Gérard de Lux

Automatic translations are usually between bad and very bad (as a check I once had my page 'digital basics' re-translated into French, and the result was quite funny ! but I had difficulties to understand fully what I was supposed to have written ). Nevertheless, in this case a machine translation can be useful and enough to follow my explanations - furthermore, the screenshots being those of the English version of Photoshop, that should make things easier to understand. As these tutorials are fairly 'popular', I've asked an English-speaking colleague to be so kind as to translate them (he is the one who already did the translation of 'digital basics'); but I don't know when this will be ready. Just for fun... here is an example of machine translation of the introduction of my page 'digital basics' and below the original 'human translation'... [machine translation via Google] The numerical one takes more and more place in our activities of photographers, who it is of the catch of sights, the final improvement or the image processing, or of the impression. We note however that if the hardware and software are spread largely and quickly, it does not go from there in the same way for the basic concepts; we thus will try to take stock. [Human translation] Digital technology is becoming increasingly important in all areas of photography - from taking pictures, through image retouching and processing, to printing. However, although the equipment and software are rapidly gaining ground, understanding of the fundamentals is sometimes sadly lacking; this article attempts to fill in some of the gaps.

Garris, Best would be to start by creating a new set (if not, your actions will be recorded among the default actions); see: Then, you create an action and give a name and a few parameters and start the recording As you have portrait and landscape images, it would be easier for later batch processing to sort them into two different folders; but you can also process them all in one go if you choose the resize unit in % and not in pixels (though it works only if all your images are of the same size, and you have to try first to find the correct percentage to apply). I still recommend to sort portrait and landscape images into different folders. Do not include the opening of the picture in your action, and start the recording once an image has been opened; if not, when you launch the batch process it will try to open the very same image that you opened when recording your action! For the same reason, stop the recording after the image has been processed and do not include the "save" command in the recording of the action. This will be part of the batch processing. Once all "moves" have been recorded, stop the recording (square button on the left). Try your action on test images and if it works fine, go to File > Automate > Batch; see : Select the action to be performed and be very careful about the "source" and "destination" folders - all images in the "source" location will be processed! - and choose a destination folder different from the source, otherwise the original images will be replaced by the processed ones ! I hope that it is clear - it is simpler to do than to explain (the images and my explanations refer to PShop 6 & 7 but as far as I can remember there is not much difference with v 5.5). ???*% ! I see that the links to the screenshots do not work Well, I'm very sorry... and a bit angry... These screenshots come from two tutorials that I have made about Actions and Batch processing ... in French (but maybe that an automatic translation and the screenshots would make it understandable enough ?) if you want to try and have a look at the tutorial on Actions the tutorial on Batch processing

What about something like this ? (I'm talking about the visible and different fade-in fade-out possibilities and the sound tracks with visible waveform, not about the software as such !) m.objects software

I have already said it in the other thread as I hadn't seen this one which is more appropriate. So, for me: - light table with 'drag and drop' sorting of the images (the order being reflected in the order of the slide list) - soundtrack in wave form That's all for me (sorry if this isn't original!)

For me, a wave form visualisation would be useful, even very useful, but not essential. A light table with 'drag and drop' re-ordering facility of the images is a higher priority. But of course, if the audio signal was present in a wave form, I'll be happy too ! Thank you

Yes, Peter put an extra 'f' and forgot a 'p' - it should read Stumpfl Their official website : Stumpfl website

Ian Bateman's article appeared in AV World No 27, Autumn 2003, on pages 32/33. It is a summary of the long article published on Scantips.com website to which ContaxMan refers in his post. Same info, with several pictures as examples of the "72 dpi myth", can also be found on the following pages of my website.

Just to support original Granot's request and others'. A new category or forum (whatever it is called) dedicated to the new avi or dvd features is urgently needed.

Some image-viewing utilities rotate the thumbnail only but not the original image, this may be how Breeze Browser works. Rotation is a very simple operation to be performed outside PTE with Irfanview or many other programs/utilities.

There are several other members of this Forum listed on the prizelist but it is not easy to identify them all by their "nicknames" used here. Anyway, congratulations to all... and to PTE which was used in 58 of the 62 shows entered in the competition ! Some souvenir pictures of the event can be seen on this page (don't bother about the first image in red, it's just a 'private joke' - that can't be translated into English - because an exotic birds exhibition was held at the same time but not at the same place). The attendance was between 80 (Friday afternoon) and 200 (Saturday night) and there has been also a good press coverage. The next International Digital AV Competition along the same lines will be held in UK in March; details on this page.

Thank you; now I understand better the reasons for Granot's original request. As for the disabling of the "Esc" key, I too share Al's conclusion.

May I say that I don't undestand what it would be used for ? If the user wants to close the show, he wants to quit, not to see something else beyond his control. Or ?

Yes, if it is highly advisable to use .mp3 or .ogg music files, I must say that I have recently produced a show with a 60 MB .wav music file without any problem.

Your two pages and the 9+2 images on them are perfectly visible with IE 5.5 & 6 and NS 4.7 & 7. I know it doesn't help to solve your problem, but at least you know that your pages and images are OK and you should be (partially) reassured. Good luck

For the different reasons well explained by Al, I doubt that translated versions of his tutorial would be feasible. And there is one more problem : I don't know if you realize that the images in the show are those of the English version (of course) but that the various linguistic versions of PTE use other words - and sometimes there are big differences ! To make the French translation, I had to go back and forth to the French version of PTE to check how the various buttons, options, etc., were translated into French in the program. Now, just to give an example among many, if you have on screen an image of "Project Options" or "Music" and if the voice-over says "Configurer" or "Son A" (this is how they had been originally translated) people can get quite confused... Another point: The translation I've made into French is meant to be read; if it has to be spoken, it would have to be adaped because, as you probably know, there are differences between a text written to be read and a text written to be spoken. This is why I think that the solution of a written tranlation is much more versatile. Very easy to change too if Al makes changes or additions to his show (which he already did, in fact, and I changed my translation very rapidly). And this is also why I decided to leave the original English text, adding the translation below so that people can still follow the English if they so wish; it doubles the number of pages but the file remain small - 30 kb zipped - and this brings more comfort to the reader. I learned today that another friend proposes to make the translation into Dutch (he knows English and French very well and he has also a very good knowledge of PTE). Good news

Concerning the dpi/pixels, compression and related questions, you may find useful general information on these pages.

And in the FAQ section of WnSoft, one can read :

I've just fnished watching (and listening to) the demo/tutorial made by Al and I'm very impressed by the great job he's done. Very impressive, and useful too Thank you !

Guru, do you really want the answer ? I'm not sure... Well, then, it is you, or me, or anybody on this forum or elsewhere... as long as they are supposed to be human beings... in the three main stages of life (baby on four 'legs', adult on two legs, old person on two legs plus a walking stick) What did I win ? - don't tell me free download of PTE v4.14 !

I fully agree with Al and Bill (ThinkBox). PTE is fantastic and I love it. But it behaves as a traditional 2-projectors show. This is why it would be so nice to have at least one extra image track or one more virtual projector for image overlapping effects as is the case with 3-projectors shows. Of course, not being a programmer I have no idea of the changes/work that would be necessary, but it would be a real major improvement. And if this is not possible, too bad, and I'll still be happy to use PTE the way it is

It is usually recommended that pictures do not exceed 1024 pixels in width and/or 768 px in height so as to fit with most screen resolutions. PTE is able to shrink the size of the pictures if they are too big for the screen resolution (like 800x600, which is still common), but this takes some processing power and could be ennoying if the viewer doesn't have a relatively powerful machine. It depends also on the compression ratio you'll use for your jpegs as the weight of each picture counts as well. As for me, after many trials on different PCs and screens, I've chosen an intermediate size of 900x600 (for usual 35 mm film ratio) or 900x676 (for digital files ratio): there's not a big difference with 1024x768 and it gives me the possibility to add a background picture without reducing the size of the main picture. More important: if the viewer's screen is badly adjusted, what happens very often, or of a rather poor quality (particularly in the corners), this size gives me the assurance that the images will still be viewed properly. Finally this size reduces the overall weight of the .exe file. But this is only a personal choice ! But I still produce (and keep for me) a 'full size' version as I use a 22" monitor with a 1800x1440 res.

It took me some time to download and listen to a few music pieces, but I'll too be very interested in buying a CD. I can be contacted by e-mail through this forum or through my website. Thank you for your efforts and proposal.

I own a Nikon D100 and I'm very happy with it; my decision was easy to make as I have several Nikon cameras, lenses and accessories, being an old Nikon addict (since 1972 !). I'm not saying that it is best or worse than the Canon 10D, I think that they both are highly comparable cameras. The Fuji S2 is also worth being taken into consideration. Now, if you aren't in a hurry and do not already have Nikon or Canon lenses, the new Olympus could be an excellent alternative as it incorporates new features and seems really interesting. Gérard

Unsharp Mask settings are quite difficult to adjust and depend of the size of the picture because they are in %. I've found that for pictures of about 1000 px wide, the following settings work fairly well : Amount between 150 and 200 % (usually 180); radius 0.3-0.4; threshold 3 I never "sharpen" original images (whether from digital camera or scanned film) but always the final ones, once they are at the final size and after retouching, just before saving.

Yes, Guido, 999x666 is a very good idea and a good size, I'll try it. I don't go for 1024 (x 682) because, as explained above, I don't want the picture to be distorted or even cut on a side if the viewer's screen is of poor quality or badly adjusted. What I like with 900x600 is that the size of the picture is big enough for the quality while keeping the size of the file at a reasonable weight without having to use too high compression values; also, if viewed at 800x600 the image isn't too much reduced. Thank you for this advice.