the public. But that would make the decision to eliminate images even more difficult! And there is that emotional attachment to each image. And that is why I always put in the NAV bar--you can scoot through them at your speed or pause. And about the pace, it did not change at all, except for the map. It must have been a psychological effect of the different music types?? As far as your boat route, I would use the same technique that Lin and TheDom have demonstrated, and that I used. I would, however, instead of drawing a contiguous 'road' type route in the water, why not just use the round erase brush in Photoshop to make transparent dots in the water for the route??? Just select right sized eraser dot. Piece of cake! Gary

============ Thanks...Brain lock!!! I just added it. Gary

Greetings, This slideshow covers 3 days of our 23 day trip through Croatia and Slovenia this year. It shows our stay in Dubrovnik and a day trip down to Kotor, Montenegro. The show is in 16x9; 62.5Mb; NAV bar is active; 15:28 in length. Finding Croatian music that works in a slideshow was almost impossible. The show is long, but the that is what the Nav bar is for! I tried a few new 'tricks', like creating a font in 'old stone' and a route map. If you have been down that way, maybe it will provide some good memories. If you haven't been to Croatia and Slovenia, you have to put them on your list. I still have to work on the images of the remaining 20 days of the trip!!!! (over 1,500 images) Hope you enjoy the trip. Comments and critiques welcomed. Gary Beechbrook link: http://www.beechbrook.com/pte/downloadfile.asp?id=1874

====================== Ray, That bring back many memories. We drove from Nelson, down the west coast to Invercargil, and up to Christchurch, back in 1980. Beautiful country. Your pictures of the Moreaki Boulders reminded me where we almost got killed getting back on the road and forgetting that we should have been on the left side!!! I lost just about all of my pictures because my camera went on the fritz. Didn't know it until I got back. My first road map was done the way you did it and I think it is much more difficult then doing the transparent route as Lin and TheDom have demonstrated. But it is neat to use the car image. Thanks for the memories... I just uploaded my trip to Beechbrook with my route map in Dubrovnik and Kotor. Gary

================= Jan, After taking a look at TheDom's sample of his map-route, I see that my version of a map route was not as pristine as his. I made a boo-boo. In my last posting, I indicated that I had to rectify the black background that was showing through the map with the transparent route by changing the background to yellow to more closely match the other yellow routes on the map. I see that if I followed thedom's example (and Lin's), I should have just put in an original image of the map under the map with the transparent route (and under the red rectangles) so the original route would have just shown through the transparent route. I just did not get that point. This would really make it work so much better and easier. Gary

============== Igor... Thanks for your prompt response!!! Gary

================= Peter, It seems to me that your second proposal is just right. I hope Igor can do this programing, but I am sure he will have a solution. It seems to be a problem waiting to happen if you aren't aware of the potential conflict. I am surprised the lightbulb went off in my head to figure it out. Gary

================ Igor, I just figured out what the problem is. In addition to having the NAV bar, I configured the left mouse button to go to Previous Side (I never did this before). So when I use the left mouse in the NAV bar to go to Next Slide, I am confusing PTE and it doesn't know what to do. Sometimes it goes to the Previous, sometimes the Next Slide. So it is MY bug...sorry. But is there someway this can be fixed so this does not happen to someone else by mistake??? But I do notice that the NAV bar is not as responsive as it used to be. It takes several clicks and waiting for the slide to move to the next slide. Is that due to the larger image files I have, such as 200K to 300K? Though, using the keyboard arrows work much quicker to go to next or previous slides then the NAV bar. Thanks... Gary

================================ Igor, The original file is very large so I chopped it down to just a few images and it does show the problem. Here are the links to the exe and to the PTE files on MediaFire: http://www.mediafire.com/file/gyl8ha9hst34boo/Test%20Nav%20Bar.exe http://www.mediafire.com/file/9oo635dtu85r033/Test%20Nav%20Bar_Sep1-2010_15-31-12.zip I just looked at another show I have made with 6.5.2, and the NAV bar seems to be working OK. Maybe it is just a glich in this other example. Thanks for looking at it. Gary

============ Ken, If I read those links correctly, they are about looping back from the first slide to the last slide, using Previous Slide. That is not what I am talking about. When I am anywhere in the slide show, I just want hit Pause and use the Next Slide icon. It tends to go to the previous slide instead. Gary

Greetings, I just finished creating a show using 6.5.2. I included the Nav bar, as I usually do. During this process, I noticed that when I click on the Next Slide icon, it actually does a Previous Slide. It sends me back one slide. I was about to upload my final show to Beechbrook but I noticed it again in the final run-through. Can anyone duplicate this problem? Gary PS Sometimes it works correctly, but mostly it seems to do the Previous Slide.

================== Jan, Here is one that I just made. My first successful(?) attempt. After you have played it, change the Order of the map, in O&A, so that the map is sent to the back. Then you will see the 3 red rectangles (KotorRed) that actually fill in the route. The route was so wiggly, it was difficult to not have the red rectangles appear when they shouldn't have. So I needed to have the 3 separate red rectangles to get the job done. Getting them timed to flow properly was the difficult part...trial and error. The other thing that I did was dealing with the background color. The map did not cover the entire frame and the background of the slide was black. So this made the route, before the animation started, to be black (it showed through the transparent route). I changed the background to a yellow to more closely match the other yellow routes on the map. To hide the now yellow background, I had to add 2 black rectangles (KotorBlackSlide) to overlay and block out the yellow background that was showing at the top and the bottom of the map image. I hope this helps. I made it in 6.5.2 (the latest version). It might not play in earlier versions. Gary Kotor Map Route_Sep1-2010_7-39-23.zip

================= Ken, Thanks for the pointer to Lin's tutorial. I have to really thank Lin for this tutorial. I have been wondering how this 'trick' was done. I just gave it a try and I actually made a map with a moving route. It turned out fairly well. It is really fantastic that members of this forum take the time to help us that need the help. Sincerely, Gary

Greetings, I just was schooled in how the 'Sound Editor' (View/Advanced Options/Set Sound Editor) functions works (...or does not work). It only works after you have inputted a sound file using the 'Add Sound' icon (upper right hand corner of main screen). Then, the 'Edit Sound Comment' choice works, but only for any sound 'comments' added. So let me add my suggestion: Make it so the music files that are put in the Project Options/Music tab have the same ability to be opened in the selected sound editor as it does for music added with the 'Add Sound' function. And change 'Add Sound' to 'Add Sound to Current Slide' (yes, the mouseover is there but it would be better, I think, to add the full description on screen). Also, the word 'comment' has little meaning to me, in the audio sense. Perhaps, change the 'Edit Sound Comment to 'Edit Sound Added to Current Slide'? Thanks... Gary

============== Peter.... Aaaaaaaahhh.... . That dang little button, I have used it before but my bifocals just didn't let me notice it again. Thanks. And I see now that the Edit Sound Comment will take me into Audacity!!! Beautiful. And if I click on 'Don't interrupt sound comment...' the sound effect continues even if the slide advances to the next slide...super!!! Thanks for the help. Now wouldn't it be even neater if the 'Add Sound' menu had the 'offset' capability to be more precise in placement of the sound during the display of the image??? Why was it left out in this menu??? Much thanks, nobeefstu and Peter, for solving my questions. Gary

================ nobeefstu, I am still confused, of course. I don't see any choice to "Add Sound". I only see "Add Music". And my "Edit Sound Comment" is greyed-out, I guess until I figure out how to do the "Add Sound". What does "...Comment" mean?? Can you tell me where the "Add Sound" selection is? When the word "Sound" is used, I am assuming that it is referring to a 'sound effects',such as a wav, not music. And are you saying that setting the Sound Editor is there for no reason? Why can't it be made to actually pull up your sound editor, as would be a neat function??? Here is a more direct question, in the same topic. Say I want to add a sound effect (wav file) at a particular slide. The only way I can figure out how to add this sound effect file is to put it in the Music tab, using Add Music, in its separate Track. Then I have to go into the custom menu and set the "offset" to 'push' the sound to the point where I want it to play. That takes a bit of trial and error. Got to be a better way??? If this can be done, with the 'Synchronize Music and Slides' choice selected, why can't this simply be done in the more logical place of the Customize Slide menu, with the ability to 'push' or 'pull' that sound from the beginning of that selected slide,to be able to place it more precisely? Thanks for your help. Gary

Greetings, I set the "Sound Editor" to Audacity in the "View/Advanced Options". However, I can not figure out how to actually active the sound editing function. Can someone point me in the right direction? I am expecting to be able to click on something and the sound file will open up directly in Audacity, as it works for the Graphical Editor. Thanks... Gary

=============== Igor, Sorry it has taken so long to respond. Either I was traveling or my friend was traveling. I finally was able to test out your request on his plasma TV. I created an MP4 video file using the 'iPhone preset', as you stated. I tried to play the show from a thumbdrive (flashdrive) directly inserted into the USB port of his plasma TV. It did not recognize the file. Maybe it does not recognize any video file. I then tried to play it using my 'WD media player' box and it was plugged into the same USB port and it did play just fine. Gary

============ Or the right mouse button. Gary