PTE Workflow

[ADB]

The latest PTE 5.0 is fantastic and lets you create amazing shows with almost infinite effects reasonably easily. However being Human once you get what you wanted you then want something better!

My personal view now is that WNSOFT need to devote a good chunk of time considering the optimum workflow. We have all the excellent features but execution of them is not as efficient or intuitive as they could be. The workflow should be that a new user should rarely have to refer to the manual (though it is a damn fine manual :-)

I find myself spending a lot of time going out of the time line and into the "Slide Sorting Table" or "Slide List View" and of course when you do this you lose your place in the time line and have to find your position to start editing again.

It feels that these editing areas need to be more closely integrated and have a very intuitive flow. For example when in Timeline Mode you should be able to "flick" quickly to the Slide Sort View shuffle some slides around and flick back to where you were in the Timeline, or Vice versa.

This is probably my biggest frustration (not that using PTE is frustrating) when using PTE. Of course hot on the heals of this is the fact that you spend so much time in the timeline yet the preview in the Timeline Window does not actually preview the final show as it doesn't incorporate O&E effects.

How do other users find PTE 5.0 from an intuitive workflow point of view?

Cheers

[Igor]

Andrew,

I think you're right. I'll try to improve this moment in the new version.

Also in 5.1 or 5.2 I plan more closely integrate timeline slide modes (to be able perform same operations in both modes).

Small preview of slideshow in timeline and slide modes will display real picture of a slideshow in 5.1 or 5.2

Thanks,

[ADB]

Igor

This is really good news thank YOU!

Cheers

[jevans]

Andrew,

Interested in your post as I had a good work flow method established for Version 4.48 but am finding it a little harder in Version 5. How you arrange your work flow depends largely on the type of show you are preparing. Most of my shows have some commentary and my method is as follows :

Assuming I have taken a number of photos of a particular topic and am trying to make these up into a show, I process the images and sort them into an initial order. I often rename them at this stage.

Next I write and record the commentary. I record the commentary in a single pass and import the resultant file into Audition where I can split it up into the various sections. This gives me a timebase for the slides. Now I open PTE, set the general project options and insert the first title slide. Now I tend to add slides only from the timeline, using the insert slide function. Slides are inserted to match their associated commentary lengths. In this way, I do not tend to use the slide list or slide list window to add or sort slides.

Finally I add the background music into Audition, check and adjust all sound levels and then export the composite sound track into PTE.

The difficulty comes when you add any pzr actions to individual slides. This was obviously not a consideration for Version 4.48. But in Version 5, you have to decide which slides you wish to animate and, more importantly, for how long the animation needs to last. For many animations, my default slide duration of 7 secs is not long enough. Thus you increase a slide duration to cater for the animation and this puts your timeline timing off.

[Barry Beckham]

Jeavons

It's interesting how different people work with PTE.

If I use commentary I set up the entire slide show first, so that the images are in sync with the music. Then I use the time line to indicate where commentary of sound effects need to go in relation to the images and the time on the background music. I then take them into audition and mix the two together, reducing volumes where needed. I generally do a number of sound mixes and just adjust the number of each sound file name, just in case I get something wrong.

Its more or less the same as you really and it achieves my aims, but just a slightly different approach. It does allow any animations to be checked and time allowed for the animation to complete, before finally adding any other sound files.

[jfa]

Andrew you have raised an interesting topic, one that has no end to the possible discussion - "Work-flow". It is a subject that is becoming more important for each of us to consider in PTE as the function/options available increase.

I almost always have the soundtrack in mind, ofter before I even start to shoot the images.

With some idea of how I wish the images to look I will work on then in Photoshop, then resize and rename them.

Then in PTE, I start by building the show as a silent AV by putting the images and their effects, (transitions, PZR, etc) together with approximately the correct timing. Once this is done I will go to my sound editor and build the soundtrack mix, (music, sound-effects, commentary, etc) as one file using the timing of the images which I have recorded as a hand written script from the PTE timeline. Then the sound file is imported into PTE and in the timeline minor adjustments are made to the image timing if needed, (they usually are). Often I will also need to make minor timing adjustments to the audio file back in the audio editor if the timing changes effect the image sequence to much.

Occasionally, only very occasionally, a wave of creativity will sweep over me and a major alteration, (sometimes even some re-shooting of some images), will be needed. So as said in the other posts there is some moving to and fro between PTE and the sound editor.

Finally the exe file is created. Also if required a DVD is burnt. Then most importantly a template of the show is made and saved to CD/DVD with the exe file.

[JEB]

Hi,

A method that works for me is to build the slides in PTE on my desktop.

On my laptop, using Audition in my case, I build the commentary, music, sound effects. By referring to each, either with reference to their timelines or from time to time playing both simultaneously I can manipulate each element independently until I get to the point that I am satisfied and only then merge the sound elements to one track and insert into PTE. It works for me.

Regards

John

[ADB]

Hi all

Its really interesting reading the different approaches to workflow. I guess the challenge for Igor is to build an integration into PTE that caters for many types of workflow I guess the easiest way to do that is have universal intuitive access to any PTE function from anywhere in PTE.

In terms of my own workflow I always nail my soundtrack first and use it for my "map" and timing guide for all my transitions. Once I have my transitions looked into the timeline and "Hold Time Points" selected its really easy to shuffle images around. I always struggle if I try and build a soundtrack to match my layout and timings. I also find I'm constantly amazed at the "third" image two separate images can give you during a long fade and I sometimes stumble across these good matches which result in images being shuffled around to achieve the desired effect, the sorting table is great for that.

[Igor]

Andrew,

I just added the next improvement to Timeline window: it remembers cursor position and selected keypoint when you close and open Timeline window again. It remembers absolute index of keypoints (e.g. 6th keypoint).

Real preview of a slide at the top-right corner of a Timeline and main windows will be in version 5.2. We plan to rework some moments in PTE's engine to make it possible (it concerned with optimization and quick response of a program).

[ADB]

Andrew,

I just added the next improvement to Timeline window: it remembers cursor position and selected keypoint when you close and open Timeline window again. It remembers absolute index of keypoints (e.g. 6th keypoint).

Real preview of a slide at the top-right corner of a Timeline and main windows will be in version 5.2. We plan to rework some moments in PTE's engine to make it possible (it concerned with optimization and quick response of a program).

Igor these are great enhancements that will certainly make compiling shows easier.

Over the last month I have spent almost every night programming up a "powerpoint" style show in PTE which also incorporating the launching of 4 other standalone PTE shows for a photography conference presentation in the weekend. The presentation went flawlessly and everybody was impressed at the versatility of PTE and the quality of the transitions and P/Z/R effects. It was quite fortunate that there was also a couple of presentations made by Proshow Gold and they both showed obvious signs of jerkiness in Pans and Zooms so I think you may have a few converts over to PTE!

One other thing that I found a little frustrating in making the show was becuase I had a lot of slides that only had text on them (in a powerpoint style) it became quite difficult to quickly locate the slide in the Main Window of PTE as all those slides just showed as a blank black slide. Is it possible in the main window view to simply make all objects 100% opacity in any slide that has any objects added for the purposes of seeing what is actually on the slide? The only other way to quickly find this out is to go into the O&E window and flick through the slides using the previous/next arrows - but this can take a long time!

[nobeefstu]

Andrew,

I agree with you ...

One other thing that I found a little frustrating in making the show was becuase I had a lot of slides that only had text on them (in a powerpoint style) it became quite difficult to quickly locate the slide in the Main Window of PTE as all those slides just showed as a blank black slide. Is it possible in the main window view to simply make all objects 100% opacity in any slide that has any objects added for the purposes of seeing what is actually on the slide? The only other way to quickly find this out is to go into the O&E window and flick through the slides using the previous/next arrows - but this can take a long time!

If such a implementation becomes or causes a resources hog ... allow user option to enable feature or disable from Advanced Options settings menu. Even some sort of a Tag Indicator/s would be a quick/helpful visual hint that objects or animations exist in a particular Slide.

[Igor]

Andrew,

I agree and as I wrote above I will implement real preview of a slide picture in version 5.2 (after v5.1). I'll try to finish this code in v5.1, but maybe I'll find unexpected difficulties with old code and it will require more time. I prefer carefully develop such important features and perform all necessary tests for absolute reliability.

Probably in case of your PowerPoint like slideshow with text objects, there is one helpful temporal solution. Use Text comment (see "Comment" field in the main window) for those text objects and then modify generated text objects as you want. Then choosing a slide in the Slide list you will see "Text" field and maybe it will be easier to locate necessary slide. Of course, I understand that can be only temporal solution.