Barry Beckham

One of the most difficult areas is to find an angle and music to show images that may not have a story entwined within them. The more you force it, the worse the creativity seems to be. I have lots of folders with slide show titles that only got so far and petered out. I have to wait for inspiration and some times it comes and sometimes it doesn't Maybe an idea is to leave your show for a month or two and come back to it later. Sometimes I find that shakes loose the creative ideas, but not always

Mark I don't think the lack of response to your request has anything to do with a holiday season at all and the lack of comment is already sending you a loud and clear message. I think members are not too happy to make comments where they may have to be less than fully complimentary. One reason is that some don't feel qualified to give an opinion, but others are held back because they don't want to say what they know they would have to say, if they gave honest feedback. There may also be a politically correct element creeping in where members don't want to say anything that is out of step with the main stream. They are scared they will be ganged up on by those who don't share their view. We have seen it before where one member will comment on another persons comment and then that will be jumped on by others. Its bullying basically by those who don't have the courage to stand alone and make a constructive comment. Sadly the result ends up with no one saying anything of consequence at all. I watched your show as 45 others did and I formed a view of it. Those other 45 would also have done too, but I kept my thoughts to myself as they have. Until now. I don't think you can create work of art by committee and asking others what direction you should take is not a good idea in my view. It gives the impression that you are more intent on winning the competition than producing a piece of work that you like and you are proud of. Create it for yourself and if its good enough for a competition, then you have a bonus. The loud and clear message your being sent is that the show is not rated highly. If it was, you would have had more response. In comparison to your recent Iceland sequence this isn't in the same league. Sorry to say this, but its a bit ordinary and certainly not likely to do really well in the same type of competition. The images look like those most of us take when we go on a family holiday. A few of them stand out as above average, but most do not and they are a bit ordinary, both in content and manipulation. The music sounds great, but the images are not joining with the music to make the sum of the two parts greater. The sequence seems to lack a purpose and direction with the fades not fitting hardly at all with the music. It just wanders, which then results in making the sequence too long. The hands image for example seems to have little purpose where its placed. It would make a better image at the start or end perhaps. I am not sure your choice of subject or the approach is going win you that competition. I think you probably already know that and perhaps you posted the sequence to get a second opinion, but none came forward. Its a competent slide show, but a competition one? probably not, unless the standard your up against is low, then where is the merit in winning? It comes across as a good family record of a great holiday and its certainly worth posting on SSC, but I think the familiarity of the subject matter leaves few avenues to improve it for competition with the title Photo Harmony.

Resolved

I have noticed that the forum icons down the left side of all forum headings are missing in my Google Chrome and Windows Explorer browsers. These icons are designed to grey out when there are no new posts, but show up stronger when a post has been made to indicate that fact. However, they do appear to display correctly when the forum is viewed on an iPad. I had the same issue recently with icons not displaying correctly and it was an issue with the Cache. Something for the Administrators to put right

Igor Just a personal view regarding Slide Styles. When I create a slide style the most important thing to me is to decide what category I should place it in to help keep order, yet the top option when you go to create a style is the style itself. Every time I use this option I think it should be the other way around. I feel the top option should be the category, then the style name. Also, I often make a style and create it. Then spot an error or I change my mind a little and want to make a change and over-write the previous one, but whereas in the category selection we can see what categories we have made, we can't with the style. You have to remember the name you used. Miss a space or a dash and you have two styles and one that needs deleting. It would be nice to select the Slide Style category first and have all the styles in that category open up to view

Thanks Igor I have already replied and suggested he upgrade video card drivers, but even that may not help in this situation. Thank you I will pass this along.

Igor In my experience these hosting companies treat us like they are doing us a favour supplying the space. They seem to forget we are the customer who is paying THEM money. Trying to get a response from them and then some action is like finding hens teeth. They need a healthy dose of Customer Care

Can I have your ideas on the cause of this please:- Someone who downloads a slide show using Windows XP and it plays sound only. Can't say I have ever experienced that The person has downloaded it again to side step any download glitch and I have downloaded and tested the slide show myself and it plays fine He is unable to try it on another machine where I expect it would work and confirm whatever the issue is, its on his machine. I haven't asked what resolution he is running, that thought just came to me as I was typing this. Any ideas gratefully recieved

OK, thanks

I notice that slide show club has not been available to me over two days, but no-one seems to have mentioned it. Has it not been noticed or something odd my end. Would someone else like to try and open Slide Show Club

I think you all need to take a deep breath, step back and pause awhile.............................. Because this isn't about Adobe or whether there is something better than Photoshop. My note just corrected some false statements and beliefs about Creative Cloud and your still missing the point. Perhaps you are all part of the problem being too quick to jump on a bandwagon and beat your chest and turn this into a debate about which software can do something better than Photoshop when that's not the issue at all. There is almost a foolish hysteria built up around Adobe CC and if you feel that is a silly statement, just look at the post above. "I don't like this subject, so it should be locked" My point made nicely I think.

Your missing the point Lin and forgive me but you do state the obvious at times.We could actually take Adobe's name out of this discussion and replace it was Acme. It's really not incumbent for someone else to "direct you to a website" to convince you that there are better options for HDR, panoramas, noise reduction and super sharp images than Photoshop is able to produce. Yes it is for me. If you want to tell me that you have discovered something wonderful that the rest of us haven't yet found, then show me some evidence of it. My experience is that those who talk loudest in general seem to produce very little, but it's not even about that. Its about making sure when you talk to others in print that you have the facts right. We can all be allowed an error or two, but don't tell me you haven't noticed that some information given on forums is way off beam. Its why many people believe that those of us who visit and contribute to these forums and discussions have not been taking our medication. I am beginning to sound a bit like that myself now, but lets hope if I can be aware and ask the question, all is not lost

I think the essence of this is that "different strokes for different folks" may be the operant phrase. Obviously many, many people are quite happy with Adobe's subscription paradigm and the quite low price for Photoshop and Lightroom compared to the original purchase license prices. I agree with you, but that isn't the point originally made and with respect to Urma, he is part of the problem I highlighted. He has given the impression that he is very knowledgeable on Photoshop and how do I know if he is or isn't? He says he has been using it for almost 9 years, since CS-3. He gives lectures and workshops about photography and image editing, He tells us he is beyond telling people what slider to move but goes deeper than that. He says he explains the principles behind the workflow and as a nature photographer he doesn't need the bells and whistles. He gives the impression he writes books on the subject and is a user of the latest Canon 50MP camera. So, it's not unreasonable to form a view from the post that here is someone who knows what they are talking about. On the other hand he wasn't aware of the basics of how many installations Photoshop allows, but is still willing to go into print and state it as fact that you can only have it on one computer at a time. Call me old fashioned, but if you have been with the software for almost 9 years and are telling everyone you're an expert, that is a pretty important point to miss. To make his point we have a list of software being compared, but as a CS-6 users Urma is already two and a half years out of date which was one of my main points. Modern software is too complex, there is a lot of it out there and it's upgraded and improved quickly. I have not met anyone yet who can keep up up all areas, yet many will go into print and give the impression they can and do. No mention has been made of the latest upgrades to Photoshop where HDR and Panoramas can be done solely in Camera Raw. I can only assume that this point has been missed when the comparisons were made. Maybe because of the 30 months of development that has gone by. I am not against choice, I am against information put out by those who give the impression of knowledge, but really are just on their hobby horse. Something like 5 different software packages are mentioned before we even consider Adobe. So, if we add the three adobe products we have 8 and we seem to be told that we need these if we are to be proficient at our photography because they are so much better. Nah, don't buy it. I have no interest in test pictures that I have had no hand in creating let alone seeing the original image to ensure it was exposed correctly in the first place. Direct me to a website, where I can see great examples of the HDR, Panoramas, the noise reduction the super sharp images. Stop me in my tracks with the quality of the photography being created now, not a dozen images amassed over 10 years. Show me the wow value your getting and you will have me sitting up and taking notice. Just telling me it's so isn't enough

I rest my case and throw the towel in for the second time

While these security breaches are regrettable and we wish they could be avoided, it's probably reasonable to assume that Adobe's site is now stronger than it was previously. It always amazes me when a company is the victim of cyber crime that the blame never falls on those who are stealing the information, but always on the company itself. The company usually referred to as "They" by the know it all's, somehow has to be super human and do something the best programmers in the world cannot achieve. Total unbreakable security. Human's being humans then queue up to chest beat and say things like "the abysmal record Adobe has over the last few years" I was one of those affected, but it was only a password change. My money wasn't on the point of being stolen. When those who shout the loudest have their home burgled and trashed, remind me to blame them for not having adequate security on their home to keep the thieves out. Life is full of risks, but too many people are willing to jump on the bandwagon and often loaded down with only gossip will bang the drum and scare the life out of those who are nervous.

After organising a major AV comp in Queensland in 2014 and now assisting another Brisbane club to do the same in 2016. I wrote these guidance notes that may be useful.Not being a lover of restrictive rules that can cramp authors creative freedoms I prefer guidelines. Open the Pdf HERE

I notice that if I go into the Account settings of my own forum. (same as this one) As an administrator I seem to have an option to change a username, but not as a standard member. I don't believe moderators can change the name either, so you might try sweet talking the administrators Mur Worse things in life than being in a circle. Isn't that what a forum is, a circle of like minded people. Of course if you believe that you will believe anything

I've had enough, I throw the towel in.

I have a personal and reasonable and proper aversion to subscription model (anyone who disagrees is nuts), however I also see the advantages and am very pleased overall with Photoshop CC. Fair enough, but do you feel able to say what your reasonable and proper aversion is? I travel in distant places and have encountered being unable to use Photoshop due to lack of internet. The problem with the line above is that it gives the impression that difficulties may occur for Creative Cloud users if they travel to distant places or are away from home with a laptop. That's not the case and I and many others experience none of those with just a little planning. If I am about to travel and do a demo for a club or go away for a few weeks, I fire up the laptop before I leave and allow Adobe to sign out of all other computers to Activate the laptop. That's it, I don't even need an internet connection while travelling I have to do occasionally do the inactivate/activate hassle, but so far it has gone so smoothly, I just fired up Photoshop CC on my spare PC. The Limit Reached screen came up and I hit OK to sign out of other computers and it took 23 seconds from that click to Photoshop being open on screen. You consider that a hassle? Especially considering the convenience of being able to have Creative Cloud on so many different machines and at your disposal anywere

Mick That is very true and I have experience of it. About 3 years ago I had 10 people at a Photoshop workshop and all were using laptops to follow what I was doing. I supplied the images so they all had the same as me. When I got to the later part of the day and I demonstrated how to control contrast in a Raw file, one or two were having trouble achieving what I had just demonstrated with my PS CS6. They were using CS3. So, I walked around to help them, but I could not get to the same place with CS3 as I was able to withCS6. I knew Adobe had improved the engine room of Photoshop, but that was a bit of an eye opener. Now Creative Cloud is even better.

I am still hearing the most ridiculous information and irrational fears regarding Creative Cloud, so here are the facts below. Creative Cloud - Facts

I think you will find that if you make your slide show 16:9 aspect ratio 1920px by 1080px, it can be exported as an MP4 and uploaded to YouTube. The viewer then has control over what size they see your show. Here is a link to how that size and resolution appears on youtube. If you want to view it full HD size, you have to click the cog wheel bottom right and select it.

Tonto I think this would be a really good improvement and one that has far more practical use than many I could mention. I did ask for this some time ago, but I think I got bombarded with the usual work-a-rounds, which while they work, are hardly the point and they can get a pain in practice if you need a few of them. As a practical user of PicturesToExe I often record commentary and although I always record it in short takes, I have a need most of the time to stitch the individual takes together. In that way I can easily run noise reduction on the voice-over at the same time it's stitched together and it works superbly well. Adding noise reduction to individual takes is just too time consuming When the commentary is in PicturesToExe I often have the need to add a few seconds between sentances and the ability to split the track and slide the next part forward 10s would be a great addition. It's almost an essential for creative work

Gary I would uninstall and re-install PTE to check that first? Then my thoughts turn to the graphics card drivers?