Tomuk

I am deeply saddened to hear of Ron’s death, he was the fist to answer any questions I had, he will be sadly missed by our forum members My condolences to his family Tom

Hello All, I know I am in the wrong Forum to be asking this question but I have a great deal of respect for our members opinions, Here is my question; I have been lead to believe by my local computer shop that windows XP pro can only detect up to 3gb of memory on the motherboard, if I needed to upgrade further they suggest I move to Vista. Is this correct or can I upgrade to the max the motherboard will accept and still run XP? Tom,

Today I re-made a show I produced a while ago but this time I used PTE 5.5 b3, please have a look and come back with your thoughts on learning points. You can download it from HERE . Tom

Robert, This afternoon I was at a loose end so decided to take you up on your challenge!!!!. Off to the internet went I and had a look at some of M.C. Eschers drawings, I’m sorry to say I didn’t get much inspiration, I think Lin is right you need to take a 3d approach. Anyway, as I was a at the computer I downloaded (stole) two of his drawings, took them into Photoshop, tortured them and produced this little ditty that you can download from HERE. It’s just a bit of fun and it passed an hour or two for me. I can’t wait for V5.5 to be published, it’s rarther like waiting for Santa don’t you think? Tom.

Hi! All Thank you Patrick for an interesting show. I’ve been following this thread with great interest and one thing immediately struck me…… What’s all this about “A little photoshop would work wonders”, what ever happened to getting it right in the camera. In my younger days I worked mainly with transparencies and doing my own E6 processing, with this film stock you only get two chances. In camera and contrast in the processing, after that forget it. Exposure and composition had to be right at the taking stage. Photoshop is a great TOOL for us photographers but that’s all it is; a tool, it won’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear. It allows us to see some great digital A.V. productions from people like Peter Coles, Ron Davies and Barry Beckham to name just a few, not forgetting Pte. (Another tool) I myself use Photoshop a great deal in the production of my sequences, making masks, making png files and image sizing ect: but I’m most upset with myself if I get my exposures wrong at the taking stage. On reflection there is one instance when I use Photoshop to obtain a balanced exposure and that’s done in camera raw, I take two images of the same subject, one exposed for a bright sky and another for the foreground then combine them for a balance image, but both exposures were calculated by me (along with my trusty Wesson hand held exposure meter). I find that built in camera meters, multi segment and average can be very easily fooled. Well enough of a rant for one evening, I’m sure one or two will be replying. Tom.

David, Click on this link http://www.wnsoft.com/download.htm and download Pte 5.1, this is the latest stable copy. Any problems then use this forum as Ronnie suggested. Tom.

John, You are an inspiration to us all; I wish I had a collection of landscape images like yours. I enjoyed looking at your sequence and will recommend it to the members of my camera club. Please keep it on Mediafire so they can download. I look forward to seeing more from you very soon. Tom.

Totally off subject but can anybody tell me if it’s once again safe to use the quote cut and paste feature? I along will others was a victim of the virus inserted by the clown Igor banned and I haven’t used the feature since. Tom.

Hello all. Well Lin has really started something here for me; I’m determined to improve my manipulation of prospective using the great tools provided by Igor and his team in Pte. Below is my latest attempt using all the ideas and tips provided by you experts, please have a look and come back and tell me why you think its rubbish. I concentrated on keeping the top of the image stationary while the rest of the image zoomed back to reveal all of the street, then on to Lin’s OOB idea. Sorry it’s another Mediafire link, please don't comment on the naff frame, its a Photoshop special and I only used it becouse its quick and easy. http://www.mediafire.com/?dlkjh1x0edc Tom.

Hi! Lin and all ardent readers, I've had a try at this prospective game and if you have a look at my effort you will understand why I am waiting for Lin’s tutorial. Please have a look, I’m sorry it's a mediafire download as I can’t afford my own web site untill the National lottery provides the cash L.O.L. http://www.mediafire.com/?txoyjzxxqmz Tom.

Hello! Peter, Congratulations on a well constructed A.V sequence, I liked the pace, it went very well with your choice of soundtrack. I now look foreward to your next offering. Tom

Video within an A.V. sequence Brrrrrrrr, Sir George Pollock will be spinning in his grave. If you must mix stills with video, why not work the other way around, it's quite simple to add stills to video, even the give away software you sometimes receive when you purchase a dv camcorder has this capability. Tom.

Good Morning Barry, I am writing this the morning after your lecture evening at Frodsham P.S. I was fortunate enough to be in the audience for an exelent evening on the use of Photoshop CS3. At evenings end you attempted to show your latest AV creation (Inversnaid), unfortunatly times got the better of you and you had to close it down when only part way through. After the meeting (in the pub), one or two members expressed their disapointment at not being able to see the whole. As I have a copy on my hard drive, can I have your permission to project it for them at a future meeting?? Yor visit to our society has now become an annual event, I look foreward to meeting you again next year. Tom.

Photo_Frame.zip Hi! Wideangle, I have only just seen your request for the photo effect this morning, so I have put something together that could be along the lines you are looking for. It requires a lot of fine tuning, photoframe need a 3D look.ect. If this is in the ball park, give me a call and I will send you my project file so you can copy, modify or do with as you will. Tom. Photo_Frame.zip

JP, are we all invited to your TV room?,and of course, take a whiskey. LOL. Tom

To the Academics and Educated. Please help the under privileged and uneducated amongst us by providing a translation from the French into English. I would love to read what appears to be a fascinating story, but I have no French, HELP! Tom.

Igor, Prospective pan and zoom. Would it be possible to have a colour change to the little grey button for toggleing between normal zoom and prospective zoom, possibly red for prospective and grey for normal, this would enable us to see at a glance what mode we are in. Hope you can achive this and is not to much work. Tom.

Hello Geoff, If you are running your sequences from a laptop to your projector, the problem is easy to solve, just hold down the function key (marked FN) and us the up or down arrow keys to control volume, this does work without your audience being aware you are making adjustments. If however, you are like me and like to sit away from the computer while sequences are running, then Creative labs external sound blaster live is the answer, it is a usb device and comes with a remote control, it works a treat.it's 6"x4" and 1/2" deep and is complete with a usb cable, software and driver.. If you are interested, my first stop would be e-bay, I payed about £20 four years ago. Hope this has been of some help. Tom.

Brian, Just off to B&Q, it's 10% day for us old timers, I'll see if I pick up some, -10% of course. Tom

Thanks Brian, This is just the kind of hints and tips that are useful, one peice of rubber comming up. I have just finished reading Peters tutorial on voice over techniques, lots of learning points. I am using his tutorial as a type of script to practice my efforts. Please keep the tips comming. Tom

Hi! Everybody, Over the last 24Hrs I have received numerous messages, mainly by e-mail requesting more info on the equipment I use for studio type voice over recordings. I am not very competent at voice over at the moment but I hope to get better with the help of friends on this forum. What I can do is to demonstrate in words and pictures the equipment I have and how it’s set up. Let’s start with the microphone, it’s not an expensive one, on the contrary it’s probably the cheapest, it’s the plastic stick on a stand that you can pick up from any computer store for 3 or 4 pounds, in my case it came free with the desktop computer I purchased. I then mounted it on a desktop swan neck stand and taped it on with masking tape (see attachments) a wind muffler was also added( just to make it look a bit more pro). Next we have the Griffin iMic (see att), the microphone is plugged into the mic input and the iMic is plugged into a USB port on your computer, that’s it, no software to load, windows xp detected it, loaded the necessary driver and reported it was ready for use. I then went to control panel, clicked on the sound and audio device icon and set record to iMic and playback to iMic, setting playback to the iMic now allows me to change from speakers to headphones without going behind my computer. The iMic also supports a line in port for connecting other devices such as record decks, portable cd players and cassettes, just the job for you portable recorder owners. In no way am I trying to convince you to purchase an iMic, all I am doing is reporting what works for me. Next we have to go into our preferred edit/recording programme,( in my case it’s Adobe Audition, but I know a lot of you use Audacity) and set recordings via iMic. There we have it. Have a listen to the recordings I have made and posted in this thread .

Hello Brian, Well you only have yourself to blame, you did ask to see a sample of images + audio, well here it is, sorry it’s a mediafire link, I don’t have my own web site. It now 01.30am and I have just finished uploading the small sequence to mediafire and obtained the link. Please remember that this is my first attempt at voice over and I’m sure that with your help, along with others, my technique will improve. Another point I would like you to take into account is the fact that this voice over is straight off the cuff, no script here….. If you or anybody else has any further advice or learning points, don’t be shy, jump in. http://www.mediafire.com/?8mfmmx8mrzg Tom.

Thanks for the above Brian, the fact is, my sliders are set lower than theos indicated, another plus fro the imic's pre amp. I will have to dig out some vinal records from the loft and test for noise. Tom

Hi! Brian, I took on board all you have said, both on the forum and e-mail about the Griffin Imic, well I purchased one and it arrived this morning. I plugged it into a USB port, windows xp reconised it and auto loaded the software and reported it was ready for use, I then went to control panel, clicked on the Sound and audion devices and set record to imic and play back to realtec. Opened Audacity and made the recording at the link below. A recording was made initialy without any alterations in my recording software, ie:- all record vol slides set to max, on play back I nearly blew my speakers,the microphone gain was so much (proves the imic does have a microphone pre amp). Please have a listen (I’m sure Peter will also download) and let me know what you think, please ignor the dulcid tones of my scousers accent. http://www.mediafire.com/?cvjvlpjdbmx Tom