jevans

Really enjoyed your show. Nice to see a new part of the world and also your companions on the walk. I have made a few "walking" shows myself , but I always get told off by the others on the walk for lagging behind to take the photos. Maybe the duration of each slide could have been a little longer. I tend to use 7s with a 3s fade as my default but of course it is a personal preference. Some questions for you. Can you explain how you set up the show to be controlled by the spacebar and arrow keys without the navigation bar showing and yet enable the show to run continuously. That is a rather useful feature. Secondly I am interested in the aspect ratio you have chosen. On my 19 inch monitor running at 1280 x 1024, there are black bands at the top and bottom of the image when the show is run. So I guess you have a camera which produces a 3:2 image (e.g. Nikon at 3873 x 2592) and you have just scaled the image down in Photoshop without any cropping to use the whole of the image. Then you have selected a slide aspect ratio of 3:2 in the"project options", "screen" tab. . Is this what you have done? If so, did you consider using the "cover slide" function in the O&A window and accept the loss of some of each image at either side? This would have produced a full screen display. Of course you may have a widescreen monitor in which case you would want to keep the aspect ratio unchanged. Regards Jeff

This is the first show I had done with the latest version of PTE. I have explored the use of the O&A functions in producing the title page and also for a few slides where I think pan/zoom can add something to the presentation. Any comments welcome. Jeff

Ron, Although I have not tried to connect my computer to my wide screen tv, I think your problem is probably due to the fact that your graphics card will still be set up for your monitor. If you look in the "project options", "screen" tab, you will see that PTE recognises your monitor setup. So say you have a 1280 x 1024 setting on a 19 inch monitor, when you connect to the tv, that is the picture size you will get. What you are discovering is a problem that I am wrestling with at present. My Nikon D80 takes 3:2 aspect ratio images (e.g. 3872 x 2592 pixels). Now I want to watch my shows full screen on a 19 inch monitor set to 1280 x 1024 (5:4 aspect ratio). Of course I can crop the images in Photoshop. But if you have a lot of images, I prefer to batch process them and just resize rather than crop. So I end up with 3:2 images. Now PTE allows you to set up the default size of the images in the "screen" tab. You can select from a range of standard settings or specify your own setting. So I select a 5:4 slide and use the "cover slide" function in the O&A window. I lose some of the image on either side by doing this, but I would still lose some of the original image if I had cropped it. Unfortunately the default setting on the O&A window is "fit to slide" and you cannot change it. This is a feature I have requested for the next version. By doing this I view my slide show in full screen ( no black lines at the top and bottom) and can still project it via an av digital projector set at 4:3( 1024 x 768). What I think you may have to do is create a special slide show in which you set the PTE slide aspect ratio to 16:9 and then use "cover slide" to fill the image. Jeff

Hello Patrick, I am not trying to convince you one way or another, but here are some more comments. On my computer, the mosaic effects work satisfactorily in Version 5 - mid I have a good quality graphics card with 256MB RAM on board. I cannot comment on how a previous show made using 4.48 would work with the mosaic effect when run under Version 5 as I have not used this transition before. Also I have never used the transition to the desktop and cannot see how I might use this in the type of shows I do. As I said before, I think Version 5 may have too many features, but I will probably be proved wrong by the talented and artistic members of this forum when we see what they produce. But Version 5 has some brilliant features. Mind I am not going to re-work any of my old shows into Version 5. Just use it for new shows from no on. If I don't want to use some of the facilities, then I won't. I like to make historical shows. In Version 5 I can show a complete building, then zoom in to one part where there is an information plate and blow this plate up so that it can be read by the viewer. I can put a number of png files onto one image and resize them to get the best fit without having to keep re-doing then in Photoshop. I can have better titles and credits, etc., etc. Well worth trying. Jeff

Patrick, Although I have a certain sympathy with your view and have a few concerns as to whether the large range of facilities now available in Version 5 will really enhance our av experience, I have decided to move permanently to Version 5. I have tried some of my old av shows with the new version and, so far, have not had any problems. I showed an av show made with Version 5 at our photographic club last night. The club's computer has a relatively poor graphics performance compared to mine at home, but all the new transitions, pans/zooms worked well without any problems. Igor and his team have made a great job of the new version. Maybe I will not use all the features, but the ability to add, move and size individual objects to make a composite image is a great feature and there are certainly many instances where pan/zoom/rotate can be used very effectively. I know that often we have a reluctance to move away from our familiar software. I am still using Office 2000 and will not change until I have no option. I was very happy with Version 4.48 but now think that the features and facilities in Version 5 make upgrading a positive experience. Jeff

Just to add a cautionary note to the "customize slide" indicator. At present this will only show if you change the slide to use its own transition. If you alter the time, the "P" indicator will not show. Jeff

Hi Lin, Great panorama. Runs very smoothly except for very slight hesitation near the end. Same problem with text not fitting the screen as you have realised. My system is : Win Xp SP2 CPU 1.15 AMD Athlone 2.5GB memory (I do a lot of work in Photoshop !) Graphics Nvidia GEForce 7300 GT with 256 MB on card memory Video Mode 1280 x 1024 highest bit colour, 70Khz When using a panorama, I think the overall length is limited by the total window size in the O&A edit window. Is that correct or is there some way of having a much longer panorama by joining successive slides? Regards Jeff

So far Version 5 has been in a development stage but it appears now to be nearing completion. Most (if not all) of the features are functional and shows with fully synchronised music and commentary can be made. During the development stage, many forum members such as Lin Evans, Dominique etc. have been experimenting with the various possible effects and have produced some stunning results. However I wonder how many of these will actually be incorporated into complete av shows. My (very limited) experience with producing and watching av shows is that they are either produced for competitive reasons, as a record of a holiday trip, or maybe, as I like to do, to present the results of some research into a historical topic in a visual form. So I have been considering the sort of facilities which Version 5 provides and examining which of these might improve the impact of my shows. Here is my list so far : - To provide more interesting titles and general text additions (e.g. image labels, credits etc.) - As a very flexible way of adding supplementary images to a base image in one composite slide - As a means of arranging a number of images on one slide and have the flexibility to move/resize individual images - As a means of emphasis : e.g. showing a building with a label and then zooming into the label so that it can be read - General panning of large landscapes - Zooming into images to focus attention on a specific object or out to show an objects context I would be interested to hear the views of other forum members about the effects they have considered in producing their av shows. Jeff

Paul, This is a subject that is interesting me just now. I have an old slide show (done in Version 4.48) where the images are 1024 x 768, i.e. an aspect ratio of 4:3. In Version 4.48, I always created my shows with the "fit to screen" option ticked so that the images would fill the maximum amount of screen - I have an Ilyama LCD 19 inch monitor whose native resolution is 1280 x 1024, i.e aspect ratio of 5:4. If you run this show in Version 5, you cannot see any difference between Version 4.48 and Version 5. In Version 5, the screen size handling is different. The default settings (at present!) are : Slide aspect ratio = 4:3 Objects and animation window, common tab, "fit to screen" When you put images into Version 5, it first assumes an image aspect ratio of 4:3 and secondly tries to fit the image into this aspect ratio by taking the largest dimension (width or height) and reducing this to fit into a 4:3 rectangle. Of course if your images have a different aspect ratio, you can select the appropriate value from the drop down list on the "project options", "screen" tab, "aspect ratio of slide". There is even a "custom" option so that you can set your own aspect ratio. For example, if like me you have a Nikon D80 which produces 3872 x 2592 images (3:2), you can set the the aspect ratio to 15:10 (or 3:2) which matches the actual image. Now the default setting of "fit to slide" will result in the black rectangle representing the viewable area, being fully used. Of course you still have the problem that projected slide shows generally use a default aspect ratio of 4:3 (1024 x 768). I have not had a chance to see what happens when I create a show using 15:10 and then project it with a project which is set to 4:3, but I think it will be ok. Regarding Al's point that you can always adjust you monitor resolution when viewing slide shows, which are intended for projection, on your monitor. But I prefer not to do this if possible. Jeff

Paul, Just try this. Put a slide into PTE Version 17. Click on "Project Options" and then select the "screen" tab. Make sure the "aspect ratio of a slide" is selected to the same aspect ratio as the slide you have added. No exit "project options". No selecting the slide you have added, click on the "objects and animation" button. Set the screen size to 50% (drop down box at the top of the screen). You should now see a black rectangle with your slide adjusted so that the height is the same as the black rectangle. Select the "common" tab and look to see that the "mode" shows "fit to slide". This is the default setting. The black rectangle has the same aspect ratio as you select for a slide in the "project options, screen " tab and the default program setting is to fit any slide to the height of this rectangle. You can change this by selecting one of the other options in the "common" tab using the "mode" setting. Jeff

Carl, Not sure whether I completely understand your problem but can you not make the required frame in Photoshop. This would have the blue background and frame for the images to appear in etc. Load this into a slide position. Now add your image, making sure that the frame is at the top and the image is underneath. No you can zoom/pan etc the image and it will be masked by the frame. Jeff

Yes Ken you are right. But often a topic starts and then wanders off into a related subject. I could not post a reply into the tutorial section when replying to a previous post here - unless you can show me how to do it?? Jeff

I have previously written two pdf guides for previous versions of PTE and these are available on The Dom's excellent web site. Of course these have been overtaken by events, but I am prepared to have a go at updating them once I am sure that we have reached a stable version of PTE. Many forum members have produced useful tutorials covering various functions (e.g. Lin Evans and Ronnie), but what I have in mind is more a reference guide. When I am using some new software, I personally find it very useful to have some documentation available where I can look up the purpose of a particular function. This is what I would propose to do. For example, take the O&A window and describe the function of each of the controls. This will be quite a long project but i would be interested to hear any views on the usefulness or otherwise of this approach. I do not want to spend a lot of time for no useful purpose. Jeff

Hi Dom, I am very impressed with all the effort you must put in to these effects and the stunning results. What a fertile imagination you must have. The only comments I would make about your latest effort is that I would prefer the envelope not to appear at an angle and then rotate to be level at the beginning. Also I do not like the transitions when the photos are opened. The zoom out followed by fade is a bit distracting. However this is just a personal opinion. My favourite type of AV shows tend to be historical, describing a place, feature or event which I have researched. So I do not usually include special effects. However some of the techniques you are producing will give an added interest, provided I do not use them too much. My criterion for using any of the wonderful effects that we can now get with Version 5 is that they must add something positive to an AV show and have a particular purpose. But I am sure I can use some of your effects to add impact to my shows. Thanks for all your efforts. Jeff

Paul, Yes this is what I was after. I have a series of menu slides in my master show PTE file which call up individual shows. I have not yet converted this to Version 5 but was wondering how to hold each menu slide. You solution is the answer. Thanks Jeff

Al, This is a great tool somewhat in the mode of SY(p) which I was hoping would be updated to cater for Version 5. You have done a very good job. Jeff

Al, Lin, Thanks for answer. Does this feature replace the feature in 4.48 of disabling the slide duration, which is what we used for manually controlled shows to show menu screens (e.g. display each slide for x secs in Project Options Main tab). As this feature is not longer available (although Igor has said that he will re-instate it), we need some other technique to hold a menu slide until a particular choice is selected. If so I would have prefer the original technique in 4.48. Jeff

Al, Sorry I don't follow this. What is the new "looping" feature and where is it located? Jeff

The topic of aspect ratios has been discussed many times before but, with Version 5, I think there might be a slightly different twist. The issue arises from the different aspect ratios of monitors (e.g. my 19 inch monitor has a resolution of 1280 x 1024, 5:4) and cameras (e.g. my Nikon D80 has a resolution of 3872 x 1024, 6:4) and the standards for AV projection which are 1024 x 768, 4:3). The default setting in "Common" tab of the O&A window of Version 5 is "fit to slide". This works to constrain the width of an image to the screen width as set on "Project Options - Screen" tab. There is no way to change this default setting except on a slide by slide basis. Thus with Nikon D80 images, the choices are : Keep the original aspect ratio, thus seeing the whole image, but resulting in a black border at the top and bottom of the monitor. Manually crop each image to an aspect ratio of 5:4 and accept the loss of part of the image. Resize to, say, 1536 x 1024 and set to "Original" or "Cover slide" in the "Common tab. In Option 2 and 3, you lose some of the image but the remaining image fills the screen. Individually cropping each image is far too time consuming, thus Option 3 is my preferred choice unless I must see the whole image in which case it is Option 1. However to use Option 3, I have to set each slide individually to "Original" or "Cover Slide". Could this setting adjustment not be added into the "Screen" tab of "Project Options" as a setting which can be applied globally to all slides? Regards Jeff

Not sure whether I have misunderstood this post, but I am currently trying out a project using Beta 12 and, when in the timeline window with a sound file attached, I can hear the sound playing. Did you mean, hear the sound file whilst in the Objects and Animation window ? because that is not possible at present. When in the timeline window, you cannot see the effect of animations, but that is only to be expected. Jeff

Thanks Peter, There has been a great deal of discussion in our photo club about calibration and also quite a bit of experimentation. so far the results seem to be poor and colour management has been abandoned for the moment. Ken has given some useful links, but reading these just confuses me even more. The main problem I have had is preparing images in Photoshop for use in av sequences. I shoot in RAW and the converter sometimes produces images, which although look ok on my monitor, are too dark when projected. Of course this might be the projector settings, but I have experimented with these also and also different projectors. What I think I will try is your suggestion of using Spyder. When printing, there is obviously the same problem but I can get a good result by using test prints and adjusting the printer settings. Anyway thanks for your suggestions and comments. Regards Jeff

This is not an answer to your query but I am interested in your profiling of your monitor. I have an LCD Iilyama on which I can adjust brightness, contrast, colour temperature and gamma. Is it possible to calibrate this type of monitor and what do you need to do it. I do a lot of photography with printing of A3 prints for competitions and also produce av shows for our photographic club and have had problems in matching the image on the monitor to the projected image. Although some members in our club have tried calibration, none have been successful so far. Regards Jeff

Tim, I believe that what you are trying to do is not possible automatically. Say you add slides 1-60 and then add your first song. You can set the slides to have equal intervals over the length of the song by using the feature in the timeline "Timed Points - Arrange All Points" and making sure that there is a tick in the box labelled "Synchronise music and slides". Now add the remaining slides and add your second piece of music. In the Timeline window, move the last slide manually so that the end of the slide coincides with the end of the music. Now select all of the second batch of slides and use "Timed Points - Arrange Selected Points". What this should do is distribute the second batch of slides at equal intervals along the track length of the second song. I have not tried this in the latest Beta 11A version but I think it should work. Regards Jeff

I would like to second this comment. PTE is a fantastic product and the purchase price is ridiculously low when compared to other software. The huge effort to cater for all the comments/suggestions and produce such a splendid result is truly amazing. The team deserve a gold star. Jeff

I am responding to various comments made by Lin and the original comment made by foto1 which started this topic. Firstly I agree with foto1, that the facility in Version 4.48 to disable slide timings was very useful and I am not sure why this has been removed. Perhaps it is an inevitable result of the way Version 5 works with the objects and animation facility and thus could not be retained. Lin, your example of using buttons, incorporated the new zoom/pan features and thus, if you disabled the slide timing, this presumably would not have worked. I know that you have given various work-around solutions to this. But that is what they are, work-arounds. Also we can continue to use Version 4.48 for static slide shows. Whilst this is a possible solution it means keeping two version of the program on the go which is less than ideal. I think that what foto1 was after was just a simple presentation of static slides (no zoom/pan etc) with the ability to keep a slide on the screen for as long as possible and then move on (or back). If Igor has removed the "Display each slide for" facility because it is not compatible with the way Version 5 works, then there is nothing more to be said. However it would be nice to have it retained. Regarding the buttons and slide numbering, once you understand that the slide numbers start at zero, then all becomes clear and it is easy to implement. But surely this is a bug. That is not what happens in Version 4.48. Slide numbers start at 1 not zero. Jeff