Barry Beckham

I am sure Steven will clear things up, but I think he maybe talking about adding images on the fly. If I am right he is working in the time line and you could click and drag to highlight the images you wanted and then cut the transitions. In 7.5 you now cannot do that as as already suggested you have to use the shift key and click technique. Am I right Steven, that your clearing the images from the timeline so you can add them on the fly?

Eric In certain circumstances, you may also find it a bit easier if you remove the auto selection from the Objects and Animation screen size. and set 75% or even less sometimes. Personally, I find I like to have space around the base image when animating and then it is easier to click into no man's land to remove the selection from your base video/image

I am away at present, but perhaps when home I will record a short video demonstrating the issue. Later : Downloaded PTE 7.5 to old laptop running Vista and recreated the same issue straight away. This machine is 32 bit, but when values are changed in the size window the pointer disapears until you move outside the image boundaries

Igor EVERY time I am working in the Objects and Animation screen with the attached window, my mouse pointer disappears (I am using a Wacom Bamboo graphics tablet) It seems to occur only when I make a change in this window. The pointer disappears and if I don't move the pen, the pointer remains invisible although it is still working while the pointer is invisible. If I move the pointer it comes back. I tried adjusting the size position and lost the pointer every time, then if I move slowly towards the edge of the screen, the pointer seems to re-appear once it has cleared the picture boundary. I tried this with a large image and reached the surrounding window before the pointer returned. With a small image the pointer returned as soon as I cleared the edge of the image. I have reproduced the problem on another PC running a different configeration, but with the same Windows 7 64 bit OS. The other machine also has a Wacom Graphics tablet attached, but a different model, but the same loss in pointer is evident on both PC's

Igor When you get back from your travels perhaps you can answer this for me. After using PTE 7.5 I still cannot get my head around the two options we have in the Timeline Preferences under the heading of View of waveform. Well, I understand what they do. but can't see why. You have given us the Mixed Channel view (which I vastly prefer) and you have also given us a Compact view of mixed channels, but it's not compact !! The green shaded area is the same size as the Mixed channels so where does the compact view come in? Unless there are other options to follow in a later version. If you give me a compact view I expected to be able to click the edge of the green band and reduce its thickness. (maybe to accomodate a lot of sound tracks and perhaps that is your intention as PTE develops.

Just a personal view, but a top to bottom or bottom to top pan bores me to death. Why would anyone want to look at a huge image bit by bit through a letter box?

Ron So, was the decision to go to a Mac a good one?

Yes, I agree there is always that risk, but perhaps less so here perhaps. Many other programs have that option a bit like the universal Ctrl+C - Ctrol+V and others.

Igor I have only just started using PTE 7.5 for reasons you know. I felt the need today to be able to nudge a selected wave file a very small amount one way or the other. Picking it up with the cursor to drag and drop it in place had me fiddling one way and then the other. A Ctrl+ Cursor Control Key Arrow would be a godsend. Later, I could have done with the same thing with an image on the timeline Is that something worth considering at some stage. I have that ability in Camtasia and use it a lot.

Hardly ever used VideoBuilder and was never totaly happy with the quality. I wouldn't mourn it's loss at all

Fair enough, but some might end up spending more time gathering the information than they do with the sequence

Doesn't this list, especially the Camera and Lens info, assume that the sequence was shot with the same lens and camera combination on the same day. I can't think of many of my slide shows where I have done that, so the images will come from at least two different SLR's and maybe a compact or two, plus a number of different lenses. In that case what information should be posted? To be of any use, would a viewer need to know what the technical details were for each image, especially for those who like to pause the slide show at every image to inspect them. Or would a broader brush approach be acceptable? (i.e) what was used most? The one fly in the ointment, with a broad brush approach, can be one image that a viewer likes which is listed as being taken with a Canox 15B with a 28-135 lens, when in fact it was taken with Niknok 18A with an 80-200 lens. Year: Is this information the year the slide show was made, or when the images were taken. I think you will find that Mr Average will consider much of this information irrelavent and that is why most don't bother. They won't feel comfortable enough to say so in an open thread, as I am here, because they don't want to be attacked by the lunitic fringe. Seeing as I can't seem to say three words without stirring up a hornets nest, I feel free to say it as I see it.

Steven Have a look at the thread below. Its another forum, but one of the members is very keen on time lapse and has some information that may be useful to you, there is also a demo on YouTube. The link for the demo is in the first thread, but I have pasted it below for convenience Forum page http://www.beckhamforum.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2405 YouTube Example http://youtu.be/jgS_gmPnK0Y?hd=1

I have also experienced this on one occasion and found that for reasons I did not know, there was something wrong with the sound file. I opened the sound file in an external editor and resaved it and the problem cleared. Never found the cause at all, just put it down to a glitch in that one sound file.

Indeed, it is really a lot of work to find the images that blend well with each other and find good transitions .. I know and the result can be seen in your show For music, I merged four excerpts from Braveheart You did a good job on that too, because I never picked up a music change at all and that is exactly what you need for a show like this. Great work

Just to reassure you, I and many others also have Windows 7 Professional 64 bit and PTE runs fine on those systems, so its nothing there causing the problem. That does indicate a possible glitch your end and as a first step I would completely uninstall your current version and then try installing the latest from scratch. Try that first and see what the result is and report back to the forum.

Snapcam said - Now this is what a sequence without commentary should look like! I agree entirely. Great quality photography and whether its an older show brought up to date or not, who cares, it stands out for all the right reasons I can see the great care taken on the choice of which image follows which and all perfectly in time with the music. The transitions are no happy accident that we seem to see all the time, but organised and created with care. I recogniced the music style, but not the piece, until the end and then had one of those "Oh yes" moments when I saw the credits. I thought it was a perfect choice as was the subtle animation. This is what the PTE forum should be more about, visit the forum and be inspired and all done without any images being ripped from Google Superb Aginum

Dave I don't have a standard DVD player any more only a BluRay, but I have not experienced any image cut-off in the few DVD's I have made from 1920*1080 slide shows. I wondered if that was because it isn't a problem for me or I didn't notice it. So, this morning I made a DVD from a 1920*1080 project and my thin line around the edge is in the perfect place, no cut off at all on a large flat screen TV.

Well, I am retired and have time to put into my projects, that helps of course. I don't have to work 10 hours a day anymore, thank goodness

Mick I don't think I would describe it as patience so much. You can have all the patience in the world, but it may not help you to achieve something your aiming for. If you think about what we are trying to achieve, its a combination of images and music where the end result is greater than those two parts. For that we must have our images in balance with the music style and the speed of the music too. In an image based slide show like this, I think much more effort must go into transitions too and that is what I try to do. I tried to make sure I didn't have any weak images in the set and it all looked good to me. By the time I post a show, I would have seen it myself dozens of times and if you can do that without tearing the slide show apart, then your probably on the right track. When I finish a show I put the exe on my desktop and play it at least twice a day for a week. Try it and you will find after 2 days you will start to see the weak areas. After those few days I always seem to find something to change. When that stops I tell myself it must be about right, but ofcourse others will not always agree.

Colin Some of those plugins do a good job, I have a black and white filter set from Alien Skin and one or two of those are nice too. I am sure they are similar to those you mention. Not sure I can quite recall the detailed differences between Black and White films now, but the filters do work well. I have changed my way of creating Black and White now though and do everything in Camera Raw. Rarely does an image need the same conversion techniques in all areas. So I manipulate every image as a monochrome through raw and quite often will use 2,3 or more versions of the same image. That way I I can apply a different Black and White conversion for different areas of the image. Every exposure we make is a compromise and working the way I do, I feel I don't have to give in to that compromise. Works for me, so when I get the image into Photoshop its more less complete. I did a lot of trial and error with transitions though. Threw out some good images, because they just didn't fade into the next good enough. I feel that if I am making a picture based slide show then that is a must to try and maintain interest. Good fun though

Davem It depends what you want to do, but with faces I would guess you want the ovals vertical. There is a lot you can do in CS-5 creating artwork for PTE. Can you try and explain in greater detail what you have in mind because there are lots of different ways to come at this. We can offer ideas, but I can only guess what it is you really want. PicturesToExe is a great program, but couple it with a good image editor and you can create almost anything.

Davem What image editor do you use?

Its hard to find good meeting halls that can be used through the day (can be blacked out) that don't cost an absolute fortune. The cost of the hire is normally enough to make any venture a no go before you start. At least at Chester we managed OK. Had a full days talk a few weeks ago in Brisbane where PTE was the subject, but while it was a sucessful day, the club that invited me were not able to black out the room sufficiently. It took the edge off the day. If people wish to learn, I think its important they are comfortable in the venue as well as with the speaker. Anthony, yes I remember...

Stonemason No problem, sorry to hear about your shoulder, thats going to slow you down a bit