Quick guidance for hesitant newcomer??

[Odysseus]

My wife and I are retired now and are fortunate enough to be able to travel a lot. On those travels, we take two pocket-sized cameras: her Panasonic Lumix TZ3 and my Panasonic Lumix TZ25. The average TZ3 image file size is around 3.2Mb; the average TZ25 image file size is around 5Mb. Both cameras are used in 4:3 mode and output is sifted through afterwards for the best shots. These are then post-processed in Photoshop CS2 and cropped to widescreen 16:9. (Originals are never shot in widescreen for fairly obvious reasons.)

I loved the Ken Burns Effect in Microsoft’s wonderful Photo Story, and learning how to use it in PTE is something I’ll be rehearsing thanks to the helpful videos this forum has flagged up, but right now my greatest concern is in trying to get some clarification of the following -- lengthy questions, for which I apologise now, but which to expert PTErs here will likely produce wry smiles and simple answers (hopefully):

1) What image dimensions should ideally be used for creating slideshows intended to be output to DVD video and watched on large screen televisions? I won't be using PTE to make executables, just for DVDs to be shared with friends on home TVs;

2) Image resolution. The subject is so complex that I hesitate to even get into it, seeing as how I’ve become bewildered by the sheer number of explanations on the internet of what-it-is and what-it-isn’t. Suffice to say Photoshop CS2 reports the out-of-camera image specs on my wife’s TZ3 as Pixel Dimensions 20.3M, width 3072 pixels / height 2304 pixels, document size 42.67 inches / height 32 inches, resolution: 72 pixels / inch, and the out of camera image specs of my own TZ25 as Pixel Dimensions 34.3M, pixel width 4000 pixels / height 3000 pixels, document size 22.22 inches / height 16.67 inches, resolution: 180 pixels / inch. There seems to be a massive difference in the output of the two cameras -- or is this just an anomaly caused by the way Photoshop is representing the image information? I’ve no idea. All I can think of is that the greater the wealth of detail in an image, the better it is when zooming. So: is there an “ideal resolution” which other Picturestoexe users employ themselves for slideshows to be output to DVD for screening on home television?

3) Finally: maximum number of images in one project. I guess the answer is that the maximum number depends entirely on the sizes of the images used, so I suppose this question might be better articulated as “maximum number of high definition / high quality images in a Picturestoexe slideshow project”.

Sorry to have rambled on here but getting my head around image requirements is a key step for me: I don’t simply want to “load up” some pix and hope for the best but then be disappointed afterwards with the result.

* PS: I’m a Microsoft Photostory émigré, as may’ve been gathered. Sadly, I haven’t used PS for a few years now and have forgotten all the workarounds I used to have to laboriously undertake in order to make functional a software designed in an era of 4:3 monitors when the home DVD player was still to be invented. I have only recently discovered PTE and am treading hesitantly here . . .

[Ken Cox]

you say

" (Originals are never shot in widescreen for fairly obvious reasons.)"

why

I shoot ws mode all the time and never have the problem of black bars on my ws tv -- the ultimate end point of my work

ken

[davegee]

1) What image dimensions should ideally be used for creating slideshows intended to be output to DVD video and watched on large screen televisions? I won't be using PTE to make executables, just for DVDs to be shared with friends on home TVs;

Use 1920x1080.

When you make the DVD it will be resized to 768x576 anyway.

If your large Flat Screen TV has a USB input and a Media Player investigate making MPEG4 files instead of DVDs - The quality will astound you.

Re the friends TVs - if they don't have USB and Media Player built in you are stuck with DVDs but whenever possible use MPEG4.

DG

P.S. UNTICK "Fixed Size of Slide" in Project Options / Screen before starting the DVD proces.

[davegee]

2) Image resolution.

If you refer to DPI / PPI etc...

Forget about it - it is NOT relevant.

Just make the images 1920x1080.

DG

[PGA]

3) maximum number of images in one project

No practical limit. DVDs are, I believe, restricted to 4.7GB capacity, or thereabouts, so that sets the maximum size of your output.

If your friends are going to be using DVD players into their TV systems you might need to be alert to, and take cognizance of, the multiplicity of codecs for both the video and the audio encoding. Not all DVD players can play all codecs. Also, whilst endorsing davegee's comment about MPEG4 files played back through a USB port on the TV giving superb quality, there can be incompatabilities arising from codecs here, too.

I would suggest creating a very short test sequence, burning that to DVD +RW discs using PTE defaults and passing those discs around your friends to check that there is full compatability. Then, and only then, produce your masterpiece - knowing that you have overcome all the technological hurdles. Finally, make notes of which options that you used actually worked - and then stick with those options in future.

regards,

Peter

[Guest Yachtsman1]

If you go to the tutorials section of the forum there are a number of tut's relating to DVDs. If I remember correctly there is a comprehensive one from me on DVD, search my downloads.

Yachtsman1.

[davegee]

Peter,

It would be interesting to see a list of any TVs will not support an MP4 made using Igor's standard preset?

I haven't had a problem in two or three years with mostly Sony, Samsung and Panasonic TVs of varying ages.

DG

[Odysseus]

Thanks to everyone for all their help: it’s saved me a great deal of time and provided much-needed clarification. Re various points / posts:

@ Ken Cox: Nothing to do with black bars. I’ve been a writer and journalist for almost 50 years and never in that time have authored myself, or encountered from anyone else, a first draft of any nature -- be it a novel, an essay, a thesis or even a shopping list -- that’s perfect. Every creative effort can be improved upon. Ditto photography. I’ve been a hobbyist for almost 50 years, too, and with the advent of digital, swapped the darkroom for Photoshop post-processing, where out-of-camera images are the equivalent of first draft texts: to be edited, re-composed, re-thought and reviewed. I tried shooting originals in 16:9 widescreen but from the outset it seemed to me that this aspect ratio makes for a poor and unnecessarily restrictive first draft: 4:3’s image acreage is far more suited to widescreen cropping and, thus, image re-composition. But each to his / her own.

@ davegee: That’s it: 1920x1080. Exactly the info I needed. Sincere thanks; your thoughtful notes re TVs are also much appreciated. Best of all though is the relief that stems from the newfound knowledge that no, resolution doesn’t matter.

@ PGA: Really good advice, Peter: I’ll do a test run with DVDs and see what happens -- I have Panasonic players running DVD-R through Sony widescreens. (As for the maximum number of images in a project: doh. You’re absolutely right: the limiting factor is the standard DVD’s capacity. I suppose I could burn a double layer DVD now or even try Blu-Ray.)

@ yachtsman: Will hither to the tutorials section now. Thanks for the heads-up.

[davegee]

Do not forget that in order to zoom into an image it should be proportionally larger than 1920 wide?

DG

[Ken Cox]

"That's it: 1920x1080." I believe = 16:9

years ago Dave and I had a discussion off list - I sent him a series of picts to prove my point 4:3 compared to 19:9

Eric's last 2 shows -- if you read my comments I said " full ws" -- that means no black bars on the screen

here is a perfect example of Dave's work -- no black bars -- full screen

http://www.beechbroo...tes.asp?id=2050

if you take the time and get some of the shows at Beechbrook you see that very few of the shows listed for downloads are full screen

obtw i sold all my color darkroom equipment 1990+-

retired RETIRED AUG 31 1993

ken

I have moved this thread to the general pte area

ken

[Guest Yachtsman1]

Thanks to everyone for all their help: it’s saved me a great deal of time and provided much-needed clarification. Re various points / posts:

@ Ken Cox: 4:3’s image acreage is far more suited to widescreen cropping and, thus, image re-composition. But each to his / her own.

My Take on this again, wrote all this once but lost it, here goes again!!!

When I started using PTE 1n 2007 4-3AR was the norm but it always narked me having to crop my original 3-2, two years went by & I bought a 5-4 laptop as I prefer the fuller image. Then along came 16-9, but I soldiered on with 5-4. Eventually the none availability of hardware forced me into the 16-9 scene. I then decided to ditch my DSLR in favour of a Panasonic FZ150 which has a 16-9 setting, no more cropping for croppings sake.

@ davegee: no, resolution doesn’t matter.

I'm afraid resolution does matter, too high a res will stress your hardware & cause problems with animation, also too low res will affect your image quality when using animation.

@ PGA: You’re absolutely right: the limiting factor is the standard DVD’s capacity. I suppose I could burn a double layer DVD now or even try Blu-Ray.)

Not strictly true, higher res images will fill your DVD quicker, as will high performance sound files such as WAV, in their case up to a factor of 10.

Yachtsman1.

[cjdnzl]

<snip>

2) Image resolution. The subject is so complex that I hesitate to even get into it, seeing as how I’ve become bewildered by the sheer number of explanations on the internet of what-it-is and what-it-isn’t. Suffice to say Photoshop CS2 reports the out-of-camera image specs on my wife’s TZ3 as Pixel Dimensions 20.3M, width 3072 pixels / height 2304 pixels, document size 42.67 inches / height 32 inches, resolution: 72 pixels / inch, and the out of camera image specs of my own TZ25 as Pixel Dimensions 34.3M, pixel width 4000 pixels / height 3000 pixels, document size 22.22 inches / height 16.67 inches, resolution: 180 pixels / inch. There seems to be a massive difference in the output of the two cameras -- or is this just an anomaly caused by the way Photoshop is representing the image information? I’ve no idea. All I can think of is that the greater the wealth of detail in an image, the better it is when zooming. So: is there an “ideal resolution” which other Picturestoexe users employ themselves for slideshows to be output to DVD for screening on home television?

<snip>

This is a common cause of confusion with the people at my camera club, to the point that I am producing a show called 'Pixels 101', which I can précis here in case it could clarify some things for you

Using your TZ25 camera specs as an example, you quote the image size as 4000 x 3000 pixels, so fairly obviously that is an image size of 12,000,000 pixels, or 12 megapixels. (I'll ignore the fine point of megapixels being equal to 1,048,576 pixels due to the binary nature of computers where everything is handled in powers of 2. A 20-bit numerical value is 2^20 (2 to the power of 20) which is exactly 1,048,576. Mostly though the round 1,000,000 pixels is used.}

However representing one pixel in a colour image requires three bytes in a jpeg image or an 8-bit TIFF image - one byte per primary colour - so the file size of your image is three times the pixel value, 36 megabytes.

OK, this image is sometimes called 'dimensionless' because there is no parameter which tells us how big the image is, until we specify a pixels-per-inch (ppi) number. Once we say how many pixels there will be in an inch, we can then say how big the image will be if we print it.

The camera will generally put some value of ppi on an image straight out of the camera, in your case 180, in your wife's camera, 72. At that ppi your 4000 x 3000 image will be (4000/180) = 22.22 by (3000/180) = 16.67 inches, which agrees with the figures from CS2.

If, in Photoshop you change the ppi to, say, 300 and untick the Resample-Image box, your image will now be 4000/300 x 3000/300, or 13.3 x 10 inches, and that is the size it will print out at.

If you wanted to size the image to print at, say, 8 by 6 inches, then, again leaving Resample-Image unticked and inputting 8 and 6 into the width and height fields respectively, the ppi will change to 500, and voila! you will have an 8x6 image if you print it. It may not look like 8x6 on the screen, but it will be an 8x6 image nonetheless.

If you crop the image at all, then the pixel dimensions will change, but all the forgoing figures will still apply at the new size.

Finally, Photoshop has a tool called the Crop-Tool that looks like two crossed set squares. If you choose that tool, the top line above the image will show three boxes for width, height, and resolution. (If you turn Rulers on - View/Rulers - you can right-click on a ruler to change the units of measurement.) Plug in the wanted dimensions and the ppi, drag the frame around the image to where you want (you can pull or push the four corners, or move the cursor outside a corner and get a curved cursor that will let you rotate the frame to straighten a tilted image. Then press Enter and it all happens.

AS for 'ideal resolution', you have, unfortunately, no say if you are fitting images to a specified pixel size like 1920 x 1080. You can't fit more pixels in to improve resolution, because the image would then be bigger than 1920 x 1080. If you use a bigger image and let the projector downsize it you're back to square one - and probably worse, depending on how the projector does the downsizing. It's always best to adhere to the dimensions.

Note that the Crop-Tool can be configured to size the image in pixels. Play around with the frame size and position till you like the result, hit Enter, and you have an image cropped to your taste and sized to the correct pixel dimensions all in one go. Love it!

Sorry about the length, I hope it clarifies things for you.

Regards,

Colin

PS: All the foregoing is using the term PPI, NOT DPI.

Dots per inch is purely a printing term. My Canon i9950 printer prints at 9,600 x 4,800 dpi - dots per inch, but it is printing at 600 pixels per inch, which means it is printing a matrix of 16 x 8 dots = 128 dots per pixel. The reason for this is so that multiple dots of colour can be applied to each pixel to produce the required hue.

(Almost all printers have a conversion algorithm built in to the printer driver. Regardless of the image ppi it will be converted to 600 ppi before printing.)

Do not confuse dpi with ppi.