Lin Evans

Hi Steven, I can't be certain, but you may be running into a fairly common situation with video software. When you "trim" in most video software, what the software actually does is simply insert "markers" indicating where to start and stop and if you look in PTE you will most likely see that the full length of the original video is retained. Doing this can cause issues with PTE. The best way to proceed is to convert your video right in PTE and do the trimming there. When you do it via PTE the video is rendered without these markers and actually trimmed rather than virtually trimmed. PTE will then play the converted file perfectly. Best regards, Lin

Hi Judy, Hopefully, it can give you some ideas to improve on. There are myriad possibilities, as JPD once said, the only limitations are one's imagination! Merry Christmas to you and your family too! Best regards, Lin

Hi Bert, Thanks! It's fun trying to create realism from combining still images and video clips with PTE - challenging, but fun.... Best regards and Merry Christmas, Lin

Hi Elsebels, Could you post a screen capture of the "Slidelist" (Dialijst) view please - and perhaps we can sort it out for you. Best regards, Lin

Click on "Dialijst" and you should see what you are looking for... Best regards, Lin

Hi, It's not entirely clear what you mean so let's start from the beginning. You say there "were numbers on each slide" - where did you see the slides with these numbers? Was it in the slide list, Objects and Animations preview, the timeline, etc? Let's start by going to the "Settings" "Preferences" "Toolbars" and put a checkmark beside every choice. Once you have done that then clicked O.K., these will then appear by default on the Slide List. There are also provisions for making EXIF and Metadata information which may or may not be available in the photo appear in the font and positions chosen. This EXIF and Metadata are automatically placed on a photo by digital cameras, but some editing software has the ability to remove this data when the photo is modified and saved. So if you are referring to information which was originally on your photo and called via the Slide List "Comment" "Insert Text Template" feature, the information which may once have been visible could be missing if the photo has been manipulated in editing software then saved without the EXIF header. If you could first try ticking all the boxes under "Settings" "Preferences" "Toolbars" and the click O.K. then let's see if you have your original information back. If not, then if you could explain in detail and perhaps provide a sample showing where you expect to see this information, perhaps someone on the forum can help sort it out. Best regards, Lin

Hi Judy, There are at least two ways to approach this - one if you have software such as ParticleIllusion and the other if you don't. Let's assume you don't so the first thing you need is a video clip of a real campfire. You can take it with your video camera or find one on the web to experiment with. I'll make a little show for you and post the PTE file and the exe and a brief explanation of how to proceed. It's fairly straightforward so before I put it together I'll outline the way I would proceed. Get the basic image you want to use such as people sitting around a campfire. Take the image into Photoshop or your favorite editor and clone out the fire. Create a mask(s) to contain the campfire to the area you want and the approximate size, place the image in PTE and choose the mask(s) you have created and put the campfire inside. Size the video and decide whether you want the fire sounds or not. If you want to use the waveform, mute the video and place the video in as the sound track. Adjust accordingly.. I'll get back with a sample shortly... Below are links to a quick and dirty sample. For the record, it's far easier to create a nice fire inside a fireplace than a campfire with a photo of people. A fireplace is a closed space unit with a more or less regular defined boundary so that your mask is fairly easy to create. Just take your image containing the fireplace into your editor and paint the area you wish to confine the fire to with white and save the image as a jpg with the name xxxxmask.jpg. The open campfire is much more difficult because you will have black or other colors in your video which and the video itself will have a rectangular shape. This makes the creation of the mask much more complex because the fire is a dynamic thing and the areas where there is no fire change randomly. So to create a mask, you must get a bit creative unless you have software such as ParticleIllusion where you can import your campfire and create an alpha channel video where all the relevant "black" is removed. You can sometimes use the chroma extraction feature of PTE to remove black rather than green, but it's tedious and the result will not generally be all that great. In this sample I've created two masks. One for the campfire itself and one for the reflections in the eyeglasses and on the legs of a couple people. It's far from perfect and could be vastly improved by tweaking, but you will be able to get the idea. For the eyeglasses and legs I simply greatly increased the size of the fire video and lowered the opacity of that video greatly. The masks were done using the original image and painting or leaving the existing reflection white then painting everything else black... http://www.lin-evans.org/pte8/campfireexperimentptecomponents.zip (The PTE File which also contains the original photo to see the effects of cloning out the existing campfire. http://www.lin-evans.org/pte8/campfireexperiment.zip (The exe file in PC format) Best regards, Lin

Hi Elsebels, "Settings" (on the top of your screen) then click "Table View of File List" Best regards, Lin

Some precision masks built in Photoshop, used in PTE along with chroma-key extraction. Love this software..... Look for a little surprise out the window to the right side of the fireplace at about 2 minutes 19 seconds.... Just a little background on the technique to get the effect. I've had the question of why so long (3:59) and there are several reasons. Beginning with the fireplace: To get the fire behind the the wrought iron doors required a crop of the fireplace taken into Photoshop. Everywhere "iron" appeared was carefully painted black and everywhere there was a "hole" to see into the fireplace was painted white then this mask was saved as a jpg to be used over the original photo in PTE. Likewise for the window on the right. Another crop was made including all areas where the subject was to appear. The tree trunks, delicate iron detail on the wrought iron decorative flower stand, the wood framework on the window, etc., were painted black while the areas designated for the subject to appear were painted white. This mask was then saved also as a jpg and used in PTE for the subject mask. The masks had to be sized and precisely fitted over the corresponding areas of the photo and the 500% view helped to perfectly fit them. Of course I "could" have used the full sized image for the mask by just selecting the area of interest, inversing the selection, painting all the inverse black with the bucket tool then doing the delicate painting on only the pre-selected area, but in the interest of saving some file size (only a tiny bit) I used the crops and fitted them which was simple with the 500% view. The longer run time allows the viewer to not only enjoy the popping, crackling of the fire and general ambiance, but also allows the viewer to see the tea-cups, the cookies (biscuits for the Brits among us) and room details as well ponder the mask details for those who have done this type of technique. The chroma key extraction was done carefully to minimize green splash over then the result converted to greyscale in PTE to further eradicate any "green splash." The subject, being black, was completely amenable to the conversion with no deleterious side-effects. The extraction was then sized and positioned for best effect. In all, lots of work but the result is, I believe, realistic which was the intent. http://www.lin-evans.org/pte8/room4pc.zip http://www.lin-evans.org/pte8/room4mac.zip http://www.lin-evans.org/pte8/room4b.zip (a slightly modified version for Ken when he returns from today's family party) http://www.lin-evans.org/pte8/room4bmac.zip (modified MacIntosh version) "B" for "Bark" - LOL Note: Press right arrow key once at beginning of slide for "short version" (2 Minutes) About 47 meg Lin

Thanks all - and Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all here on the PTE forums! Best regards, Lin

Indeed! Congratulations Dave on a great job and well deserving of the recognition! Best regards, Lin

Hi Jean, Thanks so much for helping get it to the proper topic! Best regards and Merry Christmas! Lin

Hi Terry, Go to the "Slide list" then from there click on Preview and see what happens... Do your images appear in the Slide List? Actually, it's probably better to not place your images on the timeline but rather click on or drag them onto the slide list. Once you have them in the order you want then you can move them on the timeline.... Best regards, Lin

Hi Jean, I would have posted this to the Diapositif forum but I could not understand how to do so. I couldn't find a "new topic" place to write? Best regards, Lin

Just a Christmas greeting for all my friends at the PTE and Diapositif forums: http://www.lin-evans.org/pte8/ohholynight.zip (44 meg Windows zip exe file) http://www.lin-evans.org/pte8/ohholynightmac.zip (44 meg Mac native exe file) Merry Christmas.. Lin

She loved sunrise, sunset, storms, lightning and finely crafted American Indian Jewelry...... http://www.lin-evans.org/pte8/christmas.zip (72 meg) http://www.lin-evans.org/pte8/christmasmac.zip (72 meg) Lin....

Clear, concise and excellent tutorial Mur! Best regards, Lin

Hi Mur, How many demo shows does your computer show for the Demo's section of Slideshow Club? Mine shows 23 and I can't find your's among them? It's possible that the views and downloads are by Admin?? Best regards, Lin

Hi Mur - all post to SlideshowClub have to be "approved" by Igor (administrator) before the actual post is public... Best regards, Lin

Hi Jean, I made a little demo sample for windows & mac using your great new style and put it on the slideshow forum. I ran your instruction through Google Translate and modified slightly and posted a link to the zipped English rtf format translation. Later i'll go through in more detail and clean up my translation a bit, but I think everyone will be able to make it work just fine. Thanks so much, it's an amazing job - much, much more work than people will realize and very, very easy to use. On my sample I added a little animated screen for the wait time then a PNG star at the top of the cube tree and some scrolling text at the top of the screen... Best regards, Lin

I used Jean Cyprien's new Christmas Tree Cube Style (SapinBabel) to create a little Christmas Demo Show for Windows and Mac. I also translated the instructions with Google Translate and modified it a tiny bit to better fit English - just a quick job, far from perfect. This is another wonderful Style from Jean-Cyprien. I added a little star to the top of the tree and some snow and animated Santa on the opening slide. The style is very easy to use. Just put in 25 slides - the last one will be the background. They can be rectangular, square, vertical or horizontal and the center will be cropped automatically to square for the cubes. Each cube will use the same image on all six faces. Select all 25 and apply the style. Slide # 25 will be used for the background. Have fun... Example links below: Later: I shouldn't work when I'm tired - I fixed the glaring typo in spelling on "Holiday" and added a little to the show and reloaded to same links below - sorry... http://www.lin-evans.org/pte8/christmas2014.zip (about 16 meg zipped Windows exe) http://www.lin-evans.org/pte8/christmas2014mac.zip (about 17 meg zipped native mac exe) http://www.lin-evans.org/pte8/instructions.zip (rtf instructions for style by Jean-Cyprien) Best regards, Lin

Well Barry, You apparently don't read carefully enough and you obviously know nothing about what I use and don't use. Did I say I didn't use Adobe products? I don't believe I've ever said that. I use possibly more Adobe product than you do including Photoshop 6 Extended, Elements, Adobe Premiere Pro, Adobe After Effects, Adobe Lightroom Acrobat and InDesign. I just don't us any Adobe CC products. Adobe CC products have had plenty of issues - try actually browsing the Adobe forums once in a while. Try browsing the Panos FX forum, perhaps there may be a bit of an education for you about CC and problems. So no, you don't have things right and Peter is not "right." Please read more carefully what I said and what the representative from Adobe said. That was also pretty clear to me. What I said should be quite clear for a native English speaker. Adobe CC has to phone home to operate and to reinstall after an uninstall. Period. That's the reason "I" don't use it. What you and Peter do is your business and what I do is my business. I'm out of this discussion. There seems to be a logical disconnect and inability to understand my posts by both you and Peter so I'll make it easier ...

Hi Peter, Please extend to me the same courtesy you have asked of others - If you're going to quote me or paraphrase me, at least understand what I said in context and get the facts first. The CC software has to phone home to be used. Precisely when is not known by the user and it's entirely possible for that time to occur when there is no internet connection. That has happened to friends of mine on more than one occasion and is why I will not use Adobe CC products. It also has to phone home on reinstallation after an uninstall - check this with Adobe if you don't believe me.

PTE can be purchased either on-line or via a DVD in the mail... Yes at the present time all activation is done via the unlockkey which is presently emailed to buyers. Once the unlock key is present on the system, there is no further internet required for use. What the discussion is about is future methods of activation... Best regards, Lin

Hi Guys, The issue I have with the Adobe system is the necessity of the system to "phone home" when being used. There is no way to monitor such without the system signing on to the internet each time the software is installed. So what happens at home when there is no internet connect at startup when the user needs to reinstall PTE because of some file corruption, etc., and there isn't an internet connect available? What happens if Wnsoft is down or there is an issue between your server and the Wnsoft server? If you monitor the complaints with Adobe CC it's not insignificant. I have friends who are pulling their hair out still trying to resolve issues of activation with the present Adobe format. I think alternative solutions are available which do not involve the internet other than for initial activation/registration which are generally more amenable to the user. Once the program is installed on a system, there should not be a need to "phone home" for a re-install on that system. That's what the registry is for. There are other systems which are available that create a unique identity for a particular system by performing a software inventory involving a hard disk and other bus attached hardware. This system has its faults as well. Should your hard disk fail and you have anticipated this by doing a clone, the software will not work on the new hard disk without reactivation. If you install a second internal hard disk or replace your CD/DVD drive the software stops working without a reactivation. You are only allowed a specific number of reactivations. I found this system to be highly annoying when I recently had to replace a failing hard drive with a new cloned one. The point is that there are multiple types of registration and activation schemes and not all require a reactivation each time software is uninstalled and reinstalled. This decision requires careful analysis to find a way to both protect Wnsoft against theft yet allow the PTE user flexibility as they now have. Best regards. Lin