Barry Beckham

Almark Maureens pointers above are spot on in my view. Especially the length of a sequence.

Almark For reasons I don't know it was a battle to get your show to download. First I got no such web site when I clicked the links, then later it downloaed but would not play, but third time lucky and I have now viewed it. My personal view is that the border is OK, but I think you have it too thick and too white. I think a 1 pixel line is adequate and often if you make the line grey instead of white it still does the job, but then just appears more delicate and will not compete with the images. The slide show was very good, a place I would like to visit myself, very haunting around the volcanic areas.

I think I understand a bit clearer now. Most people always work from copies of images inside PTE, so any renaming, never affects the original. Good luck with your project

Ernest Do I have this right? You have an image in PTE called RedFlower.jpg..............If you want to use this image more than once in your slide show there is no need to change the name, you can use it as many times as you want and the images can all have the same name. I seem to get the impression that you want to maybe change one version of redflower and then rename that leaving the original. If you do that inside PTE you will rename the original and any number of copies you have used in your show. The way to do this is to open the image up in your image editor and change the name of the file when you save the file. Now PTE will see 2 separate images Am I understanding your query correctly?

None of your links appear to be working here

I did raise this point some time ago after I got fedup with people coming to me and saying I like your slide show, but the AV group would never accept borders. Maureen gave me a bit of a telling off at the time, because I think I mentioned that it may have come from the RPS. However, there is no doubt in my mind that many people are influenced by this view and believe any lines should not be used. I suppose we could argue this till we are all blue in the face and we could out it down to personal preference. However, when I ask these people why, I don't think I have had one who could give an answer. Their views come from what others had told them. So, why don't we apply common sence and make up our own mind, rather than allowing some know all to do it for us. If we place images on a black background and the edges of those images sometimes run to black the overall effect doesn't look too good. It almost looks like someone has taken a bite out of the corner. Almark, I hope you don't mind me using your images as a demo. I think a thin line is far better. When we think of images where there is white on the edge and we present them on a white border, we have the same issues. So, shouldn't the answer to this be, lines are right when its right to apply them and in Almarks case they look OK to me. I would prefer thinner lines, but that is just preference. AV is all about presentation and I think this issue is a valid part of that presentation. Is it just me that feels that we can be pushed down an accepted path by the "Establishment" Most of what we choose is a preference and I am not sure it is right to ever hear, a line round an image is not acceptable. As Almark says, much of his audience approved of it.

I can't quite understand what the fascination with laptops is, especially when bought as a main machine. (ie, not bought because transportation was important) Years ago I discovered that I could get a desktop with more power and far cheaper than a laptop and I have used it for demos ever since. Add to that the keyboard of a laptop is small, the screen small, the power often isn't there. Give me more power and I am interested, but it has to be a better price than $4000 for a laptop. Then I suppose that even if you owned one of these super computers and created some fast complex animation, many people would not be able to view it anyway because they would still be on much lower power machines. When most of us visit a camera club we go their by car because we need projectors, speakers, screen sometimes, so I took the view that if I am doing that I might as well take a desktop. If I had to fly somewhere, then it may be difficult to board the plane with my desktop under my arm

But will you be able to afford it Eric

I have been asked a number of times about WMA files and why won't they open in Audacity and I wonder if people get hung up on this because when Windows Media Player is used to rip music from a domestic CD, the is automatically converted to a WMA file. However, if you go into the rip options you can select Mp3 and even the quality you want. Once done all these aggravations of converting files becomes a thing of the past. Well for me it has

The single most important part of sound recording for me these days is cleaning up the sound after it is recorded. Whether that is commentary for an AV or tutorial commentary and from whatever source program. There always seems to be noise present and some of that may be the PC on the floor beside me. Using the noise reduction options inside the sound editing software makes the biggest difference and perhaps using those options correctly it may be possible to use any reasonable quality microphone. When I discovered this I had no idea how good it was.

Getting a quality recording if often quite difficult I think. I had to purchase quite a good microphone before I could get a quality I was happy with, but an aquaintance I once visited was getting superb quality from an off the shelp PC Mike. I would say, try the web cam mike, but don't be too surprised if that doesn't return really good quality.

Isabel I am glad the tutorials are meeting your needs and you already have been given the answer to zooming in on an image, but here is something to consider. There are those who feel movement such as a zoom adds interest to an image and those who feel it doesn't. It probably depends on the style of show you are putting together. If your aiming to capture a mood or an emotion in your show, then animation and effects can have a detremental effect. (in my view of course, others will feel differently about this) If your looking to create a slide show that may be described more as a presentation, then animation and zooms are great. We see them every day on TV If you are aiming to capture a mood or an emotion in your show, I would say be careful when zooming into or out of an image as many of the examples I have seen are way over the top. (in my view of course, others feel differently about this too) Zooms that go on too long can be boring, we have already seen the image on screen, so to slowly zoom way into one part is often unecessary. Keep your zooms/animation delicate for these types of slide shows and you may find you can have your cake and eat it. In other words retain charm, appeal and avoid the pitfalls. For a slide show that could be described more as a presentaion, then it is an entirely different thing. The white line inclusion within PTE is a great addition, but of course you have to visit every image in your slide show to apply it and if you change your mind later it is rather a pain to visit every image in the show again to change it. As you have discovered, a Png frame/line is quick to apply and it is changed easily in one go no matter how many images your show contains. I hope in time we can choose a line or animation from within PTE and apply that to every image in our show in one operation.

I raised this some time ago and would like to see a button to toggle used images on and off.

Dom It all worked fine on my Dell 1920*1200 screen and as Lumenlux says, nice images too. If your going to demonstrate anything it's always great to see images with quality and appeal.

You will be pleased to hear that I have been for treatment and I am completely cured The doctor made me aware that while many people may offer slide shows for 'comment', what they are really asking for is approval. So, now I know this I can avoid causing any upset in future, you will see a new me Only wonderful glowing comments and if you believe that, you will believe anything

Gilio You do not appear to be getting a great deal of feedback and I am sure I am not the only one to watch your new show. This sort of engineering project would inspire anyone, but I wonder if there is enough variety in the show for it to have a wider appeal. I could not help thinking that you have presented a documentary sort of subject in a pictorial way and I am not sure it is quite coming together. Perhaps the approach here would be better staying with the documentary angle and adding some commentary. While I watched I thought where exactly is this? why is it being built? when will it be finished? A few facts and figures would have helped enormously I am surprised no-one has commented yet and perhaps that is because they don't quite know what to say.

Igor I have created a few Mac shows and all the feedback is good apart from any thin lines applied. which seem to be lost along the bottom edge only This has now happened on a number of different Mac's, is that something that needs a look?

Lin As far as I am aware my Canon is equipped with auto sensor cleaning and has the filter, but I stll see plenty of dust, so theory and practice not quite coming together perhaps. I tried the mapping too and that didn't completely eradicate dust. I don't find it a problem on still images and was just wondering how 5d owners coped

Eic In photography as in life there are rights and wrongs, but many things are just personal preference. However, looking at the format of a 1280*1024 image is not very good. Its a terrible shape for composition, it just isn't a comfortable shape to our eyes. You will be using widescreen at some stage, so you might as well bite the bullet and do it now, later you will be glad you did. From what I see here, you would be hard pressed to get a 4:3 or 5:4 monitor anyway. I bet you are a really nice guy, but if I talked to your family I bet they would stay you are a stubborn so and so too. Which one of the two attached image formats are best? It really is no contest and if you have some verticals that won't fit, dump them. Its not compulsory to use them and you can often make a show miles better by what you discard

Eric Then use Picture In Picture techniques, animating a portrait format image isn't very appealing is it When your shooting images directly for AV as you are, then you should try and remain with a landscape format wherever possibe

Eric Just try once and make a test show of a dozen images that you shoot at the Steam fair. Dump your 1024*768 and your 1280*1024. Make your slide show 1920*1080 Save your images at Jpeg level 6, which will save a bit of strain on your PC. It will play on your PC with a black band top and bottom, but so what. At least you retain a far better format than 5:4. 16:9 is far far better on the eye than the near square 1280*1024 It will play perfectly OK on your projector, I did a demo the night before last and showed two shows made at 1920*1200, both played perfectly through a 1024*768 projector It will also convert to a DVD and on most flat screen TV's will play filling the screen, edge to edge and top to bottom Then you will not be loosing any quality when you view the shows and others will also see it just as you intended. What more could you possibly want

My Avatar was taken in 2007 at the Bristol Balloon Fiesta, doesn't need updating for at least 10 years

Ptigui If the key sent to you was the same that was sent to me, all you have to do is unzip the file. Save the file from the email and then right click the zipped file and choose extract all. Follow the wizard to complete the unzipping. You will notice that the zipped folder will remain, but another standard folder of the same name appears. Once you have a second folder unzipped you will find a product key inside. Double click that product key and install it to your PC registry, which amounts to following the on screen instructions You should find you are then set up with the new key. Hope that helps

Eric You need to run that filter a few more times yet Anyway, what are you doing playing around with software like this, Arn't you one of the PTE forum folk who like to see their images true to life.