New Slide Show

[Barry Beckham]

The idea here was to retain format from the camera and have an almost constantly moving montage on screen.

Having said that, no animation was used in this sequence. Its the top one of this page

http://www.beckhamdigital.co.uk/freestuffdigslidesw3.htm

[JEB]

Carol, Barry,

The trouble with you two is that you keep changing the boundary!

Just when I think I can see the light it dims a little.

That was a beautiful show. Thank you both for sharing it with us. Your efforts are really inspiring to others.

Regards

John

[mightec]

Barry

Being a 'Black Country Lad' and having gone to school in Coseley and with many of my forbearer's being from Wrockwardine Wood (Telford) this was an inspiring slideshow. The Montage effect was just sensational, the subject matter fantastic, what a technique, everything about the show was just right. You have really 'raised the bar' this time. I assume that this was from the Black Country Museum and Ironbridge.

[fh1805]

Barry,

Wow!

This sequence has triggered so many fresh ideas in my mind. I was on the point of planning a visit to Beamish Open Air Museum in connection with one of my projects (to produce a series of AV sequences linked by the common theme of "Heritage"). I'll need to view this sequence several more times in order to pick up as many pointers for potential images and presentation ideas as possible.

Thanks for another inspiring sequence.

[Barry Beckham]

Yes, this was the Black Country museum and Blists Hill along with IronBridge Gorge. I had already done a Black country slide show a few years ago and on further visits I had a load more new shots to use.

I wanted to stay away from the same presentation as last time and then the idea came to me to create a constantly moving montage. It took a fair bit of work and I discovered 2-3 free standing (montaged) images that I can have printed too.

Not all montages work and you have to be prepared to chop and change. You also need a lot images to start with, but then thats the easy part at those places. Pictures are all around you.

[mightec]

Not sure that I understand how it works. I assume that you create a number of different montages and then use the Keypoints and Opacity controls to bring them to the foreground?

[dpeterso]

The idea here was to retain format from the camera and have an almost constantly moving montage on screen.

Having said that, no animation was used in this sequence. Its the top one of this page

http://www.beckhamdigital.co.uk/freestuffdigslidesw3.htm

Wow! Barry, you keep the bar going north. From what little work I've done with collages, you must have spent considerable time and effort creating such a beautiful piece. Thanks so much for continuing to show us all what's possible. You're quite talented.

Dave

[Barry Beckham]

Not sure that I understand how it works. I assume that you create a number of different montages and then use the Keypoints and Opacity controls to bring them to the foreground?

No Mike your on the wrong track, no keypoints are used at all. You start by trying to create a good montage in Photoshop with 3,4 5 images, more if they all work well together. The technique works so much better if you have some texture as the base image to build upon. Then you save the texture as an image, switch on a layer that constitutes one part of the montage and save that, then the next part and so on. Sometimes you can leave all parts of the montage in place and just change the texture image at the base, that can be quite appealing on screen.

To get the delicate blends, try hard light in Photoshop's layers and layer masks to blend the images together. You have to control colour balance and the compositiuon of the montage and where people and text is concerned there can be a conflict. The old saying that people and text will fight for top billing in an image is largley true. Some colours are just too colourful, but are easily addressed with the saturation tools or the layer opacity.

Once you have the first 5-6 images saved, now you need to leave some aspects of the montage in place, but change others, so that the whole thing flows on from there.

You have to be prepared to be quite self critical and throw out what doesn't work. The vital part is to save all the images as high res files in their layered form as you will almost certainly have to rework some aspects as the whole thing takes shape. That is not such a chore if you save the layered files.

The problem is that if you choose to change one image, that could impact on the next 5 too if they are linked.

[mightec]

Barry

Thanks for sharing the process with me, but I think I will need time to reflect on the technique and a quite time before considering to 'jump in' and have a go. But I think it is beyond my Photoshop capability, would love to try though.

[Barry Beckham]

Its a technique that needs some practice, you have to jump in and go for it. The more you do it the easier it becomes

[d67]

The idea here was to retain format from the camera and have an almost constantly moving montage on screen.Having said that, no animation was used in this sequence.

Hello Barry

I am not particularily attracted by such a way of presenting a situation or just photos but I find your slideshow a very strange and interesting one.

Superpositions and background images are excellent and the whole sequence is "flowing" very gently.. thanks also to your music choice.

Just a point : the title and some end text (very big fonts !) are out of frame. My screen resolution is set to 1024/768.

Thanks for sharing.

[Peter S]

Hi Barry, Carol,

What a labour of love! I imagine this took quite some time to assemble but it was certainly worth the effort - an excellent result. The way the texture came through in areas such as the clothes and the rolling pins was spot on and the overall colour balance was first class. I think it takes the montage into a different and much more interesting area than the single stand alone image the only downside being that it needs to be watched several times to take everything in. But actually that was no hardship. Great stuff.

Were these all images from the camera?

Kind regards

Peter

[Barry Beckham]

D67

I am not particularily attracted by such a way of presenting a situation

I don't really know what you mean here, can you elaborate a bit for me.

Your resolution setting will badly affect how I wanted the slide show to be viewed. Its not only the text that would have looked odd. Perhaps you should change your resolution to match the audio visual being played. I did mark this as 1280*1024 on the web page and it only takes a few seconds to change resolution to play the show and back again afterwards.

Who knows, you might find that 1280*1024 is more convenient for this type of work once you try it.

Peter.

Yes, it did take some time and there are one or two difficulties with Montages, especially peoples faces. They can get distorted to a degree that they look odd, but its not difficult to bring back some detail when its neede All the images are from our cameras, can I ask where you thought they may be from?

[Peter S]

Hi Barry,

"can I ask where you thought they may be from?"

I just wondered if you had scanned some of the paper signs or photographed them. But while I'm here and feeling inquisitive I would also be interested in knowing where you shot the pictures of the people. They look like real people wearing wonderful costumes. Did you have a fancy dress party

Kind regards

Peter

[Barry Beckham]

Peter

You will find the people in costume at both the Black Country Museum and at Blists Hill Museum. There are loads of those signs around the place. I am surprised more AV's are not produced from those places, they are a great source of images, you just have to dodge the crowds.

Go on a wet day, no people and you get atmos

[Peter S]

Hi Barry

It's about 175 mile trip each way from Poole but you've certainly tempted me.

Peter

[d67]

Hello Barry

D67

I am not particularily attracted by such a way of presenting a situation

I don't really know what you mean here, can you elaborate a bit for me.

I preffer more "classical" slideshows showing images full size (complete image) rather then bits of images.

Your resolution setting will badly affect how I wanted the slide show to be viewed. Its not only the text that would have looked odd. Perhaps you should change your resolution to match the audio visual being played. I did mark this as 1280*1024 on the web page and it only takes a few seconds to change resolution to play the show and back again afterwards.

When I download a slideshows, I never take time to change screen resolution or other system parameters. If the slideshow behaves curiously or images are bad, I just hit the escape key.

I changed screen resolution to 1280/1024 to see your slideshow to your settings. Sincerely, I preffer, without any hesitation, to see it at 1024/768 : images are full screen and without any frame.

Who knows, you might find that 1280*1024 is more convenient for this type of work once you try it.

Oh no ! Working with Word or Excel is harder with this resolution than with 1024/768. This setting fits exactly my needs.

Regards

Patrick

[Barry Beckham]

Ah you like all your images almost square, you have been watching too much TV

Yu should change resolution in my view to see what the author produced, if you don't like it hit the escape, but as an AV enthusuast you should resect what the author is trying to do and present.

If people didn't push the boundaries we would all still be bored witless by the carved wooden pew ends of church seats. I seem to recal they where the highlight of the camera club at one time.

Go on push the boat out onve in a while and watch at 1280*1024

[Ken Cox]

Barry

better check the majority here

www.scantips.com

http://www.scantips.com/cgi-bin/survey.cgi

I,m of the same feeling as Patrick -- it is my system and i should not have adj., it to suit the author

ken

[canteau]

Ah you like all your images almost square, you have been watching too much TV

Yu should change resolution in my view to see what the author produced, if you don't like it hit the escape, but as an AV enthusuast you should resect what the author is trying to do and present.

If people didn't push the boundaries we would all still be bored witless by the carved wooden pew ends of church seats. I seem to recal they where the highlight of the camera club at one time.

Go on push the boat out onve in a while and watch at 1280*1024

I agree with Patrick and Ken, the author has to adjust and not vice versa ...

How many people are going to change the resolution? Zero!

And then PTE V5 can be adapted to all screen resolution, so why impose a resolution to users ?

Maybe review what is being done on other forums...

Bernard

[jfa]

Barry I too have to agree with Patrick, Ken and the others.

The viewer is the "customer" and the author is the "manufacture" if the maker doesn't provide a product the customer can use easily they will not buy it.

It's my PC and I don't like to be told how I must use it.

This is the cry that I often hear when software tries to dictate how the user must work. Look at the resentment the PC user commentary has for Microsoft because of this. Microsoft eventually had to change and allow the user the choice of browser etc. that they wanted to use.

Sorry Barry but we humans are funny people in our likes and dislikes.

EDIT -

Ken:

I found your like not to work.

http://www.scantips.com/cgi-bin/survey.cgi ?????????

[d67]

Ah you like all your images almost square, you have been watching too much TV

????????!!!!!!!!!!

No comment !

Yu should change resolution in my view to see what the author produced, if you don't like it hit the escape, but as an AV enthusuast you should resect what the author is trying to do and present.

Continue to produce magnificent masterpieces ... you are alone, or few of us, will exactly see as you see them.

If people didn't push the boundaries we would all still be bored witless by the carved wooden pew ends of church seats.

????!!!!!

I don't absolutely not feel as coming directly form Middle Ages because I have the curious idea of setting my screen resolution to 1024/768 !

I think that a little bit humility is not senseless

Patrick

[Barry Beckham]

Hang on

You people are AV experts compared to most and your going to huff and puff about changing resolution to watch a show.

No surely not ???

But, Fair enough, can't argue with that, I have been well and truly chastised.

Ken, your link doesn't seem to work for me, but I went to the main site. Oh my gawd, there is enough technical mumbo jumbo there to last the rest of my life. I could die before I finish reading all that.

That's far to technical for me, I would rather spend my time creating some images

[JEB]

Barry,

I would like to add another penny worth to the debate.

As I stated in an earlier post I think the show is fantastic. This opinion was based on watching it like others at 1024x768, my preferred setting. I was too lazy to change my settings. I have since taken the troubleto change my settings to 1280x1024 and have to confess that it was well worth the effort. However having viewed the show I've switched back again!

Another observation I would make is that I think the closing titles would be better if the script used was more in line with the script of the old signs and adverts featured in the montage.

Regards

John

P.S.

I'm working away with PS layers trying to get my tiny mind round the techniques. Keeping in mind the various options and permutations is a nightmare!

[davegee]

Hi Barry,

I also liked the show.

Regarding the resolution issue, I personally cannot understand how anyone can run a monitor at anything LESS than its full resolution. All that interpolation going on BEFORE even starting the show.

I notice that you have stopped offering two options of resolution - maybe you should think about this again?

What will you do when everyone upgrades to 1400x1050 projectors - will you offer a third option?

I try to remember to put a little note at the BEGINNING of my humble efforts saying:

"THIS SHOW IS OPTIMISED FOR 1280X1024".

This way the viewer knows what to expect.

Keep up the good work.

DaveG