Barry Beckham

Mark Do you shoot Raw files or High resolution Jpegs?

You can create a frame in your image editor and addall sort of embelishments to it. A drop shadow to create the Matt border effect and much more. If you save the resulting file as a Png file it will retain the transparent centre portion and you can drop that over your images in PTE just like a real frame. In fact there is a nice dodge as explained by Davegee where you can use the logo option and apply your frame to all images in your show in one go

Barry, If I understand this right...I can add two pieces of music to One track and they will play simultaneously No, you have it round the wrong way they will play consecutively one after the other then if I add another track it will follow on from the end of track one with its two tracks. NO, if you add two bits of sound to 1 track the two tracks will play consecutively and you will then have offset available on both ( see screen grabs) Wow, I didnt know that could be done. Question: Something I noticed when I was dueling with this...if I add a sound via add sound and change the start point in the wee box that comes up, the duration reverts to 0:00:000 Should that happen? Yes

I understand the point re resizing using external software in terms of quality - but still not sure why PTE stores fullsize image, rather image which will be generated as output. It doesn't and I am not sure why you think it does, it stores and plays the image you create at the size you created it. We were making the point that if you want to put images into PTE straight from your camera they will probably work fine, but that will depend on the cameras output and how much animation you use. I think also that while we may all be PTE users, we should not totally denigrate other software and its users. I have seen many excellent and sophisticated shows produced in PSG and Producer - mind you Producer is substantially more expensive. To beginners, in our camera club anyway, things such as Keyframes and layers and how pans/zooms/fades etc work seem more intuitive in Producer. Yes you can denigrate other software as long as you have a good enough knowledge of it and the competitor and your making those comments from practiced use. There is no point in having an intuitive software that doesn't work is there. I have used PTE and PSG extensively and PSG doesn't handle animation good enough yet and many PSG users are not getting the image quality right too. I was asked to demonstrate for PSG at the NEC a few years back, but had to decline because the animation is jerky and then that draws power from the software and affects the fades either side of the animated image. I wish they would address it and I could make some tutorials using PSG, but not while any demos I make are nnot smooth enough. I tried it again recently and the effects where the same.

Oops Just seen that you listed the duration, but I watched the show again anyway. Definately put it at the start, then give your talk and if you have captivated them enough end on a different slide show, just for entertainment value. The audience will appreciate that.

Andrew When you add music in Project options it comes up listed under track 1. If you add another piece of music to track 1 they will play one after the other. So, if you add your music in this way it will show under track one. Then add a second track and the sound effect to that second track. Now they will play simultaneously and you will have the offset to position the sound effect where you want it. Use the wave form and envelop tool on the first track to reduce the volume while the sound effect is playing, if necessary

Fergy PSG does resize the images automatically when you make your final exe file and I can see why some think resizing images is a waste of time. PTE does not resize images like PSG, but it can handle far larger files than PSG and it is far better quality. Consider this. You pay good money for your camera equipment and you take time and trouble capturing your images. You probably do some editing of them as well. Why then hand over the last part to your software to do it automatically for you. There are down sides to this that can effect image quality. PSG does not choose which part of the image you want to show, it does not add that touch of extra sharpness necessary when we downsize images. Here is another question. How many of those who think it is a negative factor to resize your images create really great slide shows? I rest my case, but it horses for courses. If you want to throw a few images to a bit of music and call that AV, then PSG is for you. Want something better? Something to stand out from the crowd. Use PTE.

Pat As Ken says there is a tick box that has probably become ticked by accident. Go to your project options > main tab and its down on the left hand side. "display slides in random order"

How long does the Show run for?

Hot air balloons on the right day are difficult to get wrong. Big bold and colourful

Andrew There is a template available HERE Peter Believe it or not, I was practicing and trying out techniques, back then, you should see the failures. It was very early days in digital and I am afraid I wasn't welcome at any camera clubs. In 1997, 8 and 9 I think clubs had a lynch posse to deal with anyone who mentioned the dreaded D word. In the middle ages I would have been burned at the stake. Looking back now some of the images I chose not to include look just a little amateurish, but some hold up and the creativity was a way of seeing what could be done, but as I said in the document, I didn't see it like that till much later. Because Clubs were so against digital around that time I searched the Internet and discovered a small band of enthusiasts and we banded together and formed I.D.I.G (Internet Digital Imaging Group) The first two members was myself and Barry Colqhoun, better known on this forum as BjC who I believe was the first person to gain an A.R.P.S in digital. . Some time later David Rowley joined us and some of you know of him. Then one tor two others and we learned from each other and boy were we productive around that time. We freely shared our discoveries and went from strength to strength. It was actually BjC who encouraged me to write for magazines. Good job I listened to him. Not sure I ever did thank him for that encouragement.

Kieron You should be able to match the sharpness of those images because they would have been taken with a Nikon Coolpix 900 (1 Mega pixel), 950 (2 Mega pixel) and the 990 (3 Mega pixel). I am not sure if any of my first digital SLR images would have appeared in that batch, but that was only 3MP too, Sharpness is not just pixels though, its the correct editing too as contrast plays an important part in our estimation of sharpness. One final thing, I choose not to show you images that are unsharp, I have my share of course, but what is the point of presenting failures.

Thanks Guys

I am getting a lot of email enquiries regarding updating VideoBuilder. These are existing PTE users whose VB key has expired. Can someone enlighten me on how they can purchase an upgrade, because I cannot find and reference to it on www,wnsoft.com

This is a picture presentation rather than an Audio Visual and there is a readme file with the download that explains the title Top of the page called The Apprenticeship

Mickp An idea, but too much trouble and of course it cramps your style a bit if you want to change things. If you going to invite someone around to record commentary you can't keep calling them back when you want a small change made.

Mick Getting someone different is often a problem for commentary. I have tried it a few times with people I know, but they just cannot seem to read a script without sounding like their reading a script:blink: I did think at one time that members of this forum could provide each other with commenatry, but it went down like a lead balloon

Stonemason Are you trying to achieve what power point does so your audience sees the show, but you can see something else like crib notes?

The slide show will be found at the top of this PAGE

Yes, but for thin lines or frames it works a treat, even though it will add them to the blanks too, but apart from that its great. This is what we want when we add an image in O&A screen, the choice to apply the added image to just that one image, or the whole slide show

Davegee Dam Why didn't I think of that, well done and a great option, I wouldn't even call it a workaround.

STonewall Can I make a suggestion? Please don't be offended by what I am about to say, but the questions you have put on the forum tells me that perhaps you need a little more help than this forum can offer. We are great at fireing suggestions at you, but something tells me that what you need is a little one to one experience with someone who knows their way around the computer better than you and can help and reassure you especially about viruses. Viruses are not a problem these days (with a bit of common sense) and modern software is updated so often that isolating a Photographic PC from the internet doesn't seem to me to make a whole lot of sense. It indicates to me that your fear of a virus is far greater than the actual threat. Peter is right, that more often than not the virus threat is a hoax and we should ignore it inless it comes from the virus protection software installed on our computer and you need to know that even they get it wrong sometimes in their eagerness to protect us. If your a part of a Photo Club find someone to give you a helping hand as it seems to me you would benefit from that. I may have misread your mail and your experience and if so there will be plenty of info above to draw on, but if you need someone to chat to, you will find my phone number via the links below on a contact page. Just remember I live in Australia and would not like to have to answer technical questions at 3am .

Peter Neither! Its the way PTE works. In order to get the name to change in the Object list in the O&A window you have to replace the image file via the Properties tab in O&A window. If this behaviour is different to previous versions of PTE I guess it is as a consequence of being able to assign names to slide for use by the "Go to Slide <name>" action. That does not appear to be right. However I replace a file the old name stays in the O&A screen and is very confusing. Use the O&A or the main screen.

Its not a simple matter that the green line (end of last slide) is reached before the music ends is it? That would cause that problem