Lin Evans

Nice Dan!! Beautiful Colorado colors - great photography and a joy to watch! Thanks, Lin

Hi Mur, Actually this has been looked at, downloaded, etc., a number of times. I'm not certain why the counter is zero but I will attempt to find out... After this post, I notice that the response is now one and the views about 124. Perhaps unless there is a reply, the counter stays at zero for some reason? Best regards, Lin

Hi Claudio, Select the first slide then holding down the shift key, go to the last slide and select. The will select all slides. Now change the display time and the time for all slides will reflect the new duration. If you wish to change only certain slides, then use the CTRL key to select and apply and new time and only those slides selected will reflect the new time. To my knowledge, there is not way to simply "add" 10% more time to a show without calculating the amount of time to be added to each individual slide, but you can selectively add this time to all or only to selected slides via the above method. Best regards, Lin

It seems to me that since both videos and still images can easily be opened from the PTE Timeline in the chosen external editor with a right click and choice from the drop-down menu that audio should also be accessed likewise. I often want to make small changes to audio such as editing out a "pop" or crackle and since my audio files rarely appear in the file list because I keep them in a separate folder, it's a bit awkward to navigate to them. I think it makes logical sense to have audio as well as video and still images open from a choice in the drop-down menu. It shouldn't be a major undertaking to add this feature. Best regards, Lin

Good question. I'll bring it up and see if it can be added to the choices in the drop-down menu.. Best regards, Lin

Hi Jeff, Yes, Denis is right and that is a way to add new transitions which become available with new projects but with styles each time one is added when doing any show, the new style is automatically available in the future which is a bit more convenient. The thought is that perhaps custom transitions should automatically be added just as styles? Best regards, Lin

Hi Igor, It might simplify the use of custom transitions. I'm not certain how important it is, but it would definitely be more convenient. I don't use many transitions myself, but I just noticed that when I have loaded custom styles they stay and I can use them with new projects without searching for the folders where I may have placed them, but when I use a custom transition it only appears as a menu choice with the pte project it was used in but not as a choice with new projects like styles. Best regards, Lin

Hi Barry, Did you download JT's zipped project files and try them for yourself? Here's one I created with identical results: http://www.lin-evans.org/pte8/silence-mp3.zip http://www.lin-evans.org/pte8/silence-no-mp3.zip Open these and create exe files with each and look at the difference in size... the mp3 (ticked) version is about 9 meg larger.. Best regards, Lin

Hi Dave, If I load a custom transition it is only apparent for the slideshow under construction. If I open a new show, the Custom Transitions loaded on a previous shows are nowhere to be seen so if I want to use them again, then I have to reload them. Why would a transition appear in User Styles??? Isn't that for styles? My custom styles stick, but not transitions. I apply a transition via the "Slide Options." Best regards, Lin

Cool transition !! Igor, is there any way to create an option to make custom transitions "stick" so that they are available without reloading them between slideshows? Best regards, Lin

Hi Robert, Because if you have an mp3 which is used in a couple places such as at the beginning or end of a lengthy show, PTE only loads the mp3 once and the additional use adds nothing to the size of the overall executable file. On the other hand, If you use the so called "trim" feature by ticking the box, this relatively small mp3 becomes a large file size because it encodes the silence between the first and last use of the mp3. So doing away with the "tick" box and using the same present system to convert all audio to mp3 would, in this case, result in a considerably larger overall file size because of the silence encoded between the two uses of this same audio file. Having the option to tick or not gives flexibility which would be missing otherwise. Best regards, Lin

Hi Barry, Doesn't this somewhat limit the flexibility of PTE? Probably the reason that we are given the "option" for creating the mp3 which effectively trims sound not used rather than just defaulting to this is that when, as JT points out, there are only parts of a longer audio track used perhaps at the very beginning and at the very end of a lengthy sequence, the silence is encoded as mp3. This could easily make the size of the mp3 much larger than the original. Let's say that the original mp3 audio was 2 minutes in length, but the slide show is 7 minutes in length. Then the mp3 becomes seven minutes rather than three minutes because it was used at the beginning and at the end of a lengthy show and all the silence in between becomes encoded as mp3 silence. Then there is the issue of people who use WAV and do not want it encoded as mp3 for quality purposes?

Hi Jeff, Looks great - love the birds! Nice to have a local place to go and a couple hides to photograph from! Great photos and very nice presentation. Best regards, Lin

Hi Barry, It's in the manual - here: http://docs.picturestoexe.com/en/hotkeys/main Best regards, Lin

Thanks Ken and Claudio - a fun experiment. I posted a link to an AVI Tutorial and brief explanation of the procedure used on the FaceBook Group page in response to a request there and I'll repeat those here for anyone interested: Best regards, Lin ----------------------------- O.K., Here's the link to the AVI tutorial on the Reflections creation:http://www.lin-evans.org/pte8/reflectionstutorial.zip (zipped avi tutorial). Essentially the procedure is to make two masks. The first mask (in this example) replaces the original blurry fire in a fireplace with a video of a fire in a fireplace. So the original image is taken into PTE or into Photoshop (either can do this - but Photoshop is better in this case). The area where one wants the fireplace is selected with the rectangular selection tool and then everthing inside is painted white. The selection is inversed and the remainder is painted black. Black allows the image "outside" the mask to be revealed and "White" allows what is inside the mask (in this case the replacement fireplace video) to be revealed. Next, the original image is again taken into Photoshop and all the areas where you can see in the original photo that firelight was reflected are left in their original colors and everything else painted black. Not only "white" reveals what is inside the mask, but light colors in a linear fashion are transparent or semi-transparent. Since we want to follow the original reflection of the photo, we can take advantage of that and just paint everywhere we "don't" want reflections black. I used a soft brush to feather the black as it brushed against the reflected area. So now we have two masks. One to reveal the fireplace and one for the reflections on the girl's body and the floor, etc. The actual variations in light and dark in those "orange" areas will very nicely attenuate or amplify the reflections from the fireplace we will use again inside the "reflection mask." Next we place the firplace video inside its mask and adjust the size and position and in this case the "color" (which I wanted to be more orange than yellow) using PTE. Then we place the same fireplace inside the reflection mask, but we invert it 180 degrees because reflections are upside down in this case - as they would be in a mirror. We use the PTE 3D feature to turn the fire 180 degrees. Because the area for the reflections is much larger than the actual fireplace, we adjust both the position and the "size" of the fire using the zoom features of PTE. To soften the reflections we adjust both opacity and blur in an experimental fashion untio it looks appropriate. We use the preview feature frequently to monitor our progress untill we have it as we like.

Yes, you can move your comments with even more options. "Slidestyle" "Captions" multiple choices including bottom right. Set time limited use by clicking on "Project Options" then check "Time Limited Use".... You can download older versions, but all the feature you had plus many, many more are available in version 8 - you really just need to read the manual.... Best regards, Lin

Hi Judy, I agree and I think that Igor is planning bezier curves for a future version of PTE - however, and at the risk of being castigated for suggesting the seemingly "dreaded" work-around, (personally, I believe work-arounds are fine) there are ways to do this right now with PTE. If you visit and join the French forum Diapositif, one of the very talented French users has created a tool to allow PTE to do bezier curves. As for keeping an object upright - I explain how this is easily done in my #3 tutorial in the PTE Made Easy series here: http://www.picturestoexe.com/forums/index.php?/topic/7901-pte-made-easy-tutorials-continuously-updated/ Best regards, Lin

Hi Judy, Whenever a video is selected in PTE, in the "Properties Tab" of Objects and Animations, a checkbox is present which says "Mute Audio." When this is done, then when the user adds an audio there is a choice which defaults to "Files of Type" "Audio Files" which would allow the user to select from various audio formats. However, if the user clicks on the small down arrow in the light blue box to the right of the word "Audio Files" they can select "Video Files" then choose the video file which they wish to extract the audio from and have full envelope control. If an audio file or the sound from an audio file is used multiple times in PTE, this audio is only loaded once so there is no size penalty for doing this. Best regards, Lin

http://www.lin-evans.org/pte8/studyinreflections.zip (PC 38 meg) http://www.lin-evans.org/pte8/studyinreflectionsmac.zip (Mac 38 meg) Lin

Hallo Claudio, Properly created Animated GIF images work perfectly with PTE. The only way to align objects is either visually, or by placing the identical values for them in the Objects and Animations pan blocks. If the "center" of the objects have not been changed, then they should align perfectly via these "pan" values. Under the "Properties" tab in O&A you can select the animated GIF then click on "Adjust Images and Border" then click on the "Animations" tab where you have the options to control motion of the GIF. For example, let's say you had an animated GIF of a bird flying. You can control the speed of the wing flap with the "Interval(ms)" from no animation to any speed value. You can set an offset for when you want the animation to begin relative to the slide, etc. You could make the bird soar, then flap it's wings, then soar, etc., all via keyframe values of these variables. There is no provision for "creating" an animated gif in PTE, but you have great control over the animations of a properly created animated GIF. Best regards, Lin

That's good news Tom - hopefully in the future PTE will directly support it. Best regards, Lin

https://www.malwarebytes.org/support/guides/mbam/History_Q.html Best regards, Lin

No, PicturesToExe plays stereo just as it was recorded. You have stereo output if you use stereo input. Here's a little mp4 video test for you to use: http://www.lin-evans.org/pte8/stereotest.zip Just download and extract the mp4 and add it to a test project and you will clearly hear the stereo. PTE doesn't segregate the channels on the envelope so you have no independent control over channel volume. It's assumed that your input has already been adjusted for balance, but PTE handles stereo perfectly. Best regards, Lin

Hi Jak101, Have you investigated the tutorials page of the forum??? There are many, many tutorials which go way beyond the basics. Here's a sample of just the one's I have posted .... There are plenty more: http://www.picturestoexe.com/forums/index.php?/topic/7901-pte-made-easy-tutorials-continuously-updated/ Best regards, Lin

Very Nice, and it can be done with PTE, but perhaps only a few people know how to do such? It's easy enough to move individual PNG images around in layers, but there is more going on here such as Jean-Cyprien did with his Christmas show and apparently only a few users have successfully acomplished this type of motion. Best regards, Lin