Image size

[Ian Smith]

My finished slideshow is 60mb using image size of 5616x3744 as taken by the camera. It runs perfectly fine on my computer and would prefer not to reduce the file size for reasons of image quality. However, keeping in mind that the show will need to be played on a multi media projector capable of e.g. 1920x1080 is it necessary to make the file size the same for the projector to show the images correctly?? My experience in the past I am fairly certain is that the multi media projector will take an .exe file and play it correctly regardless of individual image size. If that is the case then the reason for downsizing resolution would only be to keep the total MB size of the show smaller and possibly enable smoother running if that is a problem.

[Ian Smith]

Appreciate your comments. The slideshow I will be entering in a competition the rules of which state that resolution must be 1024x768. My slideshow only has 9 images, runs for 4 minutes and has very slow and non complicated animations and transitions with a single audio track. Doubt they would have any problems with showing it on a good quality projector and laptop. But, who knows. In light of your reply I will contacting the organisers of the competition. I will reluctantly lower the resolution of each image. Is there any way I can change the resolution, but still come back to the higher resolution without having to set up all the settings again with the design process. Its easy enough to create two .exe files with two different resolutions, but how can I do the same with the PTE file?

[Lin Evans]

Hi Landscaper,

Unless you are doing deep zooms, the image quality will be no better at the original camera resolution than it will if you downsample each image to the display resolution.

There really is no need to keep huge files in your slideshow unless, of course, you are displaying them on a super high resolution display. About the highest common resolution displays used today are essentially four megapixel. A 1080P (1920x1080) is essentially a two megapixel resolution display. It's perfectly O.K. to keep the large originals for any deep zooms and you can mix them with the normal resolution without any problems, but keeping the huge originals will not result in any qualitative differences. The display or projector can only display at its native highest resolution so will downsample the images anyway.

PTE will run your images identically whether they are 1024x768 or 3072x2304 etc., as long as they are being displayed on a 1024x768 resolution display.

The identical PTE file will run the image names which are saved. The "easy" way to do this is to copy your high resolution files into another folder where you leave the identical names but downsample them. Then just copy the PTE file into the folder with the downsampled images and open it up. Save the exe as a slightly different file name indicative of the lower resolution. For example the high resolution file might be named myshow.exe and the lower resolution myshow1024.exe. The PTE file doesn't care what the image resolution is, it only cares that it has the identical file names.

Best regards,

Lin

[davegee]

If you are projecting at 1024x768 or 1920x1080 then SOMETHING has to re-size your images. in this case it is PTE and once you have squashed those 5000 wide pixels into 1920 wide they cannot magically grow in number at any stage in the process. I find that it is far better to re-size the images myself and have full control over the quality (and the EXE size). It is only when zooming or panning that having anything bigger than project size images makes a difference or is necessary.

DG

[cjdnzl]

My finished slideshow is 60mb using image size of 5616x3744 as taken by the camera. It runs perfectly fine on my computer and would prefer not to reduce the file size for reasons of image quality. However, keeping in mind that the show will need to be played on a multi media projector capable of e.g. 1920x1080 is it necessary to make the file size the same for the projector to show the images correctly?? My experience in the past I am fairly certain is that the multi media projector will take an .exe file and play it correctly regardless of individual image size. If that is the case then the reason for downsizing resolution would only be to keep the total MB size of the show smaller and possibly enable smoother running if that is a problem.

AS others have said, downsizing your images to the required 1024 x 768 will not impair the definition - actually it could be better as you will have control of the downsizing algorithm by the software you use to do the job, whereas the projector's downsizing quality is an unknown, specially if it is an older machine.

Also, you might want to crop your images to the 4:3 format instead of your native 3:2 from the camera - otherwise your images shown on a 4:3 format projector will have black lines top and bottom on the screen, not a good look.

Finally, you are asking a lot of the hardware - computer and projector - to handle unnecessarily large images. If the machines at the venue can't handle it, your show will be ruined. I would want everything in my favour in a competitive situation!

Colin

[Guest Yachtsman1]

Also, you might want to crop your images to the 4:3 format instead of your native 3:2 from the camera - otherwise your images shown on a 4:3 format projector will have black lines top and bottom on the screen, not a good look.

Colin

[David Porter]

I do not see the point of cropping your beautifully composed 3:2 format images just to get it to fit the screen or have black bars top and bottom,I'd rather have that than have my images mutilated at the sides.If the competition is all important then compose the shots in 4:3, something I find very difficult to do when looking through a 3:2 viewfinder.

[Guest Yachtsman1]

My Panasonic Bridge FZ150 has selectable formats from 3-2 to square, I use 16-9 which is what I make my shows to, so cropping is cut (no pun intended) to a minimum.

Yachtsman1.

[Ken Cox]

My Panasonic Bridge FZ150 has selectable formats from 3-2 to square, I use 16-9 which is what I make my shows to, so cropping is cut (no pun intended) to a minimum.

Yachtsman1.

I set my Canon S3IS to ws screen mode -- black bars eliminated

exif data included resaved @ 80% for inclusion to thread

ken

[cjdnzl]

Colin

That statement isn't correct, if the projector is positioned correctly & the screen set at 4-3 format, you don't see black lines. The problem with black borders happens when multi sized shows are projected & the screen set to the largest format. As an example, next week I am presenting a show with a widescreen (Cinemascope movie 2.20-1)and a 16-9 home produced trailer. If I set the screen/projecter to fill the 2.20-1 screen, it will miss off some of the 16-9 trailer. This is one of the reasons competition organisers specify a specific size of show.

Regards Eric

Yachtsman1.

Hello Eric,

I have bolded part of your response, as what you say will be the case when the OP's show is projected. The projector will be set so that a 4:3 show will fill the screen (as that size is specified), so obviously a 3:2 show will have the black lines visible (can black be visible?)

We have a similar problem at our camera club. We have purchased a Dell DLP projector which uses a 1280 x 800 format. Although the club members have been told this, they still produce work at 1024 x 768, which leaves - in this case - black lines on all four sides of the image.

An alternative that I would consider would be to use a border at 1024 x 768 and fit the 3:2 image within the border, so at least the aspect ratio could be seen to be complied with.

Regards,

Colin.

[Barry Beckham]

Colin

My appologies for taking this a little away from the original topic, but can I ask you Colin how your members get their images to your club at the new size of 1280*800? Bring them on a stick on the eveing, send them in advance via the Internet?

[Ian Smith]

Well I certainly stirred up some discussion on this one all of which I found very helpful and interesting. I will take on board the general advice that it is better to downsize to the correct size rather than let the projector do it and I accept that quality will not be impaired at the lower resolution when viewed through a projector on to a scsreen. What I do notice though is that a difference in quality shows on my monitor with the downsized files although not significant. For that reason I wanted to keep the show in PTE at the higher resolution so that if I still wanted to make changes I still could in the higher resolution and then the .exe file will have higher resolution. Lin Evans explained how to do this and have both without losing the settings. Seems easy enough. Hope it works

[cjdnzl]

Colin

My appologies for taking this a little away from the original topic, but can I ask you Colin how your members get their images to your club at the new size of 1280*800? Bring them on a stick on the evening, send them in advance via the Internet?

Hello Barry,

Thanks for asking, the club has a website, www.manawatucamera.net.nz, which has upload channels to send entries to the competitions, which are then picked up by the competition secretary. The sec. then compiles all the entries on a stick to be shown on the club computer. Works well.

Regards,

Colin

[Barry Beckham]

I wonder sometimes why we bother with these old outdated rules on size. Its no wonder people get confused especially as you say the requirement is 1280*800, but the clubs web page still says 1024*768?

[cjdnzl]

I wonder sometimes why we bother with these old outdated rules on size. Its no wonder people get confused especially as you say the requirement is 1280*800, but the clubs web page still says 1024*768?

Don't get me started on that! The club website is hopelessly out of date in some areas, and this is an example. I will make some waves about it next club night. Our webmaster is very busy in his business life, and the site gets neglected, sometimes for 2 or 3 months at a time. The club ran the Central Regional Convention here in Palmerston North in November, and as at February this year the old information was still on the site.

Having said that, the position of webmaster is nothing short of onerous and time-consuming, and few members are clued up enough to handle the job.

Apologies to forum members for drifting off-topic - a hazard plaguing all forums, I guess!

Regards,

Colin

[potwnc]

Your 9 image show with 5616x3744 images produces a 60MB .exe file. You don't say how big the audio track file is, but for a 4-minute audio track this means that each image file must be around 6MB. That's a very small file size for a 5616x3744 image! Are they JPEG files? If so did you save them at low quality?

You say that the rules of the competition require 1024x768 (4:3) and that the projector used will be capable of e.g. 1920x1080 (16:9). The first important question is what display setting will the projector actually have when they screen your show for competition? The competition organizers may not know this but it really doesn't matter what the projector is capable of (beyond 1024x768). What matters is that they set the projector to 1024x768 when they screen your show.

A second important question is how powerful is the laptop that will be connected to this projector for the competition? Any laptop less than about 2 years old _should_ have no problems running a 60MB .exe show with slow and simple transitions and animations. But just because it runs fine on your computer doesn't guarantee it will on their laptop. Ask them for the specs of the laptop and post those specs here along with the specs of your computer and we can better advise you.

A third important question is what will the output display resolution of their laptop be set at during the competition screening? It should match the setting of the projector but they may not know that!

Finally, as Lin and others said, your decision whether to use lower resolution images should depend on how "deep" your pans and zooms are on each image. For example if you have, say, one of your 9 images with no panning or zooming you should crop/resize that image to 1024x768; but if you zoom all the way in to an image from its original (5616x3744) size to an area about a fifth of its original size you should not lower the resolution of that image otherwise the quality will suffer.

[PGA]

I cannot agree with the underlying message in the previous post (#16). An entrant in a competition should be able to submit work that performs properly on their own equipment and have every expectation that it will perform just the same on the equipment used by the competition organisers. The onus is on the competition organisers to provide equipment of sufficient capability to handle whatever is thrown at it.

PGA

[davegee]

I totally disagree with the last post.(POTWNC).

Whatever else they may do they should not alter the projector res.

If they are indeed running a 1024x768 comp on a 1920x1080 projector they need to get their act together and take some tech advice on board.

I would ask another question: do they have a HDMI equipped laptop?

Leave the projector res alone.

Sorry POTWNC,

DG

[cjdnzl]

I cannot agree with the underlying message in the previous post (#16). An entrant in a competition should be able to submit work that performs properly on their own equipment and have every expectation that it will perform just the same on the equipment used by the competition organisers. The onus is on the competition organisers to provide equipment of sufficient capability to handle whatever is thrown at it.

PGA

No, it isn't. The onus on the organizers is to ensure their equipment will run shows that comply with their rules. If a 1920*1080 show fails to run it is not their fault, since such a show does not comply with their rules. I prefer to make my shows with specs complying with the required rules, which means if the competition calls for 1024*768 then that is what a show should deliver. If the organizers specify those dimensions, why should they have to guarantee to run a 1920*1080 show? If such a show stutters or shows poorly, who is at fault? The organizers or the author? I would say the author.

Additionally, the aim of entering a competition is for your show to compete with other shows, and possibly be a winner. Why reduce your chances by deliberately entering a non-spec show that might cause a problem?

Regards,

Colin

[davegee]

Colin,

With respect, I think that there is an element of sense in what Peter says.

Forget the Project Size (resolution) issue and think about our recent discussion with regard to your XP PC.

If you do not state otherwise I would be in order to expect that any show made on my PC which complies with the resolution requirements would run on your computer if it were being used for the competition?

We both know that is not the case. Shows with complicated animations (for instance) are not going to run as well on a laptop with a low spec as they do on the Desktop PC on which they were made.

Anyone running a competition has a duty (IMHO) to provide a PC of the highest spec possible in order to cope with ALL entries.

DG

[Ian Smith]

To answer Potwnc the original images were raw at 22 mb or thereabouts and were converted to JPEG. The images are of a sunrise over about an hour. Two of the slides are seriously zoomed in on and are the only ones that I notice a slight decrease in quality at the lower resolution. I will take your advice and leave those two the resolution they are as taken in camera. I will be super positive and assume that the competition organisers are running good equipment. I can understand the requirement for the need for correct image size when simply using the projector to project each individual image, but when it is a slideshow created through a slideshow programme in my Pictures to Exe I think a rule stipulating image size is a little bit stupid. Just about everyone who has responded to my original post seems to back me up on this which I have found very helpful. It also obvious to me that there is a lot of confusion and difference of opinion on the whole topic which makes me feel a bit better. Didn't know if I was airing my ignorance or raising a valid concern

[Barry Beckham]

Reading this section is a good example of why image size, resolution, format/aspect ratio is so confusing to some. Everyone has different views.

Organisors of an AV competition have no right to stipulate a slide show resolution in my view and its another rules for rules sake issue. This is the creative decision of the author and nothing to do with them whatsoever. They couldn't tell what resolution it was made with anyway so why do a stupid thing like creating a rule you cannot police. 1024*768 is dead, its just that most club committee members are too, so they havn't realised things have moved on.

I don't know how many times I have to say this, but I can play back my slide shows on a either of my two 1024*768 projectors. One a Mitsubishi and the other Epson, both about 7-8 years old now. These include older slide shows made at 1024 pixels on the long side. It also includes slide shows at 16:10 and 16:9 formats at 1920*1200 - 1920*1080 and also a couple made at 2560*1440. It also runs one made with images around 6000*4000. As one or two of you know, I am very fussy about image quality and how my slide shows are seen by others, so if this resolution/projector thing was an issue, I wouldn't do what I do.

All an AV competition organisor needs to do is provide a decent PC for the screening, which isn't always the same as the judging. How hard can it be to find a good desktop for one night rather than a laptop that will always let someone down. It's primarily the authors job to make sure the slide show plays ok on most PC's, but also the organisors too up to a point. At least 60/40

I entered an AV competition with shows made at 1920*1200 when the rules stipulated they should be 1024*768. I knew the organisors would not have a clue what resolution they were so I entered them. I wasn't about to start cropping or changing the show on the whim of some committee. I seem to recall I did rather well in the competition too.

I can't help thinking that this whole subject is made a whole lot more complex than it needs to be.