Barry Beckham

Gary Maybe it would be nice in PTE But I feel for Igor at times. Some users want PTE to also be an image editor, some want a menu maker, others want a sophisticated animation tool. I don't know about you, but I would rather it concentrate on what it's designed for. We need the sound editing finished first :lol:/>

Yes, you end up with the line on blanks when you don't want it. What we really want in the objects and Animation screen is a paste to this image, and a paste to all images. Then it would be cracked

Gary There are a number of advantages to the stroke PNG line that Dave mentioned. Firstly, if it's applied as the top object in the Object and Animation Screen, then it will provide your edge effect irrespective of how much animation is going on beneath it. Secondly, if you get the line too thick or too white, you only have to remake one Png and overwrite the original and PTE will pick it up on all images. Its the best way I have found, but the only disadvantage is that you have to apply it to every image, but there is a quick way. Add the Png to image one, then hit Ctrl+C and copy it from the objects box, skip to the next image and Ctrl+V will paste it, then skip to the next and so on.

My advice re slide show format is 16:9, but I respect those who are not so keen on that shape, I wasn't myself once, but I have grown into it and seen the inevitablity of it. :rolleyes:/> On the rare occasion when I have an image framed in such a way that a 16:9 crop will not work well. (cutting off bits of the top/bottom) I distort the image a little and so far not one person has ever noticed. :lol:/>

I hope I understand your question correctly. Assuming I do, I would say No. Because it will mean the flag operates in two ways, one for a single object and another for multiple objects. That wouldn't affect most of us, but these thing confuse the hell out of newer users

Its just that I bought a new Dell 27inch and it was that resolution, so it sort of jogged my memory. I recall when we struggled to create 800*600 shows and now look what PTE can handle. Anyone remember Kai Power Show?

Well, personally the last two slide shows I made. Hot in the City and Schools our Surfs Up were made at 2560*1440, but I appreciate that some are not keen on the 16:9 format and as AV is all about presentation we all have to like what we do ourselves.

Geoff What was in my mind when I answerd were the thoughts I had when I moved from the old style monitor to a new large widescreen one. Suddenly all my old shows that looked so good at 1024 pixels now looked puny and I regretted staying with 1024 for so long. I am not saying 1728 pixels is quite in that same league as 1024, but if you have chosen 16:10, make the shows 1920*1200 because it will make little or no difference to you now, but if you ever move up to a higher resolution monitor and that is almost a certaintly at some stage, your shows will still fill the screen. Well, apart from the black bars if a 16:9 screen is used

Sorry Roger, this is not right. Rules are the enemy of creativity and this is one rule AV organisors have no business with at all. Show size is the creative decision of the author not rule makers. The pixel size of the show you make is NOT governed by the projector being used, that is completely false, but it is said over and over again to imply a rule is needed where none needs to be..Using 1024*768 in club circles these days is just plain daft, times have moved on and it's about time some club committees did too. Make three slide shows, one at 4:3 format, one at 3:2 and one at 16:9 All three will play back perfectly on a digital projector which runs a native resolution of 1024*768 or one running 1920*1080 I do it all the time and have done for ages.

Geoff If your preference is for a 16:10 format, I would respectfully suggest that you should be considering 1920*1200. Then put those values in the virtual size of the Slides and let the format take care of itself from those values.

Peter As Dave has said, a sample will help, but just to say I have found exactly the reverse of what you describe, so I am sure it's something simple that can be addressed. I am also a long time user of PTE and I find that it has become better at the core job or making slide shows. In the meantime, have a look at updating your graphics card drivers, that sometimes helps, but a sample for us to see how your show works at our end may show up the problem

Well, I don't think you can complain about my sarcasm, not you of all people. My original post to you, believe it or not, was sincere, I have been doing a web project myself recently where similar small frustrations grow into something annoying because it seems we don't have control of them, but they affect what we are doing badly. So my original suggestion wasn't made in a condescending way, implied or not. I was making a real suggestion and in some way commiserating with you. I was also making the point that most of us don't want our software to even try to be a master of everything. I am just happy if it does the core job and gets that right, which PTE does. The fact that you seem to find offense in EVERYTHING I say is a little baffling from my end. Lighten up and don't try so hard to be the stubborn old Yorkshireman that you are. Most of it comes naturally anyway. Now that was sarcasm :P/>

Well, that's a relief. I was worried there for a minute thinking you might miss Graham Norton. It's such a relief you know you didn't. Thanks for the post, I was able to sleep without worrying.

Eric I can't help having this thought, whenever I read your frustrations with PTE as a menu. I understand how little things can sometimes get under your skin, but with the amount of shows you do, perhaps you should consider a dedicated menu maker. Are we not expecting PTE to be what it really isn't. It allows us to create a few buttons and works reasonably well, but on a menu front its not in the same league as a dedicated product. The term Jack of all trades master of none has been used on this forum in similar circumstances and some menbers are nervous that it will spread its wings too wide. Collectively we want a top notch slide show maker, we want a top notch sound editor, you want it to be a full blown menu maker, others want their image editing done, others want detailed video editing, phew, its enough to have Igor selling to the highest bidder and taking off to the Bahamas, or somewhere even better like the Sunshine Coast of Australia :lol:/>

If I understand the point correctly, I made it years ago, but not in relation to animation. Not sure it even existed when I raised this. I was saying that it seemed wrong to me that every picture brought into PTE that was smaller than the main screen resolution set, will be expanded up to either: Reach the edges or the top/bottom of the screen depending on the format of the smaller image. The only option to put this right is to visit evey single image (that is smaller then the set show resolution) in the Objects and Animation screen, select the Common tab > Size position in Pixels > Original Mode and then reset the value to 100%. I said back then that there should be a glabal setting for this. It would make a nice preferences setting. It is annoying when you create a small inset image and PTE expands it up to try and fit it to the size of the screen.

Igor Your missing the point, it seems that I, and some other enthusiasts go straight to the setting and display the wave form in full. New users think something is wrong. There is something to be said for things that just "Look Right" and the half wave form doesn't

If you added borders using a percentage (as in Photoshop) and the images were different sizes, you would have different sized borders depending on the image size. PTE will add a set number of pixels as a border and if I understand your question right, you can add the same number of pixels to each image irrespective of size and meet your needs. That option is in the Objects and Animation screen and then the Properties tab. You will see the border button below.

That looks very good

Igor When I first saw the default option for Compact view of mixed channels I felt it looked odd and said so. As I thought the attached email is the second I have received in the past weeks I don't know if you can help me with this problem. It is nothing serious but just a nuisance. When I insert my sound file into the AV, everything looks and works OK except for one minor problem. The wave form at the bottom of the screen only shows half of the detail which I have not experienced before. I have upgraded to PTE 7.5 and also Adobe Audition 6 with Windows 7, so this is all new software to me. I have attached a screen grab so that you can see what I am talking about. If I close up the top half of the screen, it still makes no difference to the wave form. Are you sure you have this set at the right default, it just looks odd

Robert For what it's worth, I agree with what your saying, it would be nice if the space bar started and stopped the preview in the Objects and Animation (O&A) screen. I have found that the P key also starts a preview, but then you can't stop it with the space bar. If your inside the O&A screen its odds on your there to make changes and a preview will be required. The space bar is the most convenient and logical choice. Perhaps Igor will pick up on this thread and consider that.

One way I use is to place the font style, size and position of the text on one slide. Then from the Objects and Animation window Objects box, highlight the text, hit Ctrl+C. Skip to the next slide and hit Ctrl+V. Then adjust the words, but the position and size will be copied.

Peter Confirmed, same here following your instructions

Peter I really don't mean to open up the copyright debate again, but if we all follow the letter of the law, most of us couldn't make any slide shows at all and PTE/PSG and the like would never be, yet I am many others have been doing that for 30 years now without any real issues. It is an area that makes us uncomfortable for all the reasons that have been debated here and elswhere. Its one thing making a show with copyright music and showing it to other AV enthusiasts (but still illegal) and another to use copyright music in a commercial product for gain. The original thread was the assumpton that a slide show posted was fair game for someone else to take and use themselves. My issue wasn't really with the copyight angle, but the common curtesy of asking rather than assuming. We all make slide shows we hope others will enjoy, so most of us want our shows to be seen and hopefully enjoyed. If we don't, why bother.

Peter I did the same as geoff and tried it with three different old shows and it saved fine with the new file name, but that is the nature of an intermittant fault. It may only happen after a set sequence of events that are hard to put your finger on. I will pay more attention in future and shout if it happens to me

Peter Thank you. I was beginning to wonder if it was just me lately and I am so pleased it isn't. At least there is one person who thinks the same as I do and a gentleman to boot. For general AV purposes I can't see what YouTube has to offer. Lately I see more and more shows posted on it by PTE users and ProShow users do this almost exclusively, although its on the Photodex servers. I can't help wondering what the logic is. We pay a fortune for our cameras, we spend lots more visiting places of interest and a heap of time on our computer producing the images. We then lovingly spend hours making a slide show. Some ask for feedback and revisit their show and when they are finally satisfied, they can produce it at HD size. . Something we have only recently been able to do. It looks superb on the PC, the TV and................................... Then we post it on YouTube where it is decimated. Facebook and the like do nothing for me, but I will admit that Flickr does. I have been putting up galleries on web sites for years and I have to say, this way of presenting images with flickr is pretty good. Its not essentail to indulge in the interaction and it can be used solely as a gallery. I suppose YouTube can be used as an advert, to try and lure someone to the better stuff on a web site, but what else. I talking here from the point of view of a photographer and I am fully aware that if I was 25 years younger I would probably have my iPad welded to my hand by now so I can watch YouTube videos anywhere in the world.