French Islands

[jevans]

I have recently returned from a 12 day voyage, bringing a brand new yacht back from La Rochelle in France to Jersey, its home base. On the way we called in at two beautiful Breton islands and this show is the result of these visits. The show is posted on Beechbrook and is entitled "French Islands"

http://www.beechbrook.com/pte/index.asp

I used PTE Version 4.48, (although I would have liked to use Version 5) as I like to have some commentary in my slide shows and the new Version 5 is not yet available with sound and picture synchronisation. Would be interested to hear if anyone thinks there is too much commentary. The amount of commentary in a show has been a topic of some debate in my local photographic club.

Jeff

[Lin Evans]

I have recently returned from a 12 day voyage, bringing a brand new yacht back from La Rochelle in France to Jersey, its home base. On the way we called in at two beautiful Breton islands and this show is the result of these visits. The show is posted on Beechbrook and is entitled "French Islands"

http://www.beechbrook.com/pte/index.asp

I used PTE Version 4.48, (although I would have liked to use Version 5) as I like to have some commentary in my slide shows and the new Version 5 is not yet available with sound and picture synchronisation. Would be interested to hear if anyone thinks there is too much commentary. The amount of commentary in a show has been a topic of some debate in my local photographic club.

Jeff

Hi Jeff,

Not too much commentary at all in my opinion. I think the historical overview was not only necessary, but added a great deal to the presentation from both an aesthetic and educational perspective.

This was a lovely presentation - It would also have been nice to have a couple shots entering or leaving port on the two islands and perhaps a frame or so of the coastline from the sea side. Over all this was a very nice trip back through time as well as in the present.

Best regards,

Lin

[ronwil]

I liked it too Jeff, although I would have preferred everything in horizontal format even if it meant setting vertiical images in a diffused background. This would have meant that you could have used the Fade In/out Effect for all the changes and not resort to the Circle effect, which seemed to forewarn an impending change from horizontal to vertical.

You say that you couldn't use Version 5.0, because it is not yet available with sound and picture synchronisation. Couldn't you have got round this by using Audition or Audacity to prepare your background music+commentary and doing some gentle tweaking? I haven't tried it yet myself but I am in the initial stages of such a project.

Thanks again for the sequence.

Ron [uK]

[jevans]

Hi Jeff,

Not too much commentary at all in my opinion. I think the historical overview was not only necessary, but added a great deal to the presentation from both an aesthetic and educational perspective.

This was a lovely presentation - It would also have been nice to have a couple shots entering or leaving port on the two islands and perhaps a frame or so of the coastline from the sea side. Over all this was a very nice trip back through time as well as in the present.

Best regards,

Lin

Hi Lin,

Thanks for comments. I like to have a bit of commentary with background to my shows to make them more interesting than just a series of images. I would have like to have some "port entering" images, but entering the first harbour was difficult, and with a brand new boat, the owner wants you to be concentrating on waht you are doing, not sloping off taking photos. The second harbour had too much large ferry traffic for us so we anchored outside and used the inflatable to get ashore. Hence the photo of us landing.

Regards

Jeff

[Johnwnjr]

A very crisp pleasant sequence. Before I read the previous comment, I too thought that there was a lot of changes of format and a few varying transitions, but really I was so interested in the excellent script and the way it was spoken, these didn't bother me too much. The photography was excellent and the weather favoured it. The music was nice and bright and added a lot to the feel of the sequence.

With regard to using v.5.0 with commentary, yes it is definitely possible to do it via Audition which has exact timing figures along the bottom so that you can match the commentary times to fit the timeline in v.5.0 If at first you do not get them exactly correct it is a simple matter to right click on them in Audition and slide them along to the appropriate place. A commentary can also be split up into little sections so that it comes in the right place in Audition. I know all this because I have just made a 5 minute sequence on Caerlaverock Castle in Scotland in this way.

John

[jevans]

I liked it too Jeff, although I would have preferred everything in horizontal format even if it meant setting vertiical images in a diffused background. This would have meant that you could have used the Fade In/out Effect for all the changes and not resort to the Circle effect, which seemed to forewarn an impending change from horizontal to vertical.

You say that you couldn't use Version 5.0, because it is not yet available with sound and picture synchronisation. Couldn't you have got round this by using Audition or Audacity to prepare your background music+commentary and doing some gentle tweaking? I haven't tried it yet myself but I am in the initial stages of such a project.

Thanks again for the sequence.

Ron [uK]

Hi Ron,

Thanks for your comments.

Regarding vertical images, I have still not found a completely satisfactory way of dealing with these and also the panoramic views. I have tried a number of different techniques including the use of masks and frames. But I can never decide which is best. There seems to be a great variety of views in our club about this and no common consensus view. I suppose everyone has their own favourite method.

Regarding the use of Version 5, I suppose you are right. It may have been possible to synch music and commentary by fiddling about in the sound editor. I use Audition and prepare all the sound here and then attach the resultant composite file to the PTE presentation. The way I do it is to first select and sort the slides. Then prepare and write the commentary based on the selected slides. Then I record each item of commentary into Audition and, at the same time in the PTE timeline view, insert the relevant slide. Finally I add the music and tailor this to each section of the presentation. This technique will not work in PTE version 5 at the moment.

Whilst being as excited as the rest of the forum about the possibilities of Version 5, I am a little concerned that the facilities and techniques it will provide might become an end in themselves and detract from the overall show. The main issues for me are :

a) that the images are of high quality and show something interesting

that the show should tell an interesting story or present unusual images

At the moment I can achieve all this in the current PTE version. When Version 5 comes out I think I might just use a limited range of facilities unless I can see that a particular effect greatley enhances the end result. For example I have a current project on the go about sundials and have been experimenting with an opening shot showing the sun travelling across the sky and the resultant shadow effect on a sundial.

Regards

Jeff

[Ken Cox]

Jeff, as long as you were happy that is all that matters - i thought your shots were great -- in some cases it is hard to decide vert/horiz -- i never shoot vert any more -- if i feel it should be cropped i do it --- way back when i worked the company used a pro photographer to make slide shows for safety etc presentations - he developed his own so that our secrets were not public - he told me i if was shooting for tv always shoot horizontal and i havent worked for 14 yrs end of this month and it was long before that that he gave me the tip

time flys when you are havin' fun

ken

[ronwil]

Jeff, you say "When Version 5 comes out I think I might just use a limited range of facilities unless I can see that a particular effect greatley enhances the end result". Those are my thoughts too. Presentation has always been uppermost in my mind and I find that Version 5.0 helps in that respect in opening a programme and titling individual sequences..

Like Ken, my vertical shots have been minimal over many years and I sometimes think my camera handling has a default setting to horizontal. My biggest problems are when I help other Club members to prepare a sequence where some of their images are in vertical format and on slide material. Thinking ahead the pan effect bottom to top in Vesrion 5.0 may be an asset with some of those shots.

Ron [uK]

[Ronniebootwest]

I commend your show Jeff. It kept me interested from the very beginning and your spoken comentary was spot on. The geographical/historical content was well photographed and the show 'flowed' well from beginning to end.

It has prompted me to have a go at some spoken words in a future slide show of mine - just how did you do it please?

Well done, I enjoyed it.

Ron West

[jevans]

I commend your show Jeff. It kept me interested from the very beginning and your spoken comentary was spot on. The geographical/historical content was well photographed and the show 'flowed' well from beginning to end.

It has prompted me to have a go at some spoken words in a future slide show of mine - just how did you do it please?

Ron West

Ron,

See my post above, part of which I repeat here :

"I use Audition and prepare all the sound here and then attach the resultant composite file to the PTE presentation. The way I do it is to first select and sort the slides. Then prepare and write the commentary based on the selected slides. Then I record each item of commentary into Audition and, at the same time in the PTE timeline view, insert the relevant slide. Finally I add the music and tailor this to each section of the presentation. This technique will not work in PTE version 5 at the moment."

The first thing is to have a list of all the slides in the show and mark up the ones with commentary. Then I open the PTE timeline window with a blank sound file and gradually add the slides one at a time. If a slide has no commentary it is just added to the timeline. If it has commentary, then I record the commentary in Audition and match the slide insertion time to the commentary. Finalyy when all the commentary is recorded, I replace the blank sound file with the composit commentary file and test the show. Some positionlal adjustments may be necessary. Finally I add the music in Audition and match it to the commentary. Easy really !!!

Jeff

[JRR]

Ron,

The first thing is to have a list of all the slides in the show and mark up the ones with commentary. Then I open the PTE timeline window with a blank sound file and gradually add the slides one at a time. If a slide has no commentary it is just added to the timeline. If it has commentary, then I record the commentary in Audition and match the slide insertion time to the commentary. Finalyy when all the commentary is recorded, I replace the blank sound file with the composit commentary file and test the show. Some positionlal adjustments may be necessary. Finally I add the music in Audition and match it to the commentary. Easy really !!!

Jeff

Jeff:

have you tried using the SOUND LINE for the sound bites of the narration? I do it that way. I understand the way you are doing it and can see some pros and cons (pro: in ver 4 you can't hear the sound bites when watching the TIMELINE PREVIEW, but Igor will be changing that. con: moving the start point of any image during the presentation preparation/design does not require moving the sound bite in audition)

I suspect it is partially what one is used to. I'll try it your way next time

Thx

(Of course Adobe première with bulit-in multi track sound editor is the easiest, but there are some cons associated with that besides just the cost. I'll stick with PTE thanks)

[jevans]

Jeff:

have you tried using the SOUND LINE for the sound bites of the narration? I do it that way.

JJR,

Yes I have tried using the Sound Line. That is the way I initially tried. It is quite good for short bits of commentary that are associated with one or two adjacent slides. However I prefer to use a sound editor. The reasons are mainly :

a) I have the whole commentary assembled in one place and can then easily match the music as a last step.

Audition gives me the possibility to modify both sound levels and apply filters at any stage. Thus I can modify the sound track whenevr I like to get the best results.

If you have not got Audition, Audacity (which is free) will do a very good job but it is not quite so flexible or comprehensive.

Jeff