Help Appreciated

[jdeller]

Hi Guys & Gals,

Have been dipping into your forum for some months now but only registered tonight.

I have been experiencing a problem with a pte sequence regarding the timing.

In the customize synchronization tab I am able to preview my sequence exactly as I require the timing in beat with my sound track no problem.

When I ok this and preview in the main screen the timing is fine the start but as the sequence advances the timing goes out and does not by the end of the sequence change at the required point.

I have discuused with a like minded AV worker who has experienced the same problem.

Can anyone tell me what I am doing wrong

Help would be vey much appreciated.

John

[Ken Cox]

JOHN

WELCOME TO THE FORUM

members will need to know what version you are using

ken

[ksf]

I have never had this sort of problem with v4.48 but I did see something similar in one of the earlier releases of v5 (I think it was around beta 5.4/5.5). The sequence worked perfectly in preview mode but the timing ran adrift when the EXE file was played.

If you are using a beta version from a few weeks/months(?) ago then I'd try downloading the latest beta and try again. Also I noticed that if you try to "correct" a sequence in a later version it doesn't always have the desired effect. You may therefore have to remake the sequence from scratch in the latest beta.

Be interesting to see what version you are using. I was waiting to see if improved synchronisation would be part of v5.9

[jdeller]

JOHN

WELCOME TO THE FORUM

members will need to know what version you are using

ken

JOHN

WELCOME TO THE FORUM

members will need to know what version you are using

ken

Hi Ken

Sorry new to forums.

The Version I have is 4.43

Hope this helps

John

[Ken Cox]

update to latest stable ver 4.48

PicturesToExe

PicturesToExe v4.48 (1.4 Mb)

at

http://www.wnsoft.com/download.htm

install it

then report back

ken

[alrobin]

John,

Welcome to the Forum!

How large are your images? What type of music are you using? What video card are you using? What pc, and what are its basic specifications?

If your image files are very large, and very close together, your pc may have trouble handling everything, and the show might start lagging the music.

A good "rule of thumb" is to use images no larger than 500 mb, to use mp3's for the music, and use "quick" transitions ("cuts") if the images are closer together than quarter or half a second. Of course there are no absolute requirements here - everything depends on the parameters of your pc system, and everyone's is different.

[ksf]

As Al says, everyone is different, and so is everyone's way of working but I think he probably means 500 Kb (not Mb).

As a rule I crop/resize all my AV images to 1024x768 pixels at a resolution of 72dpi. This dramatically reduces the image size but still retains sufficient quality for projection. It also helps you make fades very close together.

Also, no harm at all in upgrading to v4.48 as Ken has recommended.

[Maureen]

Hi John

Welcome to the Forum.

Good to see you joining us here & hope to see you back at Aldbourne soon too.

(guessing I've got the same John Deller who has been to Wessex in the past?)

You'll find a great deal of help here and I'm sure Keith got muddled

when he mentioned the dreaded " 72 R" word

as we all know we're projectionists so don't need resolution unless you're planing to print!

I know him well enough to be sure he didn't mean it

Hope to see lots of you at 321 but I won't have time to chat until the end ...

and then may have to quickly dash through the back door .........

if the audience don't agree with the judges decisions

Love Maureen

[alrobin]

...but I think he probably means 500 Kb (not Mb).

Thanks for the correction, Keith! Yes, that should have read 500 Kb, not 500 Mb. Maybe in a year or two, we'll be using images that large!

And, Maureen has it right about the "dpi". It's immaterial for PTE.

[Ken Cox]

say no to 72 dpi has been brought as many timeas the other dreaded question -- "when will the next version be out"

see

http://www.scantips.com/no72dpi.html

also see

av group

at

http://www.ibateman.co.uk/wcc/

The Myth of 72 DPI

Ian Bateman FRPS DPAGB

This article was written for AV World magazine in 2003, and is essentially a precis of the excellent information on the website www.scantips.com

ken

[ksf]

Hi, yes I do apologise - my reference to 72dpi was totally irrelevant and potentially mis-leading in terms of PTE. I must have been having a mental aberration when I included that bit.

What I have found though (and this may raise even more eyebrows) is that by saving an image with a quality setting of say 8 or 9 (I use photoshop 7) can greatly reduce the file size of an image when compared to saving it at a quality setting of 12....with little or no apparent detriment to the projected image.

Feel free to discuss.....

[Peter S]

Hi Ken,

I have been faithfully following the advice given in every tutorial that I have seen in magazines and on CD or DVD and they have nearly all said crop to 1024 x 768 at 72 ppi. Some of these written or produced by people whose work I have really admired. Now I learn they were all wrong!

You have shattered one of my longest held AV beliefs. I could be but I've learnt something new again today so I am actually

Any other myths you'd like to explode?

Peter

[Peter S]

So I went away and ran some test of my own. I have a 19" monitor at 1280 x 1024. I cropped a picture originally 3072 x 2048 180 ppi tp 1280 x 1024 with ppi se to 72, then, 89 (from the Wantage site), then 9 and then blank. I looked after the blank crop and it had reverted to 180ppi.

I saved them all as JPEGS at quality 6. I have always used this setting as it was in all the tutorials I mentioned in my last post as giving a sensible file size. The files were all the same size 366 KB.

I added some text to the images after they had been cropped. I added text to the images before cropping and recropped them. The text increased the file size to 382 KB.

I saved another copy, with the text, at JPEG quality 12 and it increased the file size to 1,485 KB.

There was nothing to choose between any of them when I looked at them as a PTE show. I could not even see any difference between the quality 6 and quality 12 JPEG. I tried to convince myself I could but in reality if there was a difference it was very little.

Now I'm convinced.

Peter

[Ken Cox]

Peter you will see the difference

50%, 60% 80% quality

if you display the pict to a standard tv

the monitor is best case

tv worst case

ken

[alrobin]

What I have found though (and this may raise even more eyebrows) is that by saving an image with a quality setting of say 8 or 9 (I use photoshop 7) can greatly reduce the file size of an image when compared to saving it at a quality setting of 12....with little or no apparent detriment to the projected image.

Feel free to discuss.....

Keith,

I regularly use 75% as the jpeg quality setting for images 1024x768 in a PTE show, and find them quite satisfactory, as well as easier to manipulate quickly (i.e. showing images close together on the timeline).

[Ken Cox]

IAN HAS CHANGED HIS SITE to reveal a direct link to 72 dpi page

SEE

www.ibateman.co.uk/wcc/myth.htm

he also has a new section

image resolution

at bottom AV section

ken

[Maureen]

Hi

I usually build my sequences up in a stack in Photoshop and create new intermediate images as I go along, these are then saved with the "save to web" in Photoshop - as it allows me to see the original alongside the compressed.

I can judge how low I want to use a file size. So I don't have an "usual" jpeg setting. I can blow up the images side by side and check for jaggies.

If I wanted to create a sequence with many images quickly I'd do an action and batch process but still use the save to web setting. Then you can set it to be optimized to file size 400kb and let it quickly work through folders while I have a coffee.

Any images I feel would benefit with extra work after viewing the first run through, can be redone individually from the original folder. I must admit I prefer to not do any actions and batch processing, but build things up image by image. However sometimes time is against you, especially if it's a friend waiting for party images or wedding photos for a web site.

Also save to web doesn't require you to flatten the image each time, so I can tweak & build, create a new image and so on. Very many years ago, I remember being told that the save to web feature uses a better algorithmic formula for its saving than save as jpeg level. Remember reading up about it somewhere too.

Sometimes I don't use every single one I've made and othertimes I want to go back and create something inbetween - easy if I have all the images stacked and work with layers and layer sets.

You can turn layer masking on and off.

I also do lots using alt merge visable, which means I can add a Photoshop filter and lower its opacity or use a mask with it, without flatening everything and losing my thread if I later don't like it.

I know some people like to use the clone tool as a paintbrush but I'd always clone onto a new layer.

I use the crop tool to resize and always if it is for projection (ie PTE or web pages) working in pixel sizes for width and height but leaving the resolution box completely empty (no need to put anything there at all).

If I want to resize for printing I would put the width and height measurements in inches or cms and then fill in the resolution box. Sometimes an Exhibition or competition asks for the image to be sized as 1024px by 768px by 300 dpi when they want to print the image later for a catalogue or programme. I would prefer if they asked for these images in cms rather than pixel dimensions as it can be very confusing for novices thinking they should always add a number to the Photoshop resolution box in future.

Recently I even had someone who tried to tell me they had put instructions on their web site to crop at 1024 pixels by 768pixels by 300 ppi as otherwise the images would not work in PTE ! Bet they look for babies under gooseberry bushes too !!!

Hope this is helpful.

[Peter S]

Hi Maureen,

Intrigued by your post I thought I would try "Save for web". Useful, I thought as I was just about to try to put two images on my (first) newly created web site.

http://dorsetimages.googlepages.com/imagesofdorset

I only set this up so that I could get some help from the experts on "rolling balls". Having achieved this it had served its original purpose and I thought I would take the next step.

I was surprised when the site reported back "uploading your picture but most browsers will not be able to view it! Mine did not so I uploaded a jpeg. This was fine.

So what is the purpose of the "Save for Web" in Photoshop? Have I done something wrong? I did notice you talked about "Save TO web" is that something different?

Sorry this seems like lots of questions

Peter

[LumenLux]

Peter, much of the time, I use PS Elements rather than Photoshop CS, etc. In the (Elements) Save for Web, the dialog box allows to save as .jpg, .gif, or .png types.

Maureen, thank you for the thorough description of your process.

For years I have favored the Save for Web setting for photos I use in PTE. But in shows with huge number of slides or tight prep time, I abandon the Save for Web because I have not developed an action for PS or Elements to batch process using Save for Web. Would it be possible for you to make your action available?

[JPD]

I made last year a board of equivalence between differents tools (ie Photoshop have 2 scales for quality !)

Most of tools use near the same algorythm as this of Paintshop Pro, Photoshop above Q=60 with save for the web use another algorythm which give heavier files but is better for draw or red details for instance. For lanscape it's a very little under the standard algorythm.

The final Quality is those give by JPGOptimizer which use the standard algorytm.

There is an add-on for Irfanview which reduce the size of the jpg file. Its name is JPG Loseless Operations, I often earn 40kb or more on Photoshop's files which are save for the web, and more for the "save as" Photoshop's JPG without changing the quality level.

Note : Igor make very light JPG with a hight quality, but I don't know really with which tool, he told me he used Pixbuilder, I have made some try with it and be always enable to do what he did.

[LumenLux]

Thanks JPD for again posting your chart. I had found it both fascinating and useful when you originally presented it.

Can you explain further your statement:

There is an add-on for Irfanview which reduce the size of the jpg file. Its name is JPG Loseless Operations, I often earn 40kb or more on Photoshop's files which are save for the web, and more for the "save as" Photoshop's JPG without changing the quality level.

Do you use Photoshop Save-for-Web and then use Irfanview to open and re-save the same file?

[JPD]

Do you use Photoshop Save-for-Web and then use Irfanview to open and re-save the same file?

I often use Paintshop Pro and sometimes Photoshop (of course Save-for-Web). When I finish a slide show, I use Irfanview (its add-on in fact) to make the jpg smaller, but it's not really resave, it's to clean the file of all which is not necessary (Meta datas and so on).

Be carefull, one time on twenty about, it make the Photoshop's file bigger, I don't know why.

[jdeller]

Hi John

Welcome to the Forum.

Good to see you joining us here & hope to see you back at Aldbourne soon too.

(guessing I've got the same John Deller who has been to Wessex in the past?)

You'll find a great deal of help here and I'm sure Keith got muddled

when he mentioned the dreaded " 72 R" word

as we all know we're projectionists so don't need resolution unless you're planing to print!

I know him well enough to be sure he didn't mean it

Hope to see lots of you at 321 but I won't have time to chat until the end ...

and then may have to quickly dash through the back door .........

if the audience don't agree with the judges decisions

Love Maureen

Hi Maureen,

Yes we are one in the same !!!

I will try to get to Aldbourne for the 321, very busy at the moment with work, photog Society and my close familly seem to want to spend time in hospital at the moment.

It would be nice to see you all again.

Best wishes John

John,

Welcome to the Forum!

How large are your images? What type of music are you using? What video card are you using? What pc, and what are its basic specifications?

If your image files are very large, and very close together, your pc may have trouble handling everything, and the show might start lagging the music.

A good "rule of thumb" is to use images no larger than 500 mb, to use mp3's for the music, and use "quick" transitions ("cuts") if the images are closer together than quarter or half a second. Of course there are no absolute requirements here - everything depends on the parameters of your pc system, and everyone's is different.

Hi Al,

Images are all about 250kb saved to web from the photoshop edits, only 60 images in presentation

Music is MP3.

Spec is, well something I will check on but I thought all would be ok

I will get back to you on this.

John

John

[alrobin]

Images are all about 250kb saved to web from the photoshop edits, only 60 images in presentation

Music is MP3.

Spec is, well something I will check on but I thought all would be ok

I will get back to you on this.

Hi, John,

As you can see, we've been having quite a chat here while you were away.

Upgrade to version 4.48 as Ken indicated, and if it still is problematic, you can email me a copy of just the ".pte" project file, with no images or music files, if you like, and I will have a look at it to see if I can spot anything amiss in the way it is set up. My new email address is alrobin @ sympatico.ca . Best of luck!

[mhwarner]

While Maureen's post isn't exactly a tutorial, there are some very good tips here. It would be nice if they were added to the Tutorials section at the top so that they can be easily found without searching. Maybe the section could be expanded to "Tutorials and Tips". Just a thought.

And thanks for sharing these details, Maureen! It's always inspiring to see the workflow of others and pick up some great ideas along the way.