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Hi Peter S, May I please ask, in order to further my understanding of your comments, what is the benefit of applying blur to the shadow layer when it already has a feathered edge? On a second point, when you say"Keep the first layer hidden and then you can use it again if you want to change the colour of the shadow to match different images", this implies to me that if I save a file as a png with one layer set to be invisible, that layer will not show up in the resultant file. Is this understanding, which is derived from your comment, correct? Up until now I have always deleted invisible layers before saving files as png or jpg. Your comment seems to imply that I don't need to do this anymore. I'd be grateful if you would please confirm this point for me.

Hi Colin, Thanks for your response. I have replied to your enquiry in your other post. If you still have any problems understanding the technique after reading my reply, let's use the other thread so that all the discussion remains in the one place.

Hi Colin, The frame was created in Photoshop Elements v5 as follows: Open a new file sized as 1024x768 (because that's the resolution of my digital projector) Select the desired colour and make it the foregound colour Use the Paint Bucket tool to fill the image area with this colour Use Filter...Texturizer...Sandstone to give it texture That's your basic "matte board" as you called it. Next step is to get out your calculator and work out how big a hole you want in it. I wanted 3:2 aspect ratio and a reasonable border around it. This can be a bit "trial and error" until you get proprotions that feel right to you. Now make another image sized to the size of your desired hole. I usually make it a plain black image. Add this "plain image" as a layer to your "matte board" image. Use the Move tool to position this plain image where you want the hole to be Now whilst working on the "plain image" layer, select the Marquee tool, rectangular form with 0 pixel feathering and carefully select just inside the edge of the plain image. Now switch to the "matte board" layer and Edit...Cut. And there's your hole! To get the "drop shadow" effect inside the edges of the hole place a 1024x768 Black slide image below the "Matte board with hole", select the matte board layer, select Marquee tool, rectangular but this time with 10 pixel feathering and again, carefully select just inside the edge of the hole. Transfer to the black layer and Edit...Cut. And there's the finished product. A "Windowed mount with dropped shadow and a transparent hole" Save this as a png to preserve the transparency of the hole. Add the png file as an object to the image using PTE O&A. Hope you can follow this. Obviously, you can use whatever colour and whatever texture you want. But that's how I did it.

Lin, Thanks for correcting my misunderstanding. It just goes to show that we never stop learning.

Xaver got in before me. He's absolutely correct. If you are preparing images for projection the only thing that matters is to have the correct dimensions as expressed in pixels x pixels. The dpi value has no meaning for projected images. But consider this: at 72dpi an image that is 768 pixels high will print at good quality to over 10 inches high; at 720dpi that same image will start to pixellate at just over one inch high. Now that I am posting sequences for downloading on a regular basis I leave the dpi set high as an additional protection against copyright theft. Anyone who wants to can "grab" my image but they will not be able to do all that much with it before it pixellates quite markedly.

Mike, Glad to hear that you've resolved your problem

Lin has given you some good advice in his post above and pointed you to his excellent PZR Tutorial, but I suspect he hasn't answered one of the concern's that you appear to have. I am interpreting part of your post as a plea for guidance on how to pick an image size that will work on three different aspect ratios - 5:4 monitor, 4:3 projector and 16:9 projector. And the short answer is - there isn't one that works well on all three. I build my sequences on a desktop system whose monitor has 5:4 aspect ratio. I play them back on a laptop with 16:9 aspect ratio and this is driving a projector with 4:3 aspect ratio. So which do I choose? I build the sequences with the ultimate intention of projecting them. My projector's natural resolution is 1024x768, therefore I build the sequences to an overall image dimension of 1024x768. I accept that when previewing or playing the sequences on the 5:4 monitor I will get a black band top and bottom. When playing them on the laptop I accept I will get a broader black band at left and right. But when they are projected they look as I intended they should. Now, my Nikon D70 DSLR is set to shoot at 3008x2000 pixels (3:2 aspect ratio) whilst my Nikon E2100 Coolpix shoots at 1600x1200 pixels (4:3 aspect ratio). How do I factor these two into all of this? I either set my images on a background or overlay them with a "windowed mount" mask. (You can see an example of the "windowed mask" approach here: http://www.picturestoexe.com/forums/index....showtopic=8127). If I need to use images from both cameras in the same sequence then I judiciously crop those from the Coolpix down to a 3:2 aspect ratio. This I will do either in Photoshop if I intend to place them on a background or, more commonly, simply by placing them behind the 3:2 windowed mount. So what size do I resize to? I use Photoshop Elements v5 and set the "Constrain proportions" option under Image Resize and then resize landscape orientation images to 1024 wide and portrait orientation images to 768 high. To save time I actually do the resizing using File...Process Multiple Images... That just leaves us with the issues of zooming and panning.Let's assume that your image is a 4:3 aspect ratio image and it is this that you want to zoom into. In order to preserve the displayed image quality, at no time do you want there to be fewer than 1024 pixels of the image available to fill the screen. If your original image is 1024x768 then any zoom in is going to lose quality straight away. If your original image is 2048x1536 then you can zoom in a considerable amount before you have fewer than 1024 of these image pixels available to fill the width of the display. Exactly the same argument applies to a pan. To retain image quality you need to have a much higher image resolution so as not to lose any of that quality. Whenever I do a zoom or pan, I always use the original image size in order to preserve as much detail as possible throughout the animation. Hope this has been helpful to you.

Mike, I'm presuming you have set the Common tab action to be "Run application or open file" - Right? Try specifying just the file name of the target show (e.g. AVSeq1.exe) with no drive or path information. Then ensure that your menu exe and all the button driven exe's are in the same folder. Keep the exe filenames short with absolutely no special characters - just alphas and numerics. This should eliminate your problems. It's what works for me.

Dave, Thanks for the feedback. I think there are two aspects to, what I feel is a successful working with both orientations: - as you point out, the two portrait frames align within the single landscape frame (that's very important) - the subject(s) at the start and end of the twin vertical frame mini-sequence are visually complementary with their predecessor/successor images I'm not sure I've got that across too well (I shouldn't post after two glasses of red wine!!)

Jim, If you haven't already found it and downloaed it, take a look at Barry Beckham's sequence on Fountains Abbey. Available here: http://www.picturestoexe.com/forums/index....ost&p=49187

Michel, that was stunning!

I'm posting this sequence partly as a response to the very recent post of "Winter" by JimM and the comments made about that sequence by Dave Peterson. This sequence includes both landscape and portrait orientation images. The technique I've used to handle the mixture is based on the technique displayed in the sequence "Flora's Secret" posted a little while back by PeterS. Whitby is a small community at the mouth of the river Esk in Yorkshire. It has a variety of claims to fame including: - Bram Stoker's novel "Dracula" is supposed to have been inspired by local folklore and the graveyard of St.Mary's church - Captain James Cook, arguably the greatest maritime explorer of the age of sail, used Whitby-built ships for his voyages of exploration The abbey at Whitby is perched high above the town and harbour. It as an appropriate subject to post as Easter approaches. In AD664 the church synod met at Whitby to unite the Celtic and Roman traditions in Christianity in Britain. One of the agreements made at that meeting concerned the method of calculating the date of Easter. We still use that method today. The sequence can be downloaded here: http://www.mediafire.com/?xn7jvgu0yvy

Hi Jim, "..new to making slideshows..."? Pull the other one! I've been building slide-sound sequences for nearly 25 years and I still struggle to produce sequences of that quality. You clearly have a good grasp of what works and what doesn't. I tend to agree with Dave Peterson's comments above about the difficulties inherent in mixing verticals and horizontals. I thought your use of the "Gate" transitions was a good way of trying to get around the problem. But,as Dave said, it causes an interruption to the smooth flow. As for the framing, I felt it complemented the images very well. Many of the images had some subtle shades of orange, brown and red in them. So your choice of framing was OK by me. And the music was an excellent choice to complement the mood of the images. I thoroughly enjoyed this sequence. I just wish we still got winters like that down here in north Yorkshire.

Bill, When you try out Bruce's suggestion you might also like to try setting the image duration and transition time to be the same. If you set a long duration e.g. 10 seconds or more, this will give a slow dreamy feel to the sequence.

Barry, I had omitted to tick the "Use existing folders" option in WinZip. With that box ticked everything works as you expected it to.

Barry, There did seem to be a "bug" in the way you had packaged it. I downloaded the Elements version. After the download completed I opened the zip file in WinZip and extracted to a new folder that I created as I did the extract. I then ran Start.exe and got your Menu screen up. As this was my first dealing with your tutorial system it took a moment or two to realise that I had to click on the Video button to move on. When I did and selected "Creating a Montage", I got an error pop-up stating that it couldn't find the file. After studying the situation I initially concluded that it was because it was looking for "creating a montage.wmv" (all lowercase) whereas you had packaged it as "Creating a Montage.wmv" (mixed case). I renamed this file to lowercase and tried again. Same error! After further consideration I spotted that it was looking for the wmv file in a sub-folder \videos\. I created that sub-folder, moved the wmv file there and - hey presto - all worked OK. Perhaps you need to reassess your testing methodology and ensure that you replicate the actions of both a first time customer and a repeat business customer. As I say, a little glitch in the match up between your instructions and your packaging - but easily resolved. You obviously adopt a very professional approach to your work and your "deliverables" so I guess you'll want to sort this out for the benefit of future customers and to preserve your high reputation. I would have posted you sooner but got embroiled in some problems with my driving school business. Using the coffee break time to reply now. Extra info added at c.11:50am Barry, Having read DJH's post below I re-visited what I did. I still get the problem and can confirm that the case of the filename is a red-herring. It's the need to put the wmv in a folder called videos that is the real issue.

Mike, Make sure you are using a soft-edged brush like Barry recommended!

Barry, Many thanks for the Elements video. You've opened my eyes to so many new opportunities to be creative using Elemens for AV image preparation. All I need now are the right sort of images and I'll definitely have a go at a montage.

Mike, In the above post you wrote"...I did not think PTE could handle full resolution images ..." Do not confuse what PTE can/cannot do with what the computer hardware can/cannot do. PTE, so far as I know, can handle any file size that we might care to give it. The limiting factor is always the ability of the computer hardware to handle that same file in the way that we want it to. This depends, not on PTE's abilities, but on the abilities of the Graphics card or chipset installed in the PC. There have been many past threads that have discussed this point.

Hi Judy, No, you didn't dream it! Igor has previously hinted that v5.2 will include an extensive rework of the user interface, especially in respect of the timeline, animation and waveform display. Hopefully making it easier to synch everything we would like to the precise part of the soundtrack that we want. I'm looking forward to this release. But we'll just have to be patient.

Hastinga, Your screen shot looks like PTEv5.0x. I think the "Wait for a key press..." option came in with v5.1x. It's certainly there in my v5.10 Project Options...Main tab. I think downloading the latest version will solve this problem.

John, If you click on the "My Control" link up near the top of the page, you will then see an option to set your E-mail defaults (its the last item in the main list). If you tick this and use the drop down menu to control what happens you should find it will give you all the control you need. Set it and then put in a test post and a test reply to some other post. No one will mind, we all have to learn somehow.

John, Each time that you post on this forum, there is an option that you can select (a Tick box) to have e-mail notification of any replies. The default is "Off". The error sounds like the one that occurs when you have inadvertently moved the picture files. You say you haven't done this. Were they stored on removeable media (CD, DVD, USB Flash memory stick) and have you loaded this media before opening your pte file?

Barry, You certainly do produce some inspirational work! This one had some wonderfully evocative landscape images; although I felt that, somehow, it lacked the visual cohesion of "Another Time" and "Fountains Abbey". Perhaps this was because the images seemed to be from differing locations and taken at various seasons in the year. I particularly liked the decision to present it as a monochrome sequence. Unfortunately, the introduction of colour and then the fancy effect on the final image broke the magic spell that you had woven on me all the way through the sequence to that point. Many thanks for sharing this one with us all.

I think you will need to break the movement down into smaller pieces. For example: Start zoomed in on the first set of parents Then pan down to their children Then zoom out to see all the brothers and sisters Then pan sideways to see cousins Then down another level and so on... Alternatively, create individual family group charts and then overlay the next generation onto the previous image and fade one through to the other. Hope you can grasp what I'm trying to describe.