Barry Beckham

Thanks Peter But what size do you create a show? Lets say you have shot the high res images what next? Create them to fit your monitor, retaining format 1024*680 ? What if you have different sized monitors in your home, which one do you choose, the largest perhaps? Do you consider that in a couple of years time you may have a monitor twice, three times the size of the one you have now, do you take that into account while making a show now. In time we are all likely to be using widescreen monitors, so do you take that fact into account when making a show now. Do you ever consider making all your sequences at 1920*1080 the HD resolution. ??

I would be interested to hear what experienced PTE users on this forum would say if asked the following question by a new user of PTE and someone new to slide shows and AV. What size slide show should I make? And then Why ? Now I already understand most of the discussion that this topic could generate, but perhaps we can steer clear of that. So, for this poll I am interested in you as an individual, your personal thought process and why you choose the slide show size you do. As a secondary point, do you like to fill your screen with the slide show, irrespective of the resolution of that screen?

Thanks for the good wishes guys and gals We are settled now, that is all the big stuff is done, but we now need to turn the new house into a home, but I guess that will come naturally in the next couple of years. More from Australia soon I hope

Some of you may know may know that we recently emigrated from the UK to Australia and to keep our family and friends up to date we have created 3 slide shows. They are best watched in order. For those who know us and are interested they can be found at the link below http://www.beckhamdigital.co.uk/freestuffdigslidesw3.htm All three slide shows were created to fit my new Dell 1920*1200 monitor, but the shows should work fine on smaller screens. However, those who do have large flat screens will see the full Monty, so to speak. There are no fancy techniques, just simple slide shows.

Pwear Not sure where you got that Redlands link from, because I took it down a few weeks ago. Redlands CC had some problem or other and the demo was cancelled. _______________________________________________________________ However we do have a growing list of lecture dates now:- I am doing a dedicated 1 hour PTE demo at Noosa Camera Club on 11th May. This is an intro to the software and making a show. I have a 4 person Seminar here in Budermin on on the 22nd April dedicated to PTE and all the creative stuff and three places are still available here http://www.beckhamdigital.co.uk/smallgroup_list.htm I am also at Ipswitch CC in Brisbane on 28th April where PTE will feature. I have a 2 hour lecture at Bribie Island on Sunday 3rd May where PTE will feature I have an evening lecture at Wynham Bayside CC in Brisbane on the 12th May I have another at Mt Gravatt CC, an evening talk on the 13th May I have a Photoshop 4 person Workshop in Buderim on the 24th May http://www.beckhamdigital.co.uk/smallgroup_list.htm We are also at Caboolture on Monday 8th June for a morning lecture on the 8th June Those interested in Australia will know where to find links to venues etc.

I did some work with Cinescore for a little while, but I have never heard a piece of music automatically generated that can come close to something produced by a musician and when we start to talk AV, I doubt I would ever use such music. Generally speaking, computer generated music lacks the charm and appeal that we need in Audio Visual and if every other avenue of music was shut off to me apart from computer generated, I would give up AV altogether. In my view we only have two main componants in AV and quite often the image side of that partnership is not that great. The last thing we should do is start to put lack lustre music to those images. A recipe for disaster............... Anyone who does not want to pay £2.50 to use a good bit of music royalty free can buy a license to use music for non profit (If they are PAGB affiliated). That is the way to go, not computer generated. Before anyone jumps to the defence of computer generated music remember I said " Generally speaking" and if great music of this type is out there I am willing and ready to be corrected.

Phil You have a great way with words, you should have been a poet

Its OK guys I now feel better after that little rant You see I used to work in the thick of all this nonsense in the transport industry and here is an interesting story. We employed specialist roofers to fix the roof of one of our bus garages and their own safety representative never fitted his safety harness and fell injuring himself. We were charged by the H&S police for not providing a safe place of work. Now how does that work when you emply experts in the field? It follows that if you employ an electrician and he does not turn off the power and electicutes himself, you could be charged? Why do you think the transport system is so bad in the UK, because, left to the H&S they will gring it to a stop with so many rules and regs that in the end you just can't operate. Put a sticker on yourself and its done.

Have a look at Sony Cinescore, the attached link to a piece of music was created by me with that software. www.beckhamdigital.co.uk/beckham.zip I suppose that means I own the copyright

Forgive me guys, but this is hogwash. I would use some stronger descriptions, but I don't want to offend anyone. This is an English disease that has been caused by the Health and Safety Police and their tragic followers. Well, the Health and Safety Executive have to justify their existance some how. It is sad, but this affliction strikes down the dim witted, most inadequate and stupid people in society especially targeting those who do not have the ability to think for themselves. I think people with the same disease were around many years ago and said they were just following orders, but still went to prison from what I hear. The disease makes these people SO stupid that all you have to do to defeat them is put a white sticker on the underside of your kit saying " Tested 11/03/09 BB" Then they skip away happy as Larry.

The way I work, the renaming files is not necessary and in fact is not required. Renaming files and getting them in a sequential order is fine for beginners who need that disipline at the start, but I don't need it. I will be in and out of Photoshop and PTE all the time, creating images, using them, removing them from the PTE slide list. I will have so many examples in there that it is troublesome to find the image I want. Of course there are ways round it, but how much easier would that button be. Show/Don't Show

Oh yes, I forgot the information on there. Location now correct

I am not too fussed what method is used to show what slides have been used and Nobeefstu's idea is fine with me, but why can't we have both. If we look at Photoshop, one of it's strengths is that is caters for lots of different ways of working. I suppose it could be argued that the more this is done, the more complex the learning curve is for new users, but that's life really. To gain functionallity it is a price worth paying and since when has anything worthwhile ever been easy. Even a key stroke would do me, Hit Ctrl+U and all images used disappear. Hit Ctrl+U again and they return. When I create 20 images all very similar as I have recently to show a map and places, an option like that would be great.

I think forum members should remember that not everyone works in the same way and a solution to a problem experienced is not always best served by sort of suggesting that person does things differently. The way we do things affects the final end result and I think my way of working is probably fairly typical. I don't select or pre number my images, because I build my slide shows, one slide at a time and I duck and dive all along the way as ideas occur or as I see my show gradually building up. If I want to use a slide twice a simple copy and past from the slide list is what I generally do. It shouldn't be a big thing, a button that says hide used images and one that changes to reveal used images when pressed. I can't see how that can be confusing

I have been doing some practical AV work using PTE 5.6 and during the actual process I sometimes have difficulty finding the image I have just created for the show from all the others in the File Panel. It ocurred to me that it would be a great advance to be able to hide all images that have already been selected for the slide show from that File panel. I could then just see the last 5 images I have created rather than having to find them from amongst 55 others . I am aware that if you switch to text mode the used images are a bit clearer to spot, but a button to hide/Reveal thumbnails used would be a good thing in my View.

The trouble is I have used these shortcuts for so many years I do them without thinking. Ctrl+del floods your background colour and Alt+del floods the foreground colour. They are very useful for slide shows, but here is a tip. Make sure you fill your black jpg's with black and not very dark grey or you get an ugly pulsing during the transition

AAaaaaarrrrgghhhhhhh Hangs his head in shame, I have found the problem !!!! . I thought I had created a blank black slide, but on checking again I found that it wasn't quite black. I must have done a Ctrl+del to flood the jpg with what looked black to me, but wasn't. I used that off black jpg for the white letters too. You would only notice it when compared to a black slide and that is what I saw when I opened up what I thought was black and flooded it again. OOOoops. That was enough to produce that pulse. Doesn't this hobby throw you some googlies at times?

Dave I create my images in photoshop, so it was a black jpg at the resoution mentioned and another with white letters created in Photoshop. A sandwhich of Black.jpg - black with white letters.jpg - black.jpg I tried PTE 5.5 too and that is the same. Tried the same test on my wifes system and the same flicker/pulse can be seen there too, but the two systems are identical so no great surprise there. I do not see the problem when I play the test on my 1024*768 monitor in another room and another PC B

I wonder sometimes if my life is destined to be spent solely sorting out computer problems rather than getting some interesting stuff done . I have a great new Dell 27in monitor and today started to put together a slide show. The opening titles are just a black screen, fade to white letters and fade down to black, simple enough you would think. As the title appears there is a sort of pulse around the edges of the monitor as though the transition is being carried out in stages. Totally unacceptable. It is the same on all images, but can be seen clearer on the titles. Graphic card is a Gforce 8600GT with up to date drivers Native resolution 1920*1200 Tried all the usual stuff graphics acceleration etc etc Ideas anyone B

LumenLux Sorry mate, I let my diplomatic mask slip a bit there didn't I. Its just that these sorts of things do nothing for me and I can't be the only one. I am trying hard not to be a traditionalist and turn away from anything new, but the tradition AV is very hard to improve on and you must know me a bit by now. From what I see there are far more important areas AV enthusiasts need to work on before flickering flames and on this occasion I could not help, but say what I thought. OOooops No offense meant at all.

If this is being used to help learn the capabilities of PTE, then great, but...................... No guys, its tacky and not something that is going to enhance your slide show, in fact it will do the opposite. IMHO of course.

Igor No matter what you do "You cannot please all of the people all of the time" However, I can see what your getting at and perhaps the create slide show button should just create an exe and then a second choice would just say. Other output options.

Rob. Yes it is and most enthusiasts turn to a sound editing program to create the commentary and to mix that with music at the right volume levels and in the right place along the music length. The sofware many turn to is a free download called Audacity. You will find loads of references to it on this forum. You can also add sound, ie commentary to any individual image in PTE so that the commentary plays when you get to that image, but the general concensus is that mixing your own commentary with music in a sound editor is best. A tip is to program your slide show with just your music and then use the time line as a reference point to where the commentary needs to be added. Audacity allows us to work with multiple tracks so adding commentary to music and getting the volume of them both is not that difficult. When we get that right, we can mix all the tracks together, not unlike flattening layers in Photoshop or Elements. You will find tutorials for Audacity on this forum and I also have some video tutorials on my site too

Donald You probably don't need your original key right now, but it was originally sent to you on an email when you purchased PTE4. If you keep your old emails you will find it. If you do, save it off your PC, because at some stage your probably going to need it, but not for this upgrade. If you go to www.wnsoft.com hit the download trial button and download PTE5. Unzip and install the software. PTE5, when installed will not overwrite your earlier version, but will accept the product key. That upgrade will give you PTE5 standard. That is all the changes in the PTE engine room and the new animation screen. What is will not get you is the ability to create a DVD for playing on a TV through a domestic DVD player. For that, you will need the Video Builder key that will effectively give you PTE5 Deluxe. That can also be downloaded from www.wnsoft.com

This is not an easy subject to cover as art is always in the eye of the viewer, but the choice of music fitted the subject perfectly. You do have one image where the frame effect seems to have dropped off, but other than that everything is handled technically well. Its not easy to be creative with the subject and I suppose there will always be debate on whether you should be or not. A thought just went through my mind once or twice that you might have slipped one or two of your own masterpieces into some of those frames on the wall. The image could remain static, but the inserted pictures could change. As Lin says, keep up the good work.