fh1805

Hi Dennis, There have been several threads on this subject over the past twelve months or so but I'm damned if I can find any of them using the Search facility. The bottom line is: there is a known problem with some ATI Radeon graphics cards working in a colour calibrated system. Igor has raised the matter with ATI but as I recall the feedback, they seemed reluctant to do anything to correct things by reworking their drivers. Igor was planning to release a modified version of PTE that would work around the problem. As I wasn't directly affected I didn't follow the threads to their conclusions. No doubt someone with more knowledge or first-hand experience will chip in and provide more information.

Henri, How right you are! Back in 1990 when I made the change-over to auto-focus SLR my final choice (A Nikon F601) was made on the basis that it felt "just right" in my hands. I didn't get the same feeling from the Pentax, Canon and Minolta cameras that I tried out in the shop. Of course, having been a Nikon user for nearly 20 years, all Nikons now feel "right" in my hands because I am familiar with the layout of the controls on a Nikon camera.

Hi Dom, I too am a Nikon D70 digital SLR user. I bought it because it would work with all my existing Nikon lenses. I use it for personal memories and for images for use in AV sequences (I am not a print worker, never have been, never will be). It is a 6 mega-pixel camera which gives me more than enough pixels for AV work at 1024x768 (the native resolution of my digital projector). I also have a Nikon Coolpix 2100 (a 2 megapix compact zoom) which is capable of producing some first-class images for AV work. The only problem I have with those two cameras is that the D70 is a 3:2 aspect ratio and the Coolpix is 4:3. I just have to be prepared to crop the 4:3s down to 3:2 aspect ratio if I want to mix images in a sequence. Starting from 2 mpix means I can always retain 100% original pixels in the crop and thus avoid interpolation.

Tony, One point that hasn't been mentioned is that, whenever you resize downwards in Photoshop, you always lose some definition and so will have to get that sharpness back. After doing the resize as described by Maureen you then need to apply Unsharp Mask. In a recent post elsewhere on the forum Barry Beckham suggested using Amount=200%, Radius=0.3 pixel and Threshold=1. I find this a good start point. The only parameter I find I need to change is the Amount. Sometimes 200% gives an unpleasant effect and so I reduce it in steps of 25 until I find a setting that I'm happier with for that particular image. I use quite a lot of old black and white images in some of my sequeces and find that these often require less than 200% whereas modern day colour digital images seem very happy to accept 200%.

Steve, Work your way through the images in the O&A window and you will get a much bigger error box for each missing image (even if it is an embedded object image) that might help you find them.

Gary, I suspect it is Igor's shorthand notation for pressing the "Windows" key and the "L" key at the same time (Like "Ctrl+Alt+Del" or "Ctrl+C"). The Windows key, on my keyboard, lies between the Ctrl and Alt keys to the left of the Spacebar.

Igor, Try as I might I cannot reproduce the problem this evening. This morning the problem occured twice and was, at that stage, reproducible (which is why I zipped the project and added the zip as an attachment). I had also noted that as I closed down my work with PTE this morning, the Slide List was showing the correct file names but the wrong thumbnail images. This evening, in anticipation of the thumbnail images being incorrect, I started taking screen-grabs. But this fault has not re-appeared this evening, either. I can only assume that some "glitch" had occured this morning that was causing my problems (it's that or else I'm suffering from hallucinations!). I'll keep an eye open for any signs of reoccurence. If either problem comes back I'll try and ensure it is reproducible and that I have screen grabs to give evidence of the situation.

Igor, Sorry to be the bearer of bad news but I've just found a new bug in beta9 (it may have been present in earlier versions, I haven't checked yet) I was building up a Credits slide using frames and text objects. I had almost completed my work when the phone rang. By the time I got back to the PC an auto-save had taken place and I could no longer see the Pan, Zoom, Rotate fields in which to key the values. The attached file contains the project. Just open it into beta9, select the Grey Card slide (#2) and take that into O&A. Observe the contents of the Animation tab for all the objects. Wait until an auto-save has taken place and then look at the Animation tab contents again. RustyG_Credits_May13_2008_9_32_44.zip

Barry, PTE doesn't work that way, unfortunately. The Object name doesn't get updated across a Save Project - Close PTE - re-launch PTE sequence of events. It has to be manually updated.

I am using beta9 and have just tried renaming image files in a PTE project and found that the resultant changes are not propagated in the manner which I expected. I have no reason to believe this is a beta9-specific issue as I have never renamed images in PTE before. For example: when I selected image D1145.jpg from the File Panel and dragged it into the Slide List, the file's name was shown in both the File Panel and the Slide List as D1145.jpg. When I then went into the O&A window for this image, the Object name for this object was D1145 (i.e. the filename minus the extension had been used to provide an object name). When I then went back to the Slide List, selected this slide and renamed it (via F2) to RG0010.jpg, the name in the File Panel and the Slide List both changed to RG0010.jpg as expected, but the object label remained at D1145. I was expecting the rename to be fully propagated as a "change all instances of..." but this appears not to be the case. What is the view of other Forum members on the benefit or otherwise of having PTE propagate the file name change into the object name as well?

The thread that Henri refers to can be found here: http://www.picturestoexe.com/forums/index....=scrolling+text Henri, Just in case you don't know how to include a link to a thread, here's what to do: - Find the desired thread in the forum (I had to do a Search for "Scrolling text" to find yours) - Right-click on the thread's title - From the pop-up list select Copy Shortcut - Now open your reply post using FASTREPLY, ADDREPLY or REPLY and simply Ctrl+V to insert the link - Finally edit your reply around the link A similar approach can be used to provide a link to a specific post within a thread. In this case, Right-click on the post number that is displayed at the top right of every individual post and select Copy Shortcut from the pop-up list.

Jeff, The rasterization option, by default, will save the .png file in the same folder as the .pte file. All my AV sequences have their own "home" folder and within each of those there is a sub-folder called Images. My way of working with Objects (all kinds, not just text objects) is, within each AV sequence, to give them meaningful and unique names using the Common tab within O&A. This means that when you want to rasterize the text objects (and this should be the last step in the AV production process), there will not be any duplicate names to worry about and so no risk of over-writing. At the point of rasterizing you can, in any case, give the file a name of your choice and save it in a folder of your choice (it's a standard Windows file save screen that you're working with at that point). I save all my text .png files into the Images sub-folder of the relevant AV sequence. Having rasterized your text, should you want to change the words, you just untick the rasterize box, edit the text, and re-tick the rasterize box. This time around the file is saved back over itself. The only time that things get a bit fiddly is when you have exactly the same text on several images. I'm building a sequence at present about the old ironstone mines in the East Cleveland area. I have an image that shows all thirty of the mines plus seven villages. Part of the sequence shows how these mines came into being and then passed away over a 120 year period. This information is spread over twelve different images. When I come to rasterize these text items I will want to have just one .png file for each mine name, even though it appears on up to twelve images. I will need to deliberately overwrite files in order to establish the correct link from the text objects to the rasterized file name. But once corrected, should I want to change the text or its font, I'll only need to change one copy of it and re-rasterize. That new rasterized file will then be used on all twelve images. Hope that's clear enough for you to understand.

Hi yachtsman, Knowing who you are and where you live I would suggest you contact Soundcentre on Portrack lane in Stockton. Although they are an outlet aiming at amateur and professional musicians they have very knowledgable staff and will listen to your requirements and offer good advice. You can try before you buy in their demo room. Good luck.

Jos, I'm not sure that we have sufficient evidence, as yet, to eliminate Barry's hypothesis. I think it would be worth while for you to use the Windows Search facility to locate all instances of both the .pte and the .exe files for this project. I suggest that you check each of the .pte files for this sequence to identify the one that you consider to be the current one. Confirm this is the latest one by taking it into Preview and confirming that it looks absolutely correct. Do File...Save As.. under a different name and then delete all the other .pte files for this sequence. Next, delete all the .exe files for this sequence. Finally create a new .exe from the newly saved .pte file and see whether the problem persists. You will now have just the one .pte file and one .exe file - and you will be 100% certain they are a matched pair. If the problem vanishes, then Barry's hypothesis was probably the right one. If the problem persists we will have a nice clean start position from which to do further diagnosis.

Brian/Jos, As you know, Brian, I have a great deal of respect for your advice but in this instance I think you are missing the real problem. Jos is able to create a successful Slideshow i.e. one that runs from beginning to end with all required transitions and animations in place. His problem is that, he perceives a difference in the appearance (colour) of two images viewing the sequence in Preview as compared to viewing the created EXE. In its symptoms this problem seems very similar to the previously reported problems that occur with some ATI cards. But Jos has told us that his system uses nVidia graphics. He is now satisfied that PTE is correctly selecting the modified versions of the two problem images. But they look different in Preview and in the final EXE file. Given the time pressures that he seems to be under - deadline of today - I agree that removing the two images might be the short-term answer. But we can still work with you, Jos, to try and get to the bottom of your problem. Have you checked that you have the latest version of the drivers for your graphics card/chipset?

Jos, Are the two problem images the only two images in the sequence that you have modified with image editing software? If so, is it possible that they are using a different colour profile to all the rest of the images? For example: are they using Adobe RGB whereas all the others are using sRGB? In an earlier post you stated that your PC used nVidia graphics. As far as I know this make doesn't have any problems with incorrect colour calibration in PTE (unlike some ATI cards). Keep persevering with this problem. The collective knowledge, experience and brain-power of the forum will eventually crack it!

Igor, Thanks for adding the "Auto-save" feature so quickly. To test it I opened a project file into beta9 and then did nothing. Before closing down PTE I used Vista's Search facilty to look for copies of the project file. The only version I could find was in the expected project folder. This file had a timestamp that was just a minute prior to my running the search and some 30 minutes after I opened the project under beta9; which all suggests to me it was the auto-saved version. Please confirm into which folder, and under what name, does the "Auto-saved" version get saved? If what I found was the auto-saved version then, whilst it represents a step forward, it also means that if I do a heavy edit session and then, at the very end decide I don't want to keep the changes after all, I cannot now simply exit out of PTE with a reply of No to the save, because the auto-saves have destroyed my original start point. I feel it would be better if PTE did the "auto-save" into a folder of its own and using a file extension different from .pte. Perhaps PTE could open a new folder "Auto-Save" as a sub-folder in the folder from where the project file was opened or as a system folder. If you were to use the same file naming technique as for the Create backup in zip function - adding the date and time to the file name at each "auto-save"- then, when PTE is closed down cleanly the Auto-Save folder can be deleted. If the software or hardware crashes, there will be a choice of recovery points in the Auto-Save folder. To make use of one of these "auto-saved" files I think a "File...Open Auto-Save..." would be a useful additional command.

Hi Jos, And if the advice from Brian and Bruce doesn't solve the problem try this approach: Before launching PTE, move the two problem images into a different folder. Now launch PTE. It should report the two image files as missing. If it does, close PTE down without saving, move the two files back to their proper folder and re-laucnh PTE which should now start up with no errors. You've just confirmed that PTE is referring to the correct versions of your two files. If, at the first launch of PTE, it doesn't report any missing images then you have multiple versions of these images and PTE is not referring to the version that you have changed. To solve this situation, select the problem image in PTE, go into Objects & Animation and use the Properties tab to browse to the correct version and open it. This will change the PTE pointer to the correct version of your image. Remember to Save the .pte file (better still do Save As and give it a new name) and then do Create (better still Create Slideshow As and give it a new name) Hope that all makes sense.

Hi Lin, That explanation makes sense. Thanks for taking the time to pursue this with Igor on my behalf. And my thanks also to Igor for adding auto-save to his To Do list.

Thanks Lin, In the meantime I'll adopt my new working method that will, at the least, minimise the impact of any future "disaster" of this kind.

Henri, What you want already exists its File...Create Slideshow As....

Colin, I am in agreement with Xaver on this. When you launched PTE it automatically opened the last project file that you had been working on. This comes about because of a PTE system setting that you will find under View...Advanced Options...Load Last Used Project. If you don't like PTE doing this then simply untick the item. Given my recent experiences with losing hours of work following Out of Memory problems, I now not only Save As regularly but also close PTE from time to time in order to free up memory. So I am very happy that it launches straight back into the last project that I was working on.

Just to bring things up to date... This morning I resumed rebuilding my sequence; this time with Windows Task Manager running alongside things so I could monitor the memory usage. My system is a HP Desktop fitted with 2GB of RAM running Windows Vista Home Premium. In System Idle steady state it was using 386MB of RAM. After launching PTE v5.5beta8 that went up to 484MB. PTE reported the project file size as 44KB and the EXE file size as 1.3MB (Note: I still have not created any EXE for this sequence as yet). This was with the first image, a Black Slide, as the selected image. After selecting the next image, one which has many objects on it, the memory usage rose to 506MB. After clicking on Objects & Animation button memory usage rose to 568MB. I then did a select of a text object, copied it to the clipboard, pasted it as a child of another object, changed the actual text via Properties tab (it was only a one word text item) and changed its label via the Common tab. Memory usage was now 597MB. I pasted the clipboard contents as a child of another object and did the changes as before. Memory usage now 613MB. I selected a different text object, copied it, pasted it, changed its contents and label. Memory usage now 634MB. Pasted and changed it twice more. Memory usage now 697MB. This little exercise has shown me just how memory hungry PTE O&A activity is. We don't have to worry only about the power of our graphics cards to run the EXE. We must also consider the memory needs of PTE when doing O&A editting. I now know that it not sufficient simply to save work frequently during a heavy O&A edit session. You must also close down PTE and restart it in order to get that memory freed up. I'd be interested to know whether these numbers come as surprise to Igor and his developers.

Hi Colin, Seems we're both going through a rough patch with PTE! When you launched PTE it opened the last project that you had worked on - i.e. "Middlemiss". You then set about modifying "Middlemiss" by changing the images, the durations and other settings. And then asked PTE to Create. It thought you were wanting a fresh version of "Middlemiss" and so just went ahead and did it. What you really were doing was using "Middlemiss" as a template and so you should have done a "Save project as" and "Create slideshow as" in order not to overwrite your existing project/EXE pair. User error, I'm afraid! A safeguard, if you are using PTE v5 would be to follow every create with a "Create backup as zip". It takes only a few seconds and captures all the essential items into one place. When "disasters" like ours happen, we have to learn from them and adopt new procedures to ensure that either it never happens again, or if it does we can quickly recover the situation. I sympathise with your anguish at losing all that work.

Xaver, No problem! As Lin pointed out, it has probably done no harm to remind Igor and the developers of the potential benefit that such a feature would have. As I alluded to in my reply aimed at Brian, when this feature does come it will, for me, be a case of "shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted". But it will save a great deal of anguish for many users over the years to come.