Plitvice Lakes National Park-Croatia

[goddi]

Greetings,

I have uploaded a new show to Beechbrook. This is a show of our walk in the Plitvice Lakes National Park in Croatia. It is on the World Heritage list. The show is 16x9; 45 Mb; NAV bar is active; 7:06 in length. Comments, critiques welcomed.

http://www.beechbrook.com/pte/downloadfile.asp?id=1879

[Almark]

Hi Gary,

I found a number of problems with your AV. If you are interested in feedback then please read below, otherwise feel free to simply ignore my comments.

The green drop shadow on the title page makes it look like 3D gone wrong. I suggest you change it to grey.

The animated map showed your route, I expected it to stop at the park.

You overlay text on images that have text and that makes it hard to read both.

From a photography point of view, many images have clearly blown highlights.

Many of the images appear to be over sharpened.

The guitar music has a noticeable series of clicks in the background.

You might want to place your portrait images together.

I hope this helps.

[goddi]

Replies below in bold:

======================================

Hi Gary,

I found a number of problems with your AV. If you are interested in feedback then please read below, otherwise feel free to simply ignore my comments.

The green drop shadow on the title page makes it look like 3D gone wrong. I suggest you change it to grey.

-I choose green because of the green of the park. I probably should have reversed the colors.

The animated map showed your route, I expected it to stop at the park.

-Yes...I thought about that but I wanted to show the entire route. That is why I had applied a bit of animation to the red button to draw attention to where the park was compared to the rest of our route. That bothered me too but I did it anyway... And that map was a bear to make (at least to me)

You overlay text on images that have text and that makes it hard to read both.

-Yes...I could not figure how to place it better since the backgrounds were either dark or light, so I put it in two of the slides.

From a photography point of view, many images have clearly blown highlights.

-Yes...but that was the difficulty of the location. Did not have much choice over where I could stand to take the image. And frothy white water and dark forest are hard to match up correctly. I didn't want to 'freeze' the water with a faster shutter speed and that might have added to the highlights problem.

Many of the images appear to be over sharpened.

-Some of the images, with the waterfall, I did not select the 'anti-shimmering' because on my monitor, it seemed to help with an appearance of motion in the water with the movement of the slide. I really did very little sharpening.

The guitar music has a noticeable series of clicks in the background.

-I also had a little problem with that portion of the selection but if you listen carefully, it is the musician picking at the strings. Perfect music selection is really a difficult thing to accomplish. I did not like that portion of the piece but I like the rest of it. But it was the way he was picking at the guitar.

You might want to place your portrait images together.

-I know this suggestion has been made before but I really don't agree with it.

Thanks for your comments. My main purpose was to show the beauty of a park not too many people might be aware of.

Thanks, Gary

I hope this helps.

[David Porter]

Hi Gary,

I thoroughly enjoyed your show and I didn't find the slight technical problems detracted from the whole thing. There were some really good shots especially of the waterfalls. A couple of points:- 1)Perhaps you could have been a bit more ruthless in chopping out some of the photos and then increased the screen time of the others. 2)I think there were too many "holiday snap" photos showing your partner looking at the camera. If you want to include her why not have her,say, sitting on a rock looking at the view. Then do another show for family viewing.

[goddi]

Hi Gary,

I thoroughly enjoyed your show and I didn't find the slight technical problems detracted from the whole thing. There were some really good shots especially of the waterfalls. A couple of points:- 1)Perhaps you could have been a bit more ruthless in chopping out some of the photos and then increased the screen time of the others. 2)I think there were too many "holiday snap" photos showing your partner looking at the camera. If you want to include her why not have her,say, sitting on a rock looking at the view. Then do another show for family viewing.

==================

Mickp...

I can't disagree with you about being more ruthless. I have tweeked and tweeked and re-tweeked the images in the slideshow. It really is a hard thing to do. I get to a point and then surrender! But you are right. I started out with almost 200 images for this show and got it down to about 80. I don't like to see shows that have long views per slide (with no user controls) so I tend to put more images in and activate the NAV bar so people can zoom or pause through them as they like. My wife would prefer to not be in so many images, too. But I like to have a body in some pictures to give a better perspective/scale and she is more available than a stranger... .

Thanks for the comments.

Gary

[goddi]

Hi Gary,

I found a number of problems with your AV. If you are interested in feedback then please read below, otherwise feel free to simply ignore my comments.

The green drop shadow on the title page makes it look like 3D gone wrong. I suggest you change it to grey.

The animated map showed your route, I expected it to stop at the park.

You overlay text on images that have text and that makes it hard to read both....

I hope this helps.

=================

Almark,

I just went back and changed the title page with green as the main color and white as the shadow line, and enlarged the text. It does look better.

I also moved the overlay text to the bottom as just 2 lines with a white rectangle background and it is easier to read.

Thanks for the ideas. They bothered me in the back of my mind but I think I was just too drained from getting it this far...

And another reason I had the route continue past the Park's location toward Slovenia is that at the end of the show I stated that the trip continued onto Slovenia. I guess that did not come across as I expected.

Improvements made... Gary

[Almark]

Hi Gary,

thank you for listening and seriously considering my comments. This is how the forums works best. As I am sure you are now aware there was no intention, on my part, to insult your integrity or belittle your photographic prowess ;-) Just observations that a fresh eye can often see - that the author sometimes can't. It is a bit like proof reading a document, the author has seen it so many times, has done so many alterations and edits and they miss some of the basic stuff that that others can pick up on. That is why in business we circulate a final draft document for comment.

I have found the feedback here on this forum to be excellent and therefore sometimes want to repay the advice, guidance offered to me, by trying to do the same for others.

One of the crucial factors is the intended audience. My last Av (France 2010) was made for viewing at my local camera club. I showed it to my wife - who was most unimpressed. Where are the photos of this and that... you took hundreds of photos and only include about 20! and so on... The Av was not for her, but I thought she might like to see it. The av was for the members of the camera club to provoke discussion on composition, the technical merits of a APS_C sensor in a compact camera, the use of the tilt lcd screen and so on...

Therefore sometimes if the Av is for a specific (rather than a general) audience, it is good to add this info when posting.

[dpletts]

Hi Gary,

Great show. All that water! When can we see the rest of your trip?

Cheers,

David P

[goddi]

Hi Gary,

Great show. All that water! When can we see the rest of your trip?

Cheers,

David P

====================

David,

Thanks... Yes, the Plitvice park is just waterfalls after waterfalls and lakes after lakes. The water is crystal clear. Truly a wonderful nature spot! This entire trip had so many great places, I have had to break them up into sections or I'd have to call it a 'movie' . Now, I am working on the hill-towns in Istria, Croatia, trying to be 'less-is-more'. And, then, the beautiful Slovenia. I am be huge fan of travel and just hope to inspire others to go see the rest of the world.

Gary

[Barry Beckham]

Gary

That sure is a beautiful place and one of those that makes you want to visit when you see the images. I think there are a few AV techniques you could consider next time, which would avoid one or two minor problems. First though I wondered why you didn't take the coast road that appears to hug the coast from Bankovac to Senj. I guess it was down to time, but it looked like it might be a really nice ride along the coast road.

I think the map idea is a good one, but I would just like to see the wider area on a smaller scale map so I can see exactly where you are in relation to Europe. Then fade onto the closer map showing the more detailed journey. I could have accepted the red line speeded up just a touch. With your text, you can always blur the image beneath so that as the text appears the image behind blurs a bit. It is a nice affect and the words then don't get lost against the background. Almark was right that text on text is not a good idea, it confuses the eye and takes away that smooth move from image to image that your trying to achieve.

There was evidence of the Moire effect and you might want to tick the box in the Objects and Animation screen called Anti Shimmering. As long as the moire effect isn't too bad, which it isn't, that should take care of it.

You were up against it a bit being in a forest type location in bright sunlight. The contrast range was more than the camera could cope with at times. For best results we need dull weather for forests generally, but when your passing though do don't have a great deal of choice. I know, been there done that.

The second piece of music does have an audible sound in the background like an old movie projector playing. I think you should change that for something better.

It is said in AV circles that there is no need for text at the end of the show to say The End. It is one that I agree with and the end of a show should be obvious by a fade down to black. Your final image sits on screen and doesn't end. A personal choice I know, but in my view a fade down and removing "The End" would be worth considering.

Fantastic place well worth a visit by the looks of it.

[goddi]

Barry,

Thanks for the comments. My replies are below in blue.

================

Gary

That sure is a beautiful place and one of those that makes you want to visit when you see the images. I think there are a few AV techniques you could consider next time, which would avoid one or two minor problems. First though I wondered why you didn't take the coast road that appears to hug the coast from Bankovac to Senj. I guess it was down to time, but it looked like it might be a really nice ride along the coast road.

-We needed to get to the Plitvice park before it got dark so we took the direct path from Zadar. I did not realize all the mountainous roads that Croatia has. Driving in the dark would make us miss the beauty...and be more dangerous. I would have loved to do that coastal road but time did dictate the route, too. We usually don't have advanced reservations so we had to find a place to stay before it got dark. We talked to people and found a 'sobe'...rooms that people rent for the night. It was just getting dark and it worked out perfectly. And I wanted to go through some small towns that were affected by the war. We did in Otocac. Bullet holes still in the buildings and mine field warning along one road.

I think the map idea is a good one, but I would just like to see the wider area on a smaller scale map so I can see exactly where you are in relation to Europe. Then fade onto the closer map showing the more detailed journey. I could have accepted the red line speeded up just a touch. With your text, you can always blur the image beneath so that as the text appears the image behind blurs a bit. It is a nice affect and the words then don't get lost against the background. Almark was right that text on text is not a good idea, it confuses the eye and takes away that smooth move from image to image that your trying to achieve.

-I am still in Map-making 101. I was lucky to get what I got. I had 7 rectangle boxes to move around since the route was so twisty. I was afraid to make any modifications and blow the whole thing up! But, yes, I thought of a speedier movement. And I like your idea of fading from a larger map to my route map but I could not find a good European map that made sense and looked good for the fade. Thanks for the blur tip for text on text.

There was evidence of the Moire effect and you might want to tick the box in the Objects and Animation screen called Anti Shimmering. As long as the moire effect isn't too bad, which it isn't, that should take care of it.

-On several of the waterfall images, I was trying to make the white water look as if there was some movement in it with the pan/zoom of the image. So I unticked the Anti Shimmering. It look kinda good on my monitor. Maybe not so good on others. Just an experiment.

You were up against it a bit being in a forest type location in bright sunlight. The contrast range was more than the camera could cope with at times. For best results we need dull weather for forests generally, but when your passing though do don't have a great deal of choice. I know, been there done that.

-Yes, beautiful days are not always great for photography. My wife and I joked many times during the trip, "Damn, another beautiful day!!!".

The second piece of music does have an audible sound in the background like an old movie projector playing. I think you should change that for something better.

-I have listened to it very closely and I don't hear any strange background sound. I know the musician has a section where he plucks the guitar strings in an unsettling manner. But I could not find any other piece of music that fit any better, especially in length. Music is really a tough one. I am running out of music for my other sections of this trip. .

It is said in AV circles that there is no need for text at the end of the show to say The End. It is one that I agree with and the end of a show should be obvious by a fade down to black. Your final image sits on screen and doesn't end. A personal choice I know, but in my view a fade down and removing "The End" would be worth considering.

-Hmmmm....I understand you point...not convinced just yet.

Fantastic place well worth a visit by the looks of it.

-The entire trip through Croatia and Slovenia (with a stop for lasagna for lunch in Trieste, Italy) was fantastic.