alrobin

Connie, Try this link for Audacity. This may solve the problem. Someone else had problems with multiple music files. We would need a little more information about your system to be able to prescribe further measures. Also, a little more about the show (such as whether it is auto or custom synched, how tight (close together) the transitions are, etc.). Igor may have the solution for you when he releases version 4.10 monday with the new internal mp3 player. Good luck.

The program is probably sitting there trying to figure out, if the author wanted a slide to display for only zero milliseconds, why he would put it there in the first place??

Good news, Igor! You must have been working overtime the last few weeks! The ability to retain certain default options for customized slides will be a handy feature. I hope, too, we will be able to modify the customized effect from the timeline???? Please??

Are you using version 4.01? The bread works for me!

Rooskidiver, You can test the synchronization from any selected slide transition both on the timeline and in the main window. On the timeline there are two ways: 1. Start the show playing, select "pause", select any point on the timeline (identified by the little blue moving triangle), by clicking on the timeline, and then select "play" again. 2. Select the desired slide transition as identified by a numbered rectangle, and click on "Preview" at the bottom right-hand corner of the timeline window. In the main window, select the slide by highlighting it in the slide list, then click on the little "loaf of bread" at the bottom right of the preview window.

Barry, I signed off before answering your remaining questions. There is no easy way to rename slides within PTE. You can rename the slide in the text bar next to "Show Image", but you will have to similarly rename the image itself for PTE to recognize it. However, you can use a utility like IrfanView to batch rename the slides, as long as you select the new names so that they will appear in the same order in the destination folder as in the original, and then simply replace the old slides with the renamed slides (after backing-up the old folder, of course). If you just want to change the pathnames, you can do this either individually or in bulk in my Adjustor model. As for sending suggestions to WnSoft, just posting them here in the forum will suffice as Igor reads these messages regularly. Alternatively, you could send an email directly to Wnsoft.

Rooskidiver, Welcome to the forum. One thing to remember is that if you have synchronized to music, the show will stop when the music finishes. As you probably know, there are two ways to synchronize to music: 1. Automatic synchronization, and 2. Custom synchronization. If you have selected automatic mode, each slide, including the last one, will stay on-screen the same length of time. So, there is no way to extend the time of the last slide without selecting automatic mode, and moving the start of the transition to the last slide back 2 seconds in time. Then the time on screen for the previous slide will be shortened by 2 seconds. Kirk's suggestion is a good one - however, if you add a slide, and then rearrange the time points on the timeline by clicking on "Timed Points" and selecting "arrange existing points", each slide, including the last two will be on-screen the same length of time, a time which is slightly shorter than the previous time, because there are now more slides to accommodate. And the last slide will appear twice, for almost 12 seconds, not the 8 seconds you desire. There are at least three ways to correct this. One is to manually rearrange the last few slides of the show so that all of them, except the last one, is on-screen for a slightly longer time, and set the last one to be on-screen for only 2 seconds. This may not be acceptable. If not, there are two other ways to solve the problem. The first, is to use a music editor to lengthen the music by two seconds, and use it to replace the music already selected, without touching the timeline positions. If this is not suitable, and if you have MS Excel 97 or better, you can download my free Adjustor spreadsheet model and use it to precisely adjust the timing in the show so that the last slide stays on for the desired 8 seconds. This can be accomplished by "pegging" the time of the transition to the last slide at the value desired, and then automatically spreading the remaining slides over the rest of the time. If you need some assistance in this, feel free to drop me an email.

Barry, On the timeline window the spacebar repeats the latest command used. For instance, if you hit "Play", and then the spacebar, the timeline preview will pause. The next spacebar action will toggle it to play, and so on. Similarly, if you first click on "New transition", then each subsequent pressing of the spacebar will add a new transition.

Aha, Welcome to the forum. I had a similar occurrence when I used my music editor to change an mp3 file while I was working in PTE, and then when I went back to PTE without closing the music editor, I received a similar message. PTE was trying to tell me that the music selection was still being used. Try closing all the music programs, including any which are sitting there open in the background, and then open PTE again and see if that helps. If not, then try removing the codecs to ensure that they are the problem.

bbdigital, The audio could be a problem. Or it could be that you are using an image too large for the pc resources available, or else cutting the timing too close in having a new slide come in before the previous transition has completed its operation. I find I have to leave 1/2 to 1-sec "space" between the completion of a transition and the start of the next. Also, I find that image sizes between 50 and 150 kb in size work best. Or, it could be that your pc is busy doing other things in the background and things get "jammed up" at times due to all of the tasks which have to be done. You wouldn't necessarily notice this from the timeline as the images used there are small, and the load on the processor is much less than in the actual show, or in the full-size preview from the main PTE window. Try to experiment keeping these factors in mind and see if that helps at all.

Ken, your're right, the Pentax screw mount was a real classic (I remember when the new-fangled Nikon bayonet mounts were considered inferior because they would "loosen up" with time, and not focus as sharply. ) My first camera was a Pentax, too, but when it was stolen, I moved on to Nikon which I have been using ever since. Re the new digital back, it used to be that one would buy cheaper Tamron, Sigma, and Vivitar lenses to go with the expensive camera backs; now it's a matter of wanting a cheaper digital back to go with the expensive lenses.

nobeefstu, What about the contact email on his web site? ( harry@photoimpressionspresents.com )

Welcome to the forum, John. Bill said it all. I first tried out PTE over a year ago, and was impressed by the quality of the dissolve - better than anything else I had tested. However, I did not subscribe to it as it lacked the capability to custom-synchronize a show to music, a must for a serious audio-visual tool. As soon as custom sync was added, I was sold completely on it. These are the two most important features for me. It has many other valuable features, but what it lacks, I can easily accomplish with other programs, as Bill says. It is quite customary for a desk-top editor, for instance, to employ four or five different programs in putting together a publication. So, creating an AV show is really no different in this respect. And PTE has one added bonus - what it doesn't provide, and what is not available elsewhere, with a few programming skills, you can create yourself, something that not many other programs will allow you to do so readily!

Sue, The editing will be on the network drive - the new drive is just a sort of "shortcut" to the network drive. When you are finished using it, you can "Disconnect" it from the same menu. No data will be lost.

Hi, Sue, In Windows Explorer, select menu item, "Tools / Map Network Drive". You will be automatically given a drive letter. In "Path", select the folder you wish to access in PTE.

Thanks for the plug, Jim. However, once Igor adds the light-table to PTE, plus all the other new features promised, we won't need the Adjustor!

Ray, Here is another interesting Photoshop Tutorial site - and it's free!

Ray, There are many tutorials on the web - go to Google and do a search. Here are just a few of them: Al Mackey, Adobe (with Russell Brown) (you will need Quick Time), Dolls of Flavour, Graphic Designer. Hope this helps.

Bill, Yes, this would be a good idea. By the way, if you simply enlarge the canvas, with a white background, you will have your white border. However, if you use a dark background for the extra canvas area, and then use the "edit/stroke" method to add the white border, there will be little dark rectangles (like old-fashioned photo-album sticky corner mounts) at each corner, 1/2 the width of the border. An even more interesting effect can be achieved by enlarging the canvas using a dark background, and then using "select all" and "select / modify border" and then "edit / fill" with white foreground colour to add a border which fades off gradually into the picture area. (underlined section edited after initial posting).

You can easily create a macro in Photoshop to automatically apply a white border of a certain thickness with a single key-stroke for each image open in the program. Not exactly "batch" mode, but the next best to it. Don't know about other programs, but I wouldn't be surprised if some of the software packaged with digital cameras and scanners would also provide this capability.

Joy, Further to my previous note, don't "save as" a show you want to keep as your image settings will be lost. Addendum: I went back and tried it more carefully, and when I uncheck the box, it does remain unchecked without having to save the file. However, if I then check the box again, it doesn't load any show since it assumes that the last show was not loaded. You then have to load a show first to make the "load last used project" take effect.

Joy, If you save the .pte file after you uncheck the box, it should stay unchecked until you enable it again.

I usually use image sizes no larger than 1024 x 768 pixels, compressed to a factor of around 50. This gives me image files of around 100 to 150 kb in size. And they still project quite well - well enough for our Camera Club presentations and competitions. I set the jpeg quality in Photoshop, but you can also use a free utility such as IrfanView, or a whole host of other programs such as the ones supplied with digital cameras and scanners. I find it hard to understand why your mp3 music plays faster on one pc than another. And, if the slides are synched to the music, they should cue in according to the settings, unless the file sizes are too large, or the transitions are too long, in which case you will usually see glitches, with some slides repeating, or the music skipping or stopping altogether. Test out a new version of the show with fast transitions, and smaller images to see if the problem is with someone's hardware, or mp3 program, and not the show itself. Also, when these problems occur, disable any programs running in the background (even virus checkers), but especially fax programs, email and web browsers (my email program, itself, takes up a lot of RAM space, even when it is just sitting there waiting for mail). Best of luck!

Cindy, The only way to achieve consistency across a number of pc's is to sync the show to the music. This takes a little more "fiddling" to arrange the images, and to make sure there are no glitches due to incompatible transition/delay timing, but it's worth it in the end.

Richard, Welcome to the Forum! I tried out an example of what you described and everything worked fine for me. Maybe it has something to do with the timing in the show. Are you using the internal player? Try using different (shorter) transition times, arranging the last slide not to occur on a change in the music selection, etc., and see if anything works. If not, email me a copy of your ".pte" file (without the images or music, except those images, if any, used for "objects" on the last slide), and I'll try to see what's up.