Rickl

What a fine presentation! Thank you so much... You are creating a need for those of us on the west side of the Atlantic to visit countries on the east side. You sure built up the desire with this one... Dick

I like Media Player Classic too - Particularly the Home Cinema version... But for your information, WMP 12 that ships with Windows 7 includes the required h.264 decoder, and mp4 files can be played in WMP... Dick

What a grand presentation! Such a beautiful country, and your images and music show what it must be like to be there! Dick

Thank you! That will save many keystrokes! Dick

Yeah... After experimenting I learned the role of offset in delaying the start of given track. Since the Offset/Crossfade appear to be radio buttons, (you can only select one of them at a time) I thought perhaps they played similar roles. Selecting offset to decide when a track takes over from another or overlays according to the fade in and fade out parameters and that is how I made my slideshow. But I had the impression that selecting crossfade would achieve the same result without setting the fade in and fade out parameters. I look forward to someone with an example of the cross fade function. Dick

Great way to display how it works! Thanks! Can you add how crossfade works? I thought it would do the job of fading into the next track, but when I tried it with 6.5 beta 3, it did not do what I expected... Mind you this is beta software... Dick

I have to agree with the comments about going back to the originals if you want to maximize quality. But if you are stuck, here is an interesting option. I use Idimager for my Photo library, and highly recommend it, but the author developed a free download called BDSIZER that does batch resizing quickly. It also can add watermarks, captions and frames etc which can to wonders to dressing up a presentation. You will find it here... http://www.idimager.com/downloads/freeware And you may want to add the Frame designs if the idea appeals to you... Hope this helps, Dick

Nobeefstu addressed the aspect ratio issue - so there is not much I can add.. Your source images appear to be 3:2 aspect, and your wide screen is 16:9 so you will be facing screen aspect issues no matter what you do. Also, you are aware of the screen settings on your TV.. (My Sony has Normal, Wide Zoom etc)... When trying to show a slideshow with a possible aspect ratio issue, I like to reduce my image sizes by 15% (ie O&A Zoom 85%) so that they show with a black border around the entire image regardless of the aspect ratio of the TV/Monitor. The image is smaller, but it shows reasonably fine on both standard and High Def TV's. You can also change the color and texture of the background if you like... I just completed a DVD project using Videobuilder to create all the files, but withold the actual burn. I like to view the slideshow by opening the DVD folder created by Videobuilder with VLC before burning the DVD. That way I can catch obvious errors before making coasters. My first attempt after installing 6.5.4 beta was kind of jittery too! I then realized that the default TV system in Videobuilder/Project Options was PAL/SECAM! That did not work smoothly on our side of the Atlantic... You might want to make sure you have that set correctly... I have Videobuilder create an image ISO file, and burn it to disk with ImgBurn after I am satisfied with the DVD preview from the DVD folder. Hope this helps, Dick

What an amazing demonstration! And I thought my pans and zooms were great demonstrations. Just to design this template...! Going to have to spend more time studying masks and frames that's for sure! Magnifique! Dick

Perfect! I need to learn to think outside the box! Increasing the canvas size added black bars around the image, forcing the desired image to fit within my safe zone! Thanks so much for the tip! Dick

Darn there are some clever folks in this forum! That will do the trick! Thanks very much Peter! Dick

Created a DVD last week with three segments called by separate buttons. Worked very well! On playing the DVD on TV, I realized I had not made provision for the TV safe zone. Quickly went through the slide set and reduced the zoom level by 15 percent. But I was not able to reduce the size of the background image on the DVD menu page in videobuilder. I tried reducing the size of the image, but videobuilder always filled the screen when displaying it. Is there a way to reduce the image so that it fits inside the TV zone? Dick

Hi Yachtsman1, What an efficient way to do it! Thanks very much! While we are talking text, is there a way to change the default font and font color in the text tool in O&A? I had to add names to a whole batch of slides last week, and wanted to use a different font and color, and I had to change font and color every time when I moved to the next slide... Dick

What a truly relaxing experience! It was so interesting to see so much stone used in the buildings and fences. Then your images clearly show the lack of trees in the landscape! I guess you use the material nature presents you! Thank you so much for the travelogues. we look forward to your next trip! Another place we want to visit after we come back from the Pyrenees... Dick

Just a few thoughts... RAW processing is an extra step, and will probably lead you to increase your online storage... It is not at all necessary if you are able to set your camera perfectly for every exposure... RAW processing moves the image processing decisions to your computer instead of letting the camera firmware decide what the image should look like... Here are some examples where raw processing has saved the day for me... Wrong Exposure... recovers 2+ stops under, 1 stop over including recovering some burnout Wrong white balance... Decide later how to set color balance. Sure nice to see good skin tones in fluorescent lighting situations...(why didn't I see the lighting color????) Print or Web? Decide later whether to use aRGB or sRGB ... There are many more capabilities depending on the RAW software you use, but many features can be corrected by PS or PSE to some degree. But bear in mind that RAW processing works with the original image data from the sensor rather than the decompressed image data from the camera processed jpeg... In my case, (Pentax K20d) most of my flip top flash exposures are wrong. It may be my declining brain power to fix, but if there is anything reflecting in the image - mirror, window, shining chrome, my flash shuts down early to avoid burnout. In RAW, I can easily alter the image processing ro raise the ISO... and ignore the source of the burnout... ie the flash in the window... Is it worth it? Well it's the cheapest insurance policy you can buy... It can cost a lot of money to reshoot - and sometimes impossible - So in my view it's worth dedicating a few megabytes in file size... (and perhaps SD card size). Once you are satisfied with the image, you can save it as a tif or jpg, and delete the raw file. But I don't. I come back later, and I find that there are many ways of seeing an image, and sometimes my first interpretation is not always the best... Hope this helps, Dick

Hi Peter, I am very impressed with the tutorials from this source... http://luminous-landscape.com/videos/LR2.shtml Jeff Schewe of course is very well connected with Adobe, and I've learned so much from Michael Reichmann's web site. I use Silkypix for my raw conversion and Idimager for my Digital Asset Management, but I have used Lightroom, and it is remarkable. After processing images with Lightroom, you seldom need photoshop to do any further work on your raw images. I bought Mike and Jeff's tutorial 'From camera to print' and enjoyed it immensely. Hope this helps, Dick

Absolutely magnifique! Never ceases to amaze me how clever people can take a fine image presentation program, and create an animated movie! Merci bien Jean-Cyprien Dick

Ha ha. Indeed. I thought that until I found www.monoprice.com... Dick

Beautiful! Inspired images. I visit our own Conservatory in Winnipeg, Manitoba in the centre of Canada, and have taken many pictures of the plants there. Nice snapshots, but... The delicate lighting and close ups in your presentation are masterpieces. Now I have to review my images to see if there are possibilities... Thanks for opening my eyes. Dick

Outstanding Maureen! Heretofore, Jeff Schewe and Michael Reichman were my references for Antarctic images... eg. http://photoshopnews.com/feature-stories/antarctica-expedition/ http://luminous-landscape.com/locations/antarctica-2009-portfolio.shtml But you have blown the doors off... What a gorgeous presentation! And the music was so relaxing... Nothing compared to donning your boots and arctic gear I bet... Bet the penguin ranches were odorous too... or was that shampoo the babies were wearing... Thanks Dick

Sorry Andrew. That is what I get for reading and not testing... I have now tested, and here is what I suggest. Open each slide in Objects and Animation, On the top left there are 6 Icons - Mask, Frame, Add button, text, Rectangle, and Image... Click on a blank spot in Object area to make sure your image is NOT selected. Now Select Rectangle. This will attach an opaque surface on the top of your image, with a default color that you can change... Now select the rectangle, right click and click on Order/Send to back. This will change the order of the stack such that your image is now on top of the rectangle... Now Choose Properties and set the rectangle color to what ever you like. You can even use gradients here if you wish... Does this do what you are trying to achieve? HTH, Dick PS: Creating a frame before all the above will place both image and background in a container. Possibly not necessary in this example, but if you want to animate the package later, this ensures that the whole container moves and not just the image.

http://www.picturestoexe.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=11215

Wow! You are a master. Must of taken some time to choose which areas accumulate snow... Just a great presentation! Dick

Hi Lin! Don't mean to butt in here, but I just wanted to thank you for your snow sequences. About a couple of weeks ago, you had posted a quick and dirty way of adding snowfall by simply copy/pasting masks from one of your single image shows. I used your method for a short Christmas Greeting to send to friends and family, and I am now the Uber slide show creator in the family. I feel guilty I did not credit you at the end of the show because you deserve all the credit! People could not believe their eyes! Dick

Hi Ron, Don't know it this will help, but I notice that if I try to run BOTH the laptop and the TV screens at the same time, the image display on both screens tend to be the laptop resolution setting (1280x800). If I turn off the laptop screen, and just display the slideshow on the TV, then the full high resolution (1920X1080 here in the Colonies) does indeed show full screen. Dell XPS - I believe the display adapter is an nVidia 8400. Dick