Lin Evans

Hi Tauratinzwe, It's a good learning experience. When any action creates positional relationships with independent parts it's necessary to have the full sized file including all the empty transparent space to keep the parts properly aligned in space. For example, let's say you had pieces of a puzzle and you wanted to move them about or begin a slide with the pieces scattered randomly then assemble them correctly. By having all the transparent space in the file, each piece is easily moved to its proper assembled location by simply setting the pan, and rotation values to zero and the size to 100%. Every piece is then positioned as it was when the original file was created. You could move each piece of the puzzle in any direction or position or distance and then cause each piece to find its proper assembled location by setting the pan and rotation values to zero. But when each file is trimmed to remove as much empty transparent space as possible, there is no simple reference point of zero to reassemble. Each individual piece would have it's own pan x or pan y value and it greatly complicates proper positioning. The value of trimming, of course, is file size. Removing the seemingly extraneous transparent space greatly reduces the size of each file and for components which are used as totally independent objects, trimming is of significant value. But anytime components must be in precise positional alignment with other components to create a whole, then never use the trim feature of Photoshop on export. By the way - I posted a sample of the waving fan on PanosFX for you with some more information.... Best regards and welcome to the PTE forum!, Lin

Hi Jeff, I can't really tell that the actual sound level of the background has changed because the voice over is much louder and tends to mask the background audio, but what about the audio waveform for the backgoround music - is there any perceptual visual change in that volume level? Are the numbers for the background audio in terms of volume identical before, during and after the voice clip? One way to perhaps better test this would be to add silent audio clips to a couple pictures so all you actually hear is the background audio but the mp3 audio clips for each slide are still being actuated. Then it would be easier to discern whether there were a "real" versus "perceptual" difference in the background sound track? Best regards, Lin

If you have the PTE file (filename.pte) and associated image files and sound files used to create them, then any previously created exe AV file can be output by current versions of PicturesToExe in native Mac exe format as well as in AVI or MP4, etc. Best regards, Lin

Hi Roy, PTE uses Windows to make a native Mac Executable file. Of course it also creates video files which run on a MacIntosh as well as on Window's PC's and various tablet and phone devices. Our users who have MacIntosh run various programs such as bootcamp, VMware Fusion, etc. to run PTE on their machines. In the future, there will be a dedicated MacIntosh version but it will be a while. Until then, it works perfectly using programs which permit Windows programs to run in a Mac environment. You may download a free trial version as well as purchase the product here: http://www.wnsoft.com Best regards, Lin

Hi Barry, I'm not aware of any tutorials on using the Unsharp Mask to oversharpen, but here is how I proceed. There are technically two ways to sharpen images with PicturestoExe. The first way is by going to the Properties Tab on the Objects and Animations screen, left click on the small down arrow, and pulling the "Sharper/Smoother" slider to the left. This process applies a sharpening effect (or if pulled to the right a smoother effect) to the currently selected image.This procedure is fairly subtle and affects the image regardless of the keyframe settings. This is to say that the setting can not be changed from one keyframe to another. The second way, and a more dynamic appearance, is done by clicking on the "Animation" tab and using the "Blur" tool. By sliding it to the left, a much stronger sharpening effect is accomplished. Unlike the Sharper/Smoother tool, this setting is keyframe dependent so that it's possible to totally blur or totally sharpen a selected image at any point along the timeline. If you apply the sharpening at the first keyframe and do not change it, the image will remain sharp for the duration. My suggestion would be to use both of these features to slightly oversharpen each slide before converting to a video which you later plan to upload to social media. This will compensate for the normal degredation of sharpness due to various reasons. The best way is to experiment with some very short videos. Best regards, Li

Very nice Robert - sad that it only lasted three years, but much better for Heather that if it had to end it was after three rather than thirty years... Best regards, Lin

Done... L

Hi Noppes, Did you try Igor's suggestion of creating a folder with a simple name and without using any symbols such as #, etc.? The available codecs on your system will depend a great deal on other software which has been installed. PTE is selecting the best default and if you haven't changed anything since the MP4's were created successfully I doubt that is the problem - actually I believe Igor has the solution. Try creating a simple folder such as C:\myslideshow and put a couple of slides in it. Then open PTE and add these two slides and try to create an MP4 from them saving it to that location and with simple names for the two slides with nothing other than alpha/numeric characters in the file names. No spaces or underlines of ASCII characters other than alpha characters and/or numbers. Let's try that first before looking for anything more complex. I had no problem creating the MP4 from your PTE file but I put the files in a unique and simple folder to work with. I'm betting that's the problem.. Best regards, Lin

Hi Mike, I agree fully with what has been said. What is important to keep in mind is that your shows are for an audience. The exact nature of your presentation will depend then on the type of audience you intend to reach and what you are trying to say. For example, if your show is primarily for photographers the quality and appearance of your slides is paramount. If your show is, for example, for engineers, their might be a different emphasis. If the intent is to tell a story with a moral or ethical message, then the approach might be different still. Only you can know your intent and the message you intend to convey so that the entire production is focused for the correct audience. Many users of PicturesToExe place their compositions in competitions and that brings yet another dimension to the whole. Many of my own shows are demonstrations of what PicturesToExe can do rather than slideshows for a particular audience so they may not be representative at all of what makes a good slideshow. For example, what you create for a family party, birthday celebration or wedding will differ greatly. The software is amenable to a wide variety of uses. The bottom line is that PTE is a powerful environment which allows the user to be the conductor of a symphony which may be amenable to numerous types of audiences. How you use it is up to you since you are the conductor! Best regards, Lin

Cool demo Dave - nice job! Lin

Nice job Mike, Excellent presentation - my only suggestion would be to kill the watermarks for your show. Since the majority of the images are smaller than full resolution, the probablility of theft is minimal and you can extend the time on credits on the endings. As photographers, we all tend to be protective of our images but truthfully, having even a plainly visible watermark is of little use for a determined thief who will simply clone it out anyway. Sometimes the hidden watermarks are more useful because the thief doesn't know where they are and the services which patrol the internet are adept at finding them. Sadly, many times one's good images appear on foreign websites and trying to prosecute the offender is almost impossible when the country and prevalent view of "intellectual theft is O.K" are not very helpful... Beautiful images and well thought out presentation. Best regards, Lin

Hi Noppes, I created an HD MP4 without any problems from your PTE file so I think we can assume that the problem is not PTE itself but more likely either a resource issue or possibly a codec issue. Here's a link to the zipped mp4 I created: http://www.lin-evans.org/test/test.zip What I did was choose all defaults in PTE for the HD video. First I would check to be absolutely certain that you have sufficient storage space on the hard drive, then, if no problem with storage space, try changing the Codec and see it that makes a difference. I don't recognize the Klaar codec myself, but there are so many that isn't meaningful. Also you might try downloading and reinstalling PTE before doing anything else just in case a file may have become corrupted.. Best regards, Lin

Hi Barry, Yes - when you go from an executable code to an mp4 there is a very good chance that when loading the show to YouTube, Facebook or other social media site that the default sharpness will be reduced by the re-codeing done by the host to accommodate their own proprietary video formats. By using unsharp mask to oversharpen your images you can compensate for the loss - that's been my experience. But other than blur and unsharp, etc., the very powerful feature of audio wave control is also present in the Deluxe PTE version. I find this to be a compelling reason for me to use the Deluxe version myself. Best regards, Lin

Hi Barry, Yes, you will not be able to view your executable except on a computer. You can send the executable file to others and it can be in MacIntosh or Windows format with PTE, but you can't post it to social media such as FB, Youtube, Vimeo, etc. As for the quality, in my own personal experience, Youtube gives better quality than FB but what is really the important thing is whether your slideshows are rather straight-forward with primarily just images, text and simple transitions or whether they contain complex animations. Animations in general do not work as well on video as they do in executable code. Executable files produced by PicturesToExe take advantage of the power of an advanced video card and produce sixty frame per second results which are truly great. Once the code is converted to video, for the most part only 24 frames per second or 30 frames per second are commonly used by services such as Youtube, Vimeo and Facebook. In addition, Facebook further degrades the performance by high compression and a change in the MP4 format to something proprietary to Facebook. If your show only contains nice images, text, audio and simple transitions such as fades or dissolves then I would suggest uploading directly to Facebook. If there is anything more detailed, then upload in full HD to Youtube or Vimeo. PicturesToExe can produce 60 frame per second video, but FB can't play it. Youtube can but sometimes doesn't do it smoothly and part of the reason has to do with the amount of data which can be forced through the bottleneck of the internet connect. People with really high speed internet will get better results than people with ordinary connect and transfer speeds. My suggestion is to take one of your shows and upload it to both FB and Youtube. Then play it back and see if you can easily distinguish any important differences. The choose the better of the two - Youtube with a link to FB or FB direct. Best regards, Lin

Barry, Keep in mind that you will not get the same quality of show, depending on your content (whether animation or not, etc.) from an MP4 as from your executable file. Then FB will further degrade the image quality of the video file you upload. It will look much better played directly from your own computer via your choice of player as the mp4 video file than when uploaded to FB and played back via a browser. FB renders your MP4 in their own proprietary format which greatly compresses the file and degrades it a good deal, especially if there is animation. It's just something we have to live with right now... Best regards, Lin

Hi Ken, I suspect Dave's sound asleep right now or he would reply. You don't need to be in the timeline to link an audio clip to a slide. Just highlight the slide in the slide list then right click on this slide. From the resulting menu, chose Audio Comment then Add Audio File. Browse to the file you want and left click on it, then click on "open". Now if you go to Project Options Audio, you will see if you highlight that audio file that it's been linked to the slide you highlighted. That's all there is to it.. The slide duration won't be automatically changed, but you can see what the time is then quickly click on the Main tab and change the slide duration to match the audio duration. Best regards, Lin

Hi Carmelo, I don't believe anyone here can actually answer that question. Dominique had not been active on this forum for a long time, but stopped by and posted a few months ago. Perhaps he will read this and answer your question. I know that his site had been hacked a number of times and he was trying hard to get it up and running, but I don't believe anyone presently using this PicturesToExe site can answer your question other than Dom himself. Best regards, Lin

Excellent Mark !! The photographer captured both the solemnity and frivolity of the event in a beautiful way and you did a superb job of putting it together in images and music! I see he also caught pop with his camera in one frame!! Congratulations to Claire and to Wayne on a wonderful wedding ceremony and you for doing the right thing (almost all the time)! Best regards, Lin

LOL - It did - less than 47 minutes.. Lin

Hi Bert - thankfully just an experiment - sort of like this post... will check later to see if it succeeded... LOL Best regards, Lin

Thanks guys - just one of those fun to put together little video experiments... Best regards, Lin

Here in Colorado we've had some severe storms and unusual clouds. Yesterday morning I shot this image of a huge funnel cloud forming between Mount Meeker (elevation 13,911 feet) and Long's Peak (elevation 14,259 feet), It never developed into a full tornado, but similar incidents in the past had prompted me to take one of my photos and create a little video simulation of a storm with rain, lightning, wind, clouds and tornado over the Colorado front range.... Lin storms_over_front_range.mp4 Link to download video... About 7 meg download...

Hi Tom, They also have most of their individual packages on sale. I use three of their products: Topaz Adjust, Denoise and Detail... I find these to be very useful... Best regards, Lin

Actually a JPEG is embedded in the capture. Nearly every camera generates an embedded JPEG sometimes of less than full resolution size but often a full resolution image. LightRoom just reads this, it doesn't actually convert the RAW file until you declare the version you wish to save. After shooting, the image you see on your LCD review is the embedded JPEG. Several of the freeware viewing programs such as Irfanview reveal this JPG when they open a RAW file which they are not designed to convert. Depending on settings, LightRoom may make a quick JPEG from the RAW for your preview, but it's done with algorithms which sometimes make unwarranted assumptions. Having this RAW viewer may allow superior sorting before deciding which to keep and which to toss. Best regards, Lin

Hi Steven, It sure seems pretty rugged and I see the K1 is shipping now... Pentax usually makes quality and durable cameras so would expect nothing less from this one Best regards, Lin