Lin Evans

Hi Mike, What profile is selected in CC 2015? Perhaps try downloading a trial version of some printing program for Mac just to rule out a potential CC 2015 issue. When you get a consistent issue and there are no issues with the nozzle patterns, it really sounds like a color profile (colorspace) issue and the most likely culprit is the printing software being used. My suggestion would be to find a Mac printing program which has a free trial and install it just to test... Best regards, Lin

Template for Simplified Fan Animation Dave Gould has produced a fantastic PicturesToExe (PTE) Style which allows the creation of an animation of the Panos Wooden Fan complete with animated shadows. This little template is not designed to replace Dave's style, but rather as another way you can do this when you don't need the shadow effect. Dave style is the preferred way but this is a simplified method for those who want to play... For those who do not use styles or wish a simplified version without shadows, I have created a PTE Template which you can use to create the folding and unfolding fan without shadows. The background included in the default grayscale which the Fan Action defaults to, but it is very simple to replace it with your choice of background or even a video by simply using the “Properties” tab in the Objects and Animations screen in PTE. Just click on the background layer to highlight, then click on the small “file” icon, navigate to your choice of background or video and double click it. To use this template, you will need PicturesToExe and Photoshop. Create your Fan as instructed by Panos then once you have added your picture and adjusted, press Enter and the action will complete your fan. Once you see the completed fan, go to “Image” “Image Size” and change the large horizontal value to 1600 x 905 which will give you a resize of the image to a value which is compatible with most modern computer. You are next going to create files from layers and there will be a total of twenty two images created. To do this, click on “File” (at the top left of the toolbar) then highlight “Scripts” and choose “Export Layers To Files.” Choose a folder or create one to hold the files you will be creating, then make certain that “Trim Layers” is unchecked, Change the file type to “PNG 24” and be certain the “Transparency” is checked. Give the “File Prefix” a simple and short name then with visible layers unchecked, click on “Run” and Photoshop will create the files and place them in the folder you have chosen. Next open PTE and load the PTE project provided. Go to the Objects and Animations screen an click on the “Properties” tab. You will see files in the lower right quadrant of the screen. The ones you are going to substitute with the exported files have numbers ending in one through nineteen (1-19). Click on the first one at the top of the list to highlight it (#19) then click on the small “open file” to the right of “Picture” and navigate to your exported files as layers. Select the file ending in 19 and it will replace the #19 fan blade with your new one from your own fan. Do the same for each of the remaining 18 files then save the PTE project under a different name. If you wish, replace the background image with one of your own choosing or even with a video. Mute the sound on the video if you do not want it to play. That’s it folks. Now your own fan will close and open just like the PTE example in the template. Lin http://www.lin-evans.org/temp/fantemplate.zip Here's a sample I did for a FB friend with a video running as the background... tonyafan.mp4

Hi Dave, Your idea of having the shadows separated from the fan is a good one for more than one reason. The user may want to use the fan style in situations where having a shadow would be detrimental. For example, they may want to use a video as the background and having the shadow would be unnecessary. Great style by the way! Best regards, Lin

Nice job Dave! Panos has some really great actions folks. Many are free but his commercial ones are very reasonable and all can be used with Photoshop and most with Elements. They all make great additions to the toolbox for PTE users in my opinion. Here's a link to his site - register and log-in and look around. Great demos by his forum users. Go to "Support" "Forum" http://www.panosfx.com Lin

Hi Mary, When you output a video you can also just choose "Custom" and make the vertical and horizontal equal to 1024 or 1080 or whatever and it will create an HD square video for you. If you want to see the actual content before creating, you can go into Objects and Animations screen, Properties Tab, Adjust Image And Border, Crop and put a 1 in the Aspect Ratio. This will show you exactly what the selected slide will look like in your video. To see all slides you would have to do this for each one, but just selecting "Custom" and making the vertical and horizontal equal to whatever square pixel format you wish will give you that in the video output... Best regards, Lin

I still believe that "tablets" and "phones" should be added to the "output" description on the main description such as sample below: Output for PC, Mac, DVD, HD video, Mobile Devices & YouTube. Best regards, Lin

Hi Mick, Why don't you download and try "TinySpell?" It works great with PTE and the free version defaults to English.... Best regards, Lin

Hi Urmas, I do likewise and I also use "TinySpell" which is a freeware and works well with PTE depending on the language and available dictionary. I generally use English so being the default - for English speaking PTE users this is a viable solution. Here's a link to download and learn more about this: http://tinyspell.numerit.com/ For a small fee ($10 USD) a more advanced version can be purchased which uses Hunapell dictionaries in multiple languages... Best regards, Lin

Though we would all love to see spellcheck - keep in mind that PTE is a multi-language software. A totally different reference dictionary then would need to be present for each language by PTE users. Today that is thirteen different languages. It could be extremely difficult and perhaps expensive to implement so that it would make everyone happy. Best regards, Lin

HI Jeff, It was fun watching PTE evolve and pretty amazing at the capabilities even back nine years ago. You're absolutely right about John Williams - definitely a classic!! Best regards, Lin

Hi Paul, One can look - but there really are no viable alternatives for PTE IMHO. I have and keep tabs on all the latest software for presentation slideshow creation and there is nothing available which can do what can be already done in PicturesToExe. Unless you are willing to spend a couple thousand dollars for your software, you will not be able to equal the power of PicturesToExe and even with the one extremely expensive German product which has most, but not all of the same capabilities, the ease of use is highly compromised. There is a very good reason why PTE is the overwhelming choice of competitive audio visual creators in the majority of the world. As David points out, there are lots of things going on right now - many of which will be incorporated in the next version of PTE. Best regards, Lin

Hi Autumn, Keep in mind that PTE slides (a slide is everyting you see on your screen at once) can consist of any number of images (also called objects), but each object exists on a separate "layer." So to see multiple images they must be small enouth that one doesn't overlay the other. If you simply insert two or more images on a single slide, unless you size each of them and position them so that they are each visible, the top layer could hide the image(s) beneath. In order to see two or more images then simply add them as JT has specified, but also move and size them so they are visible. Each object has its own keyframes and you can make any object invisible by either positioning it behind a larger object in a layer above or by adjusting the opacity of the object you wish to hide to zero via keyframing. If you wish to move multiple objects simultaneously, make them a child of a frame (a hidden object) and adjust their positions simultaneously by keframing the parent invisible frame. Best regards, Lin

Hi Jim, Indeed, and it's only going to get better with version 9 on the horizon. Amazing what Igor has been able to accomplish with PTE! Best regards, Lin

Hey Jim, LOL - close enough! The all look pretty much alike at that age! Best regards, Lin

Thanks Robert, It's always fun to go back and see what was going on years ago with PTE. I think I still have a show or two which I made with the first released version of PTE or maybe even before the first release. Best regards, Lin

Hi Jim, LOL - they have had their time in the sun! Those little Rocky Mountain Kids were part of a large extended family I found up on Mount Evans in the Rockies at 14,200 feet elevation. They were having the time of their life and kept me and my late wife Sherry amused for about 30 minutes and let us photograph their family fun. The Iguana's name is Rosie and she was a regular at the Westminster, Colorado Butterfly Pavilion many years ago. She was very friendly and the main attraction for many children who came to visit. The paint horse and Indian we captured at a reservation in New Mexico where we were attending one of the Eight Northern Pueblo shows. The dog was Dusty, from one of our eleven pup pit litter born in 1990 which we kept. He was seven years old at the time and passed away the year the show was made. He lived seventeen years and was a great pet. The elk was one from Rocky Mountain National Park Fun memories.... Best regards, Lin

Sometimes I visit old sites where I have posted links to shows and correct the URL when I have changed servers or web providers. Today I visited a web site I don't go to very often and corrected some old links which were outdated and no longer functional. In doing this one of the links I corrected was to a little demo I did nine years ago in 2007. It was well received on that website and I thought it would be fun to post it here.... I couldn't find the original PTE file so there is only a link to the Windows zipped exe file but it was fun for me to reflect on what was going on with PTE nine years ago... Maybe some will find it entertaining? http://www.lin-evans.org/pte/3d.zip Zipped Windows Exe (demo of 3D ideas - about 19 meg download) Best regards, Lin

Hi Jose, The way I understand it (which may or may not be correct) is that bitrate primarily affects video quality while frame rate affects file size. From this link on the Video Grabber site: Link here: http://www.videograbber.net/reduce-video-size.html You may be correct about bitrate and size but it may be compression differences rather that actual bitrate which is causing the larger file size. If the video size is not small enough, you could also lower frame rate and bit rate. The frame rate has a lot to do with the file size, which displayed images of a video per second. Lowering the frame rate will directly lead to the decrease of video file size. With regard to the bit rate, it mainly describes video or audio quality. If the video file is compressed at higher bitrate, the higher video quality and larger file size will be, and vice versa. In general, we recommend maintaining the lowest acceptable bitrate and frame rate to preserve quality. (emphasis mine) The above quote is a bit confusing because what is really being discussed is compression levels. Lower compression usually increases file size if all other factors remain constant. I've not experimented to confirm the actual effect of only lowering bitrate but the last sentence above in the quote from their site "We recommend...." seems to indicate that having too high a bitrate and frame rate negatively affects quality. Since I usually make executable rather than video for final output, I don't use a great deal of video except for some animations and generally the animated objects are not occupying a major portion of the viewing area. Because of this, I can use less than full HD resolution which preserves file size for the output. I have not been able as yet to make any of my shows with significant amounts of animation look as good in video format as in executable format. Hopefully, with version 9 there will be significant changes but we are not aware yet of just how many changes there will be concerning the new graphical engine. None of us have actually seen that yet and will have to wait until the release of the beta which is expected soon. I don't have any information about 32 versus 64 bit but I know that perhaps having to rewrite all the code to make PTE compatible with both MacIntosh and Windows may probably have much to do with current delays in releasing the first betas. Best regards, Lin

Hi Jose, It (the mp4) has a pretty high bitrate which "could" be a problem, but most mp4 files - even the ones PTE creates for HD output are pretty much too compressed for PTE to run smoothly hence the suggestion to convert. It could be that with the new engine for 9.0 and other changes this may be ameliorated in the future. Usually for an MP4 to run smoothly in PTE a full HD (1920x1080) at 30 fps should not be much more than 4,000 kbps to run smoothly. I would think that 17.2 mbps is pretty heavy for a highly compressed MP4 for consumption by PTE. Of course lowering the bitrate and such may make the file much large and one can run into problems in that respect as well. I find that most of my AVI files output by Particle Illusions and BluffTitler run pretty smoothly but I try to keep the size down and never use more than 720p. My wmv files run gine and I've never had problems with Flash FLV but of course the quality is less by nature than MP4 H264. I've not noticed a visible difference in the quality of video files converted by PTE to it's own AVI format but admittedly I don't generally use too many super-high quality video clips in my shows so in that sense perhaps my experience and yours differ. Best regards, Lin

"2. However, I am always asking why PTE only accepts the so-called "converted.avi" files, and only avi files made by using PTE converter itself, not an avi file converted using some other converter." I think perhaps you may be creating an AVI with an unavailable CODEC. PTE works fine for me with AVI files from other sources unless they are "uncompressed" AVI's which are not supported by PTE. I use Particle Illusion and Blufftitler both to create AVI files with RGBA (alpha transparency) which work fine with no conversion. In fact, converting them with PTE"s converter would remove the transparent alpha channel. I also create AVI files with other software - all with compression - which work fine with PTE so I think something else is going on with your AVI file which are not compatible. "5. Assuming that PTE only accepts files from its own converter, question is: would it be possible to have some more parameters to choose, in terms of quality, in order that final quality could be the best possible?" Actually, PTE accepts a number of different file formats - certainly not only from its own converter. I use FLV Flash movies, AVI, MP4, MOV and WMV formats. The purpose of the PTE converter is generally to lower the compression which works much better with an executable output file. Many video codec formats are highly compressed and before playing them, the software must first decompress them in real time. Specialized video players are optimized to do this and that is their only task, but PTE is also doing many other things so to get the best performance, a lightly compressed file makes it much easier on the cpu and gpu Best regards, Lin

Hi Gogs, Do you mean in addition to the instructions given when a style is selected? Beside the style there is a number representing the number of images needed. Then to the right as seen in the example below, if you have made a mistake in the number of image selected - you will be notified before applying the style???

Hi Jim, There are always situations which might be improved by different views, but having keyframes for all objects on all layers visible simultaneously could very quickly become impractical. Perhaps being able to "select" a few objects and have their keyframes available for view simultaneously could be a usable feature but with PTE sometimes we have literally hundreds of layers in our shows. There isn't a practical limit on the number of objects in separate layers which can be used in a PTE show. There have been shows made with over one thousand layers so to make your suggestion work, it would have to be selective. Best regards, Lin

Masrawy, As with all previous versions of PicturesToExe, version 9 will be first beta tested by users then debugged thoroughly before the release. The beta testing usually lasts a number of months so no exact release date can be given. Have patience and when the beta is released licensed PTE users can begin using and testing. Best regards, Lin

There isn't enough tea in China to persuade me to downgrade to Windows 10.... http://www.networkworld.com/article/2956574/microsoft-subnet/windows-10-privacy-spyware-settings-user-agreement.html Lin

It's not a PTE limit, it's a 32 bit limit (PTE is, like many software programs, a 32 bit program). Perhaps in the future when 64 bit code is used, this executable size limit will increase, but many computers and operating systems are still subject to the 32 bit executable file limitations. Even if PTE were presently a 64 bit software, if the 2 gigabyte size limit is exceeded the file would not be compatible with 32 bit systems so a program which ran fine on one system wouldn't necessarily work on another. This would be problematic. In time, all hardware and software will be 64 bit compatible - but not just yet. Lin