Technical Support for PicturesToExe 5.1 Deluxe

[Ken Cox]

Sherrill

i have a Canon PowerShot S3 IS and shoot as big as i can - asa set at 200 in program mode

picts are 3 to 4 mb each - i bulk resize with 80% quality using

Easy Thumbnails

http://www.fookes.com/ezthumbs/?Easy%20Thumbnails=0

to 1280/960 and the picts are then +- 600 kb each

and then let pte do its thing -- picts are not grainy

ken

[Lin Evans]

Hi Sherrill,

Actually, compressing them by making the file size of the image smaller without changing the image dimensions would tend to make them more grainy than actually making the dimensions smaller.

For print purposes you definitely want to leave them as originals in every way as far as image size and low compression coming from your S5-IS Canon. But for making slide shows there is no good reason to leave them at their original dimensions and many good reasons not to especially with PTE 5.1 where later you may decide to do pans, zooms and rotates, etc.

There are a number of good free utilities around which will allow you to downsample your images automatically in batch format and not affect the image quality at all. They will duplicate your images and not affect the originals. Actually, I'm surprised that there was any significant difference on your system among my various images. This tells me that perhaps it is your video card (or lack of one because it's integrated into the motherboard) which is causing the problem. Each of the images you downloaded should have about the same quality in the slideshow.

What we need to find out is the type of slot in your computer for a video card add-on. There are a number of decent video cards which don't cost an arm and a leg depending on the type of video slot you have. If the system is a newer one it's probably a PCI Express slot. Perhaps we can find out or maybe Brian knows from the specifications sheet.

If you plan to use PTE 5.1 you will eventually want to upgrade the video card because the built-in one is extremely marginal. It works very well with PTE 4.x because that version doesn't use any graphics acceleration, etc. PTE 5.1 is designed to be backwardly compatible but some of the integrated chip-sets like yours is not well behaved and doesn't conform to accepted standards. Even Acer suggests upgrading it. You would not know this unless as you did, try to create a slideshow with images which overtaxed the system.

Once you have seen what you can do with an upgraded video environment I know you will be happy that you upgraded even if you have to save for a few months to do it.

We will try to find out which video slot your system uses and perhaps help you find an inexpensive solution which will greatly improve the quality of your slideshows, etc.

Best regards,

Lin

You guys are amazing!!

Lin, I downloaded your wonderful pictures and created a SMOOTH running slideshow; however, the only clear image in the show was the first one (black/white crow??)......the others were grainy! ..............

[Conflow]

Lin and Sherill,

Yes Lin the upgrade Card Slot is a 'PCI Express 16 Slot' and all Utilities & Drivers and Upgrades are

available as downloads from Acer. As well as their 'On-Line Support' they have a CD-Upgrade Wizard

available for purchase for those who are not sure how to go about these things.

As I don't know Sherill's country of residence I gave the 'Euro-Support Link' in the No:2 Image of my

previous Post (above).

"Link" below ~ Look under ACER Power F6

http://support.acer-euro.com/

Hope this helps.....

Brian.Conflow.

[Lin Evans]

Hi Sherrill,

Here's a link to Price Grabber where you can find the Nvidia 8600 GT card with 256 meg RAM which would make you a dandy Video Card. Prices as low as $94. You need one for a PCI Express card slot.

http://computers.pricegrabber.com/video-ca..._kwfeed_1/skd=1

Lin

[sherrilljones@alltel.net]

Lin & Brian,

Thanks so much for the various links. I'm presently assessing the situation in terms of an upgrade (video card) and very much appreciate your doing the research for me.

Oh...I'm in the US...central Georgia.

Thanks again.

Sherrill