"Forever Autumn"

[Guest Yachtsman1]

During our time in the Yorkshire Dales, I managed to produce a number of shows reflecting the seasons changes. One that is always difficult in my view is autumn. Sure the leaves go brown & drop off the trees, the evenings draw in & so on. I started to put the show together & add a little animation which has always been my stumbling block. After stuggling for a week re-discovering how I made the moon rise in a previous production, I cracked it. Of course what happens when we discover or re-discover what can be done in PTE? we (or maybe just me?) tend to gild the lily. Anyway I'm prattling on again.

Mechanics.

Run time 5m+, 55 slides, aspect ratio 5-4, can't remember if I fixed the slide size, 33.9mb Mediafire download, don't know why it's so big, slides sized as normal, maybe it's the use of PNG's?

http://www.mediafire.com/?f13mwio548itf

Yachtsman1.

[Lin Evans]

Hi Eric,

Nice job - I think you're getting the hang of animation! You may want to experiment a little bit with the 3D transform which can help add a little touch of more realism to falling leaves, especially if it's not overdone.

One other technique which can be used very easily now that you have the little S30-IS is to put it on a tripod, shoot a few seconds of video then just interrupt the video by pressing the shutter and capture a still. Then you can use that to start a sequence with by showing the still, then fading into the short video clip and it's as if your image "comes to life." If used very sparingly, it can add a nice touch to scenes where there may be leaves blowing about, falling and "quaking" on the trees.

I liked the music - melancholic and haunting. Nice mix with the autumn scenery and darker images. The bit of chromatic aberration up in some of the trees can easily be removed and make those few images where it appeared look a bit cleaner. The easiest way I've found is just to open the image in Photoshop (if you have it) then go to "Image" "Adjust" "Replace Color" - then click on the offending color in the edges of the leaves (usually purple, blue) and adjust the slider until you have most or all of it selected then just slide the "saturation" to the left and desaturate it. It usually looks fine after this little treatment and no need to clone blue or white sky. In general this only happens where the highlights are blown out so desaturation leaves it looking pretty normal.

Best regards,

Lin

[Guest Yachtsman1]

Hi Lin

Unfortunately my budget doesn't run to Photoshop, only Elements 6 and Nikon NX2 which aren't as vesatile as PS. about half a dozen of the shots used were taken with previous cameras so I'm not sure which you are highlighting? & of course a few were taken by my wife's D40. Thanks for the comments, I will investigate if what you suggest can be done with my software.

Regards Eric

Yachtsman1.