JRR

Bill just loaded our latest Florida presentation on Beechbrook: "Florida Animal Adventures" This is the third in a series of presentations my wife and I have done based on a Florida trip in Feb of 2006. The second presentation: "Pampered Plumes" is still available on Beechbrook. The first: Feathered friends" is no longer on Beechbrook. Once again, any and all constructive criticism is more than welcome.

The second show from our February 2006 Florida trip is now available on Beechbrook. The first "Floridian Feathered Friends" was on Beechbrook for a while. More shows from the trip will come in due course, in the meantime any and all contructive criticism is welcome as always

Igor The WAV file seems to be working fine this morning. I tried it several times last night (Always from the PLAY in TIMELINE) and it was garbled, but this morning it is fine. I have not rebooted the computer since last night and the same sessions are open as were open last night. As always thanks for the quick response but this time it seems there is nothing to worry about. (In North America we always joke that when you take youtr car in to be fixed, the fault you are bringing it in for does not display itself - same thing PTE maybe ? )

Igor: I have still not tried beta 5’s effects as I am busy preparing shows in 4.43. But I did happen to try it today to see if it would help me with the shows I am working on now. I have the voice-over sound bites in the SOUND line on the main screen and the background music in via MUSIC in PROJECT OPTIONS In current versions of PTE the SOUND line could NOT be heard when previewed via the TIMELINE. Last fall when I asked for that to be changed you hoped it would be in changed in Ver 5. When I opened the "in-progress" show in Ver 5, the SOUND could not be heard via the TIMELINE although the background music could. That could mean: - you have not “turned on” this aspect yet in Ver 5, or - that you did not make this change in version 5, or - that it is a bug. BUT when I played the TIMELINE, the music was VERY garbled. Again this could be something not turned on, or a bug. The background music is a 12 minute wav file and the sound bites are all wav files. They will be changed to MP3s in the final version of the show (The rationale for this was discussed a while back in the forum) I just wanted to let you know in case it was a bug. In the meantime I will go back to 4.43 and let the experts work with beta 5.3

For those who do not watch the PTE Presentations forum, there is a new show available there entitled "One Flower". Other than Igor's Flowers, this is the first Ver5 demo that runs 99.44% smoothly on my PC and laptop GeForce FxGo5200 and GeForce 2 GTS

Ignatius Nice ver 5 demo What file sizes did you use ? (pixel by pixel) and kb This is one of the first VER5 shows that runs almost flawlessly on my PC (Other than Igo's flowers)

For those who have a more serious birding interest.... There were a few errors in the presentation: - the black headed vulture should have been black vulture - the bottom right “warbler” at the end is a gnatcatcher - The marsh hen is really a common moorhen - the roseated spoonbill is really a roseate spoonbill - the northern shrike is a loggerhead shrike I will be making corrections....

Igor: Ran better than first version. PC GeForce 2GTS: Still a little jerky when second object starts Laptop GeForce FxGo5200: less jerky than PC, but still a few "shimmers"

Ian: as with all the other demos, sorry but your wonderful show did not run smoothly on my PC (GeForce 2GTS) Title was quite smooth until the end then got jerky. The shuttle was VERY jerky streaking across the sky At that point I stopped watching as I expected the same problems with the other demos Ver 5 is really only effective on the "high end cards" as has been stated and proven to date. The others of us will be bowing out of PTE 5 and sticking with 4.48 (or going elsewhere for less effective effects, but still doable to a point.)

Lumenlux I just tried the three shows on my laptop with a GeForce FX Go 5200 32mb/64mb card (That I understand is a better card than the PC card per above) Results were slightly worse than with the PC. Title was jumpy on all three files Hope that helps

Lumenlux: I tried all three on my computer with GeForce2GTS (memory ??) All three had jumpiness. Title jumped on 9 and 17mb file, but was smooth on largest file There were smooth effects in all versions (same ones generally) Overall, 21mb file was best, 9mb nexxt best and the 16mb file the "worst"

Nickles: All effects were jerky on my computer. It is a relatively new computer but (to make a long story short) with a NVidia GeFroce 2GTS card (I haven't been able to figure out how much memory it has, but obviously not enough )

Nickles: As Igor says, a few years ago the FADE was not fully effective on all but the latest computers. Now the same is happening with ver 5, except I suspect to more of a degree. None of our computers will run any of the samples (except the flowers show) smoothly. Like you, my "customers" won't have the horsepower to watch a ver 5 smoothly. Which means that I likely won't be using the full advantages of ver 5 for sometime to come. But then to use ver 5 effectively - "show off your images, not the software" one needs a lot of creativity and that is something I am lacking. Currently during the testing the latter is happening which is natural and accepted. I suspect once we have a final version of ver5, we will be able to work out what new effects we can use effectively (smaller files etc as you say) and we will all be better for it. (But in the meantime I am feeling "leftout" <grin> . )

Very nice quick study. Not quite smooth on my machine when there are two effects at the same time (GeForce 2Pro/2GDS card) I hope everyone takes not of your "actually over-using" comment. Your show is a great demo which is what it is intended to be, but I have seen shows from the competition software where they actually did use pan or zoom on EVERY shot for no apparent reason. Lin, what size were the images that you used. Both pixels dimensions and kb size pls thanks

Igor: I think as you say you have lots of feedback re various video cards. I know we will sort it all out in the weeks to come, but what sizes (KB) are the files in the two shows? I realize PTESHOW has larger file sizes (KB) with the 2400x1500 pixel sizes vs the 1024x768 Flowers show. But for those of us who might not be upgrading to another video card for the full dizzying effects it would be nice to know where to start our experiments with file (KB) sizes CONGRATS !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Thanks

PC has GeForce 2 PRO/GTS which I put in the poll Laptop has GeForce FX GO 5200

They were all in wild (including the two sandhill cranes who were fully-flighted and could come and go at their will) shot in about 7-8 locations in Florida. Appreciate the suggestion re the sound track

Adri and Daniel: Thank you for your comments. We have shown the presentation to other than senior citizen homes and it has been well received. I mentioned the audience as when I set out to do a show who the targetted audience is one of the first decisions to make. That helps to determine the length and the approach to take. We take many of our shows to retirement homes as well as showing them at schools, libraries, nature groups, photo clubs etc etc. So I try to decide on my main audience for each show. Fifteen minutes is a long show to sit through, but I know from experience that is the maximum length seniors can sit through if they are interested in the topic. I also know they will not be overly critical of the photography so I can include some shots that are not technically quite right (some burned out areas, not quite focussed etc) but that let me tell a story. Birders generally don't want the narration, just back ground music, and if the shots are good and varied they will gladly sit through a longer show with many images up longer than the "norm". Photographers on the other hand generally want shorter shows of excellent quality images. Schools and general audiences will sit through a 5-8 minute show that tells a story (if it captures their attention) before moving on to another presentation.

Ruth: Al is right, sorry I forgot that I registered to get to that page. SORRY !!!! Al: I am not sure, but I know Chris Cox is. I am surprised no one seems to have picked up on his comment that there is a colour change with all conversions to jpg. (see my post #2 above)

Ruth: Click on the "Adobe User Forum" in my posting. It will take you directly to the particular thread on the User Forum

Now that Bill has his latest set of problems resolved (thank goodness Bill has such great dedication !! You'll notice a new presentation is available: Floridian Feathered Friends. This show combines images taken by my wife and myself on a trip to Florida this past February. We were overwhelmed with the variety and aceesibility of the birds. The show's primary audience is senior citizens in retirement homes as well as general audiences. Had I been aiming it at birders, or photographic audiences, I would have likely put the show together slightly differently. The show uses one background music mix, the voice-overs are individual sound bites inserted by the SOUND line. This has its pros and cons. One con being that you can't hear the sound bits when reviewing the show on the TIMELINE. I think (hope) Igor has this fixed in Ver 5.0. I have not reduced the background volume behind the voice overs as they seemed to be OK, but your views would be appreciated. Any and all comments are welcome.

Ronnie: Interesting observation that I was not aware of. I decided that I had not looked closely enough before. I don't have CS2, but I use the same script in CS via Russell Brown (see other thread re "multiresize or CS2") I ran some tests and still did not see a difference, but I checked the Adobe User Forums and came up with this: Adobe User Forum See the reply from Chris Cox at the bottom. Chris works for Adobe. Essentially he says any conversion from PSD to jpg can cause a colour difference......

Ruth: I sharpen each image as I see fit, less sharpening for more detail usually, but sharpening is a WHOLE other subject. BTW, save your images in sRGB and they will usually look better as PTE is not colour managed. PS: Wait until you get to the point that you will crop and re-size each image individually so as to get the best transformations possibles vis-a-vis having the prior image's contents line up (or not) as desired with the next image....

Gilbert: You might want to use the TEMPLATE option FILE>TEMPLATE>CREATE TEMPLATE for this show This will create a folder for you with the PTE file, the sound file and the images used in the show. (It will not copy the exe file though) Unless you tell it otherwise, the template folder is stored in the PROGRAM FILES with PTE. This is how I back up my shows. You can copy the contents of the template folder to a CD

Your quote is the real issue with pan and zoom as far as I am concerned. I have seen too many shows using other software that OVERUSE the P&Z to the point that I am not sure I will ever use it in PTE (I know I will, but...)