Salzburg at Christmas Time.

[susiesdad]

Hi Everyone,

My wife and I recently visited Salzburg in Austria over Christmas. For ease I took an old Kodak digital camera for 'snapshots' of our trip. On return I discovered, quite by accident PTE whilst I was visiting PanosFX page. I was so impressed with the demo that I wasted no time in purchasing a copy. So here is my very first attempt at a show using those snapshots, it is available from:

http://www.4shared.com/file/34785967/f67e2...g_Project4.html

Please don't be afraid to offer a critique as I need to learn from you all.

Can't wait to get started on the next project.

Regards

Alan Jackson

[Barry Beckham]

Well, I got bored and gave up long before I even found the download for the show.

Whatever this system is, its not working for me and I can't get to see the show.

I will try again later

[Ken Cox]

Barry

you have to install

http://magnifier.sourceforge.net/

to read the fine print as to where the download button is

ken

[Tomuk]

I to have the same problem as Barry ……Three cheers for Mediafire the next best thing to having your own web site.

I to will give Susiesdads link another try later.

[susiesdad]

I to have the same problem as Barry ……Three cheers for Mediafire the next best thing to having your own web site.

I to will give Susiesdads link another try later.

Thanks for this Tom

I have uploaded the file to:

http://www.mediafire.com/?anyc11w1zcz

Lets see if thats any quicker for you all.

Sorry about the poor service from "4shared"

Regards

Alan

[dpeterso]

Please don't be afraid to offer a critique as I need to learn from you all.

Alan Jackson

Hello Alan -

Welcome to the PTE world. If you are like me, you'll find that it opens a whole new dimension to photography. Regarding your first show, not bad, not bad at all. Here's the good first: great low light shots. You have a good photographer's eye also. I really liked the technique use with the canon overlooking the city. I felt like a pigeon talking flight. The music was nice; it fit well. In general, the area is quite beautiful and you captured it well. Now, the part that I feel needs some work: pans and zooms; they are too aggressive. Slow them down in speed and the amount of movement. The excessive action distracted me from the beauty. I don't know what the solution is to my next suggestion, but I find the switching back and forth from landscape to portrait format distracting. Maybe some of the more experienced members can lend a hand here. Lastly, I think it suffered from the use of too many transition techniques. If it were mine, I'd stick to the fade transition.

All in all Alan, you are off to a great start. In my opinion, you have some great pictures of a beautiful place. Present them in a simple, relaxed style.

Best of luck and thanks for sharing with us.

Dave

[cagney123]

Hi Alan

I enjoyed your show. I will probably never see that beautiful part of the world due to finances. Thanks for sharing.

I must agree with Dave...you overdid the pans and zooms...in my opinion. I think you just loved the program and used everything you could on your first show.

Also, I felt you used a piece of music that ran for the length of time needed. A change of pace might have been nice.

These are small niggles on some good images...and some talented work...as in the canon shot. Nicely done.

Really, I enjoyed your show and I'm looking forward to your next adventure.

Jeff Lunt

[susiesdad]

Hi Alan

I enjoyed your show. I will probably never see that beautiful part of the world due to finances. Thanks for sharing.

I must agree with Dave...you overdid the pans and zooms...in my opinion. I think you just loved the program and used everything you could on your first show.

Also, I felt you used a piece of music that ran for the length of time needed. A change of pace might have been nice.

These are small niggles on some good images...and some talented work...as in the canon shot. Nicely done.

Really, I enjoyed your show and I'm looking forward to your next adventure.

Jeff Lunt

Thanks Jeff

The music was chosen for the Mozart link as he was born, greatly celebrated and buried in Salzburg. Unfortunately my resource of his music is somewhat limited.

I had noticed that most slide shows uploaded just use the fade transition so I tried to use transitions appropriate to the content and the message I was trying to convey but yes in hindsight it was a bit overdone.

Thanks for your help

Alan

[susiesdad]

Please don't be afraid to offer a critique as I need to learn from you all.

Alan Jackson

Hello Alan -

Welcome to the PTE world. If you are like me, you'll find that it opens a whole new dimension to photography. Regarding your first show, not bad, not bad at all. Here's the good first: great low light shots. You have a good photographer's eye also. I really liked the technique use with the canon overlooking the city. I felt like a pigeon talking flight. The music was nice; it fit well. In general, the area is quite beautiful and you captured it well. Now, the part that I feel needs some work: pans and zooms; they are too aggressive. Slow them down in speed and the amount of movement. The excessive action distracted me from the beauty. I don't know what the solution is to my next suggestion, but I find the switching back and forth from landscape to portrait format distracting. Maybe some of the more experienced members can lend a hand here. Lastly, I think it suffered from the use of too many transition techniques. If it were mine, I'd stick to the fade transition.

All in all Alan, you are off to a great start. In my opinion, you have some great pictures of a beautiful place. Present them in a simple, relaxed style.

Best of luck and thanks for sharing with us.

Dave

Thanks for the critique Dave,

My wife made similar comment when she viewed it yesterday. I'll try harder next time.

Alan

[JudyKay]

Thank you Alan. I really liked it. You put a lot of work into the show and it is very good. The pictures are very interesting.

Here is a question I am aching to ask...why was that man standing on top that big gold ball? How did he get there?

jk

[susiesdad]

Here is a question I am aching to ask...why was that man standing on top that big gold ball? How did he get there?

jk

It is a sculpture by Stephan Balkenhol and was part of the sixth Salzburg Art Project was handed over to the public on July 26, 2007. It is called "Sphaera" and measures 9 m high including the base. It depicts a man standing leisurely on a large gold sphere. Black trousers, white shirt, aloof posture and indifferent expression – it simulates someone we might know or any man. With real snow on the globe around his feet it made him look rather cold. It was minus six degrees C whilst we were there.

Pleased you enjoyed the show.

Alan

[neil]

Hello Alan,

I must say I agree with Dave the pans and zooms seem too fast and you have gone a bit mad with the transitions.But have some really great images in there,and also some neat ideas. It is so easy for me to be critical when I can hardly make a show that is worth showing.

Anyway I found the end credits far to fast and very hard to read.

Hope this is of some help and look forward to seeing more of your work.

All the Best

Neil

[alrobin]

Alan,

Welcome to the Forum! Thanks for showing us around Salzberg! The only city I've been to in Austria is Vienna, and then only for 3 days. It's a beautiful part of the world.

I enjoyed the presentation - however I agree with most of the comments about panning and zooming. I thought the pan/zoom through the cannon opening was clever, and added some interest. One problem with extensive zooms is that they start with a photo nice and sharp, and then deteriorate if you overdo it. Might be better to take two photos, zoom very slightly on the first one, and then dissolve into a sharp slightly-zooming close-up.

I thought the music was OK, particularly for MIDI. Nice and light and fitting for the festive time of the year.

Thanks very much for sharing this with us - hope to see more of your work soon!

[jfa]

Welcome to the forum Alan and congratulations on your first show.

There were some nice images of an interesting city and you demonstrated your creativity in the way you showed some of them. Your choice of music was good and the Mozart link appreciated.

The comments made earlier about the pan and zoom use I would agree with, as a general rule for any effect subtlety is the key word, where a little will have much more impact than a lot.

The one area I would like you to think about is the mix of image formats. This is one of my pet subjects, maybe it stems from my days of multi-projector slide shows, but I believe that the format of the AV should be established with the first image and then maintained for the show. This is often a trap for people starting in AVs, switching back and forth from landscape to portrait format, going from full scree to wide screen, (black area above and below the image), and narrow to wide screen. This can be distracting and prevents the viewer from being immersed in the show. There are many techniques that can be used to allow the change from one image format to another without changing the overall format of the show, picture in picture, frames, backgrounds, etc. Many of these can be seen in shows posted here on the forum.

You have talent as a photographer and you showed the ability to use the creative functions in PTE well. I'm looking forward to seeing more of your work in the future, thanks very much for sharing this with us.

[susiesdad]

Alan,

I enjoyed the presentation - however I agree with most of the comments about panning and zooming. I thought the pan/zoom through the cannon opening was clever, and added some interest. ...........................

I thought the music was OK, particularly for MIDI. Nice and light and fitting for the festive time of the year.

Al.

Thanks for the comments. I have taken on board the pan and zoom issues raised by several forum members and am trying a remake.

I have a confession to make regarding the music. Although it was a midi file I actually converted it to a Wave thence a MP3 by playing the midi on my Yamaha keyboard which has a superior sound card and recording from line output to my laptop via a USB Sound Blaster Connect device.

[susiesdad]

Welcome to the forum Alan and congratulations on your first show.

There were some nice images of an interesting city and you demonstrated your creativity in the way you showed some of them. Your choice of music was good and the Mozart link appreciated.

The one area I would like you to think about is the mix of image formats. ................................... switching back and forth from landscape to portrait format, going from full scree to wide screen, (black area above and below the image), and narrow to wide screen. This can be distracting and prevents the viewer from being immersed in the show.

thanks for your support and compliments.

I am attempting a remake of the show using a different technique with the portrait shots. It is a bit limited as the photos I have available are only snapshops taken quickly whilst enjoying our Christmas trip. It was not a planned Photoshoot with masses of pics I'm afraid. Next time I'll take my SLR.

Alan

[Almark]

Hi Alan, I too am new to PTE (but not to AV's). For your first go this is most impressive, even if you do admit to getting a bit carried away! You asked for critique, so here are a few things that struck me about your AV. These are just my personal observations offered to help you learn, feel free to give me feedback on this feedback - and/or feedback on any of my shows.

I was surprised to hear a midi, music is clearly an integral part of the show and it was undermined by using midi instead of mp3.

I found it too long and have too many photos in it. The 4 four parts; the town, the castle/fort/, the cathedral and shopping could have been spilt into four distinct areas and accessed from a menu page. This would allow you to have four different (but by all means all Mozart) mp3's. It would also allow you to consider each section by asking yourself is this image essential? It would be much easier to do this for each part of four - rather than for the whole project.

Much has already been said about the pans and zooms, so I will not repeat that. However I did want to point out that in some cases you pan and zoom into some detail and then the next photo is of the same detail. Maybe that was intentional, but the second image was always of much better detail than the zoomed one.

Many of your photos had severely blown highlights, in one photo a lady is looking into a shop window that is almost completely blown out.

There was a dark stage at about 3/4's way through and I was waiting for a title/caption to appear, but it didn't. There was also a dark stage just before the final titles came on.

I hope that this helps and I look forward to your next production...

[alrobin]

I have a confession to make regarding the music. Although it was a midi file I actually converted it to a Wave thence a MP3 by playing the midi on my Yamaha keyboard which has a superior sound card and recording from line output to my laptop via a USB Sound Blaster Connect device.

Alan,

I have used MIDI on a few occasions (when I needed copyright-free background music, or special effects not available from other sound files), and this is the method I use as well. It gives one control over the playback on other pc's which is not available with MIDI on its own. Mark is right, though, in that there is no substitute for the sound of professional music mp3's if such are available.

[LumenLux]

I enjoyed viewing your experience of Salzburg. I lived a couple of years in Austria which of course biased me favorably toward what you presented. I suppose if you had really botched the photography I might have been less enthused. As it is, I can agree with most the observations made by others, but I think most casual viewers, perhaps family and friends, would find little to worry about. A friend simply looking for entertainment might even prefer the various transitions in a presentation of this length. Personally, I usually prefer well- positioned fades over most the other effects that PTE facilitates. But as critiques of some of my presentations will point out, I like to try to effectively use other transitions. Sometimes I feel I succeed and sometimes I only succeed in finding my idea or execution was not really too useful or effective. I also agree with you that any given pair of slides can sometimes benefit with a specific transition.

Concerning my own photos, few things bother me more than having an otherwise beautiful composition ruined by blown out highlights. As someone mentioned your blow-outs, specifically in some of the shop windows, I must say that on my monitor, some highlights were over exposed but really did not glare as totally blown out. At the pace of your show, I might not have even noticed. If the photo was presented as a single still "masterpiece", the blanked highlights would have seemed more serious to me.

All in all, your first show is enjoyable. Oh, and I too like your handling of the view through the canon portal.

[susiesdad]

I enjoyed viewing your experience of Salzburg. I lived a couple of years in Austria which of course biased me favorably toward what you presented. I suppose if you had really botched the photography I might have been less enthused. As it is, I can agree with most the observations made by others, but I think most casual viewers, perhaps family and friends, would find little to worry about. A friend simply looking for entertainment might even prefer the various transitions in a presentation of this length. ..............................

Thanks for your comments. I must admit the show was put together as a way of displaying our snapshots for the benefit of family and friends.

Since creating this first attempt I have viewed some exceptional AVs made by forum members and have a long way to go to catch up. Hving just discovered PTE by accident, and having become hooked, I now need to decide upon a subject, take some decent photographs, find the music and work hard putting it together, whilst taking on board the constuctive critique so far offered.

Regards

Alan