Barry Beckham

Igor. I say change the program as much as you like and give me a whole new subject for tutorials Barry

400 slides in one show !!! Not having trouble sleeping are you Seriously It is very difficult to keep the attention of an audience for that number of images, are you sure that is the way you want to go. Barry www.bbdigital.co.uk

Roger Suppose you have two images and your intention is a nice slow transition between the two. If you put both the images into Photoshop before any cropping or changes in resolution have been carried out and follow JRR's technique using layers and layer opacity you can line up the images for the best transition. Then crop them and size them to PTE proportions and save each layer separately. Photoshop can now do that for us too automatically. What you could then do (but this needs to be done sparingly) is to investigate blending the two layers together with layer blend modes in the layers palette. Hard light, soft light etc If the two images blend nicely (sometimes a little help with the eraser or a mask is needed) you can use that manipulated and flattened image between the original two slides for a unique effect. Of course you will not know what the effect will look like until you try it, but then thats part of the fun Barry www.bbdigital.co.uk

Are you sure you are not making this question sound far more difficlut than it really is. Just size the images to 1024*768 @ 72ppi. If you are a Photoshop or Elements user, select the crop tool and put those sizes into the options bar. Then in one 3 second operation you can crop and size in one go. All you will need to do after that is to sharpen the image a little. Barry

I have recently put up a couple of new slide shows on my web site HERE or you can go direct to the slide show page HERE The newer slide shows are at the top of the page Barry

To open an image from PTE just Ctrl+W and it opens up in Photoshop for me Barry

Another thing to consider as well, is that some web space providers automatically remove exe files and they won't tell you either. Its happened to me loads of times Barry

DaveG No, that is not a reasonable comparison at all. I wasn't referring to music sharing, but copyright. So, I buy a CD of music and pay my money, as long as I am not using the music for gain where is the issue and the point I tried to make is that far from stealing something AV workers are actually promoting it. With camera clubs photoshop is generally shared between members, but that is not what I was referring to Barry

I suspect this is old news to some of you, but having just put new hard drives in my PC I upgraded my Windows XP after installion along with the latest Media player, now version 10. Version 10 now automatically will convert and entire music CD to Mp3 files, a bit like Audacity really. very useful Barry

Its time that copyright laws were reviewed I think. I have been into audio visual for about 20+ years both conventional and digital and what actually happens with AV enthusiasts is they spread the word about music. Its free advertising for the artists. I have bought loads of CD's and records over the years as a result of hearing a track on a slide show. Andreas Volenwilder, tangerine dream, Mike Oldfied Tomita to name a few. Far from doing those artsist out of money I have made them some. If the music is not being used for gain there should be no problem. Barry

I provide copyright free music available HERE including samples to download. I also have one dedicated to wedding photographgers HERE Barry

Richhaas You will find that Ulead Movie Factory 2 was mentioned because that version was available when the tutorials where written or recorded. Software moves on pretty fast and we have quickly reached Ulead Movie factory version 4. The interface looks a little different, but it is essentially the same software and I find it writes DVD's OK. I am sure someone will have experience of something different, but generally most software that moves forward improves and if you are in need of Ulead Movie factory now I guess you will not be able to get version 2 anymore. You do need to be aware that the resulting DVD show will not be quite as sharp and crisp as your PC version Barry

When you add a button in the object editor to run an action or another PTE show some care must be taken over the link. By right clicking the button, the link that is put into the action is OK if the show remains on your computer, but maybe not if you write it all to CD. For example when you browse for the link to put into the button it may look something like this: "c:/my computer/slide shows/title of show.exe" Lest assume you have now written your slide show to a CD and the slide show is within a folder called slide shows, the link should look like this:- "slide shows/title of show.exe" The C:/my computer is now not required and will stop the link working. Its important also to leave in the "" marks for the link to run correctly. The solution is easy, just highlight what you don't want and edit it out, but it can lead to errors if you are not careful. The other option is not to place any files in folders I guess, but that is not always practical, well not for me anyway. Barry

Igor I like using PTE as the buttons and navigation for my tutorial CD's so would like to see the resolution issue addressed so that no matter what resolution PC views the show, the buttons and objects stay in place. I would also like to see the ability to create a hot spot so I could create unique buttons in Photoshop and apply a hotspot to them to run a program, open and image etc. Barry

Thanks Al, it never occurred to me to look in the view menu. I have always been familiar with what used to be in old view options and was always happy with the standard view myself so never paid that a visit Fancy igor putting a setting like that in the view menu. Many thanks Barry

Can you boffins help please. I am using PTE 4.42 and the customize sync palette to program a slide show. I have all the images prepared, but along the way I often find the need to go back into Photoshop to manipulate or add an image. When I come back to PTE and select the image to be included and use the light box to position it, a funny thing happens. When I go back into the customize sync palette all the images in the show have been placed along the time line. I then either have to delete them all or start the programming again. Now generlly I know my way around PTE, but this is peeing me off. Can anyone point me in the right direction please. It is definately caused when a new slide is saved from Photoshop and added to the slide list and sorted via the light box into position. Barry B Since posting this I have tried everything to prevent this happening. It is definately caused when you bring in another image to add to a partly created show. It makes PTE almost unusable for me.

Fuzzy I don't agree that all copyright free music sucks, I agree that some of it while technically OK lacks that charm we look for. I have some music on the link below, that I think is great and it is copyright free to everything apart from a TV broadcast. I also have samples you can download to sample a few tracks of each album. Barry http://www.beckhamdigital.co.uk/royaltyfreemusic.htm

Ronnie I suppose it is one of those things that I know I cannot stop so I don't fret too much about the situation. I been to clubs who have bought a complerte set of my CD's for members use. I have often thought if that was entirely right and if so the price should reflect the fact that perhaps hundreds of people may have access to it. In an ideal world I would love there to be a way to lock my CD once it is written so no copies could be made. Perhaps if I could find that solution I could retire earlier and then make more tutorials. Having said all that I do think many amateurs get far too wrapped up in this issue. Barry

Hello Well, there are no grey areas in this music copyright area and you will hear lots of views about it. You can get a licence for use on non commercial slide shows and that used to be through the Institute of Amateur Cinematographers. Try HERE for the IAC The other option is to purchase copyright free CD's like those HERE Barry

I am not entirely sure if I can find the diplomatic words to say what came into my mind as I read this thread, so I will just say it. Many of the slide shows I have seen will not be stolen by anyone because they are not good enough, who on earth would want to steal a slide show and for what purpose? Perhaps it is me being naive, but I don't concern myself with these worries. If it were possible to stop a CD being copied, wouldn't Adobe us it and all the other software manufacturers that gets copied regulalry. Barry

Its all CD's and it was botting fine until recently I will check the links Barry

Some web hosts, (mine included) send out automatic searches overnight and remove automatically any exe files. My provider started doing this just this week after a year of my site being with them. Suddenly all my avi demos disappeared along with any exe file not zipped. You would think they would send an email first to allow you time to adjust all the links. Zipping seems to be the only way, but such an easy get around I wonder why all the fuss. Barry

Computer boffins This is not really a PTE problem, but I am sure there some knowledgable people out there who has the answer to this. I have a friend whose CD rom drive has suddenly stopped booting. It still runs OK and all programs can be called up manually in Explorer, but it will not read the CD automatically when placed in the drive. We have tried all the usual in devide manager and all the settings say it is enabled and working properly, can anyone throw any light on a solution for me please. Is there a setting somewhere that tells a CD rom to self boot or not Thanks in advance Barry

Igor That way of cropping an image direct to the size and resolution works the best for images for a PTE slide show. If you intend PixBuilder to be the natural partner to PTE, perhaps you may also like to consider some way of automatically saving the files, once they are cropped. The sort of thing that would be useful is for the user to be able to set up a PTE project folder from within PixBuilder. Maybe assign an Function key to automatically save the image to that project folder. The idea is that images can be gathered from various places, cropped and then saved with one key stroke to the project folder. This makes preparing images for a slide show quick and easy. Barry

Igor In Photoshop and Elements, you can select the crop tool and from the crop tool options at the top of the screen pre-select any size. eg. You can select 1024px for the width, 768px for the height and also select 72ppi. As you click and drag the crop tool it stops at the correct size, hit enter and your image size is a perfect 1024*768 @ 72ppi. The real plus of this pre-set crop tool is that if the image is high resolution enough, you can crop a landscape from a vertical, I do it all the time. Barry