Sorry Barry Beckham!

[baldsparky]

Hi

I have put together a show using similar techniques to those used by Barry Beckham in his show 'The Art of Cornwall', sorry Barry but it is not as good as yours!

The photographs were taken by my wife and I whilst on holiday in the Lake District in th UK last September, the wether was pretty dull most of the time, hence the lack of blue sky.

Not sure if the show is too long, or that the music is suitable, or if it's boring with the use of the same time for slides and transitions, anyway please feel free to have a look and let me know what you think.

There are two versions of the show at the following link, one is 1440 x 900 (23mb approx) and the other is 1024 x 768 (15mb approx)

The show runs for about 8 minutes.

Hope you enjoy.

Kind regards

Paul.

UPDATE

Due to comments made by Barry and Neil and being unhappy with the music choice myself I have now changed the music to the show.

If you woud like to see the new show use the link below and download the file with the word public on the end.

If you do have a look let me know if you think it is any better.

[Lin Evans]

Hi Paul,

I found it very enjoyable - dreamy-like = upbeat tone and very nice use of Photoshop effects. About the only thing I would suggest to possibly improve it would be to go to Project Options, Advanced Tab and hide the mouse cursor during show.

Best regards,

Lin

[baldsparky]

Hi Lin

thanks for the kind comments and the advice and I completely agree.

I actually hid the mouse cursor in the 1440 x 900 but forgot to do so in the 1024 x 768.

Thanks again

Kind regards

Paul

[Barry Beckham]

I think you have injected a lot of charm into those images and I am pretty certain they are more interesting now that they would have been without the treatment. Sometimes the lighting just does not work for us and then this treatment really works well.

All comments are a personal thing, but your choice of music leaves me cold I'm afraid. In my view that syle of music is more suited to an urban landscape AV, not the soft dreamy images you have produced.

Your images are creating a great deal of charm, but in my view your music takes 70% of that charm away.

I am convinced that a different piece of music would make the world of difference.

[neil]

Hi Paul ,

Maybe a nice show but please please change the music!!

I'm in the lounge at the Grand Hotel 30 years ago ( and it was crap then)

Its a nice show if a little long,but the music totally ruins it for me.

Thanks for posting,

All the best Neil

[baldsparky]

Hi Neil and Barry,

Thank you both for your comments. I agree with you about the music, I wasn't happy about it when i put the snow together.

In fact I probably spent nearly as much time trying to find music as i did putting the show together.

I personally find trying to find a suitable piece of music for my shows hard work and a real drudge, it almost takes the enjoyment out of making the shows in the first place.

It also makes me very hesitant to start to put another show together because i know that I have to face this 'problem' with the music.

Does anyone else have this trouble or is it just me?

Barry and Neil, do you have any suggestions as to a suitable piece of music for this show, if you do it would be very much appreciated.

many thanks

Kind regards

Paul

[Barry Beckham]

Paul

Well, music is such a personal thing that when I do comment on the choice of music I am always a bit nervous in doing so. I could be telling someone their favorite music is orrid.

Inspiration for AV can come from the music first, but my guess is most of us start with the images, because we are photographers first. In order to choose a piece of music you need a lot to choose from. Its the same with images, if you have to choose 40 images for a slide show from 45, you don't have a great deal of choice, but if you have 345 images, that is completely different.

Most of us have a music collection ourselves and if we have a suitable (not for gain license) we can use any of that. Now I mention the license here to stop this thread being hijacked by the license police. Over time I have scanned all my music CD's onto my computer, partly for AV, but mostly that it is more convenient through Windows media player to search and play any track or album I want.

That does make it much easier to find a piece of music suitable for your slide show as you can skip through many tracks quickly and easily. When the right piece pops up you will know it.

Being an agent for 30+ copyright free albums myself I am probably much better placed with regard music than most, but sometimes I still have quite a search to find something that I think works really well with the images I have. So, first port of call is your own CD collection. Then you could always buy a CD or two of more melodic music, they are nice to listen to while working in Photoshop regardless of whether you will use them for AV.

The albums on my web site are mostly melodic and you can download all the track samples in one go as a zip file. I did that so the whole album samples can be highlighted and played and you can skip from track to track to find something suitable, then just buy that one track. $5 hardly breaks the bank, thats about £2.50

What I also do while making an AV is this. I may select an album and while doing the preportary work for the show, getting images prepared etc, I would play music in the background. I have my main PC connected up to an old amplifier and speakers so I hear good quality music. Everytime I hear a track that I think might work in my show, I immediately copy that track to the music folder of my AV.

By the time I am ready to finally select music I often have 10-15 tracks already waiting that all appeared suitable, now all I have to do is whittle them down from there. I normally get the images in some sort of order, prepare an auto slide show and drop a piece of music into PTE. Now you can press preview and watch a few slides and listen to the music. You will be amazed how easy it is from here to find what you want, the right piece usually makes itself known. Then you can clear the PTE auto slide show settings and make something special.

I selected the samples from just one of my own CD's called The Water and two tracks stood out as suitable to me. On Angelic Wings or The Remembering. Alternatively Enya would be a good choice of music for your slide show and she has loads of albums to choose from. A classical piece would also go well, something from The Four Seasons perhaps by Vivaldi. Clannad are another rich sourse of music and their Celtic feel may work well with Lakeland images.

Just had a thought.............. If you find any track on my site that you feel works for you, tell me what it is and I will send it to you with my compliments. You will have it then Royalty free.

Barry

Water Album

http://www.beckhamdigital.co.uk/music/thewater/thewater.htm

All Music

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

[baldsparky]

Barry

thank you very much for your reply and all the help and advice which you give, and the insights into the way you work,I appreciate it very much. As I said I find it a real struggle to match the music with the slides, hopefully the things you have mentioned will make things easier.

Regarding the offer of a track to use, I also thank you, and have emailed you concerning this, hope this is ok.

Thanks again for the time you have taken to reply and for your help.

Kind regards

Paul

[fh1805]

I'm chipping in on this discussion because, in my opinion, there was a little golden nugget of advice, that could easily be overlooked, buried in Barry's lengthy reply above.

...they are nice to listen to while working in Photoshop...

Listening to music while working on your image files is a great way of learning how to identify music whose mood matches the mood of the images.

regards,

Peter

[baldsparky]

Thanks Peter,

I think I will have to give this a try!

kind regards

Paul

[Barry Beckham]

Paul

Track sent, hope we can see the remake soon

• 
  

[baldsparky]

Hi

UPDATE

Due to comments made by Barry and Neil and being unhappy with the music choice myself I have now changed the music to the show.

If you woud like to see the new show use the original link in my opening post and download the file with the word public on the end. (one is 1440x900 and the other is 1024x768)

If you do have a look let me know if you think it is any better.

Many thanks

Kind regards

Paul

[Barry Beckham]

I think the music now works much better with the slide show, but one point has come up because of that new music. If you look at the first two slides they don't match the music. Or I should say the second one could be placed a little better on the time line.

This track has a fairly long intro before there is a cascading sound in the music that really gets it going. That cascading sound is a perfect introduction for your first image in the sequence, but that first image comes up too soon and misses the beat so to speak.

You can't hold the opening titles on screen any longer than you have, so the only option would be to trim a few seconds off the front of the music and allow it to fade in. Then when that cascade comes your first image should appear with it and hopefully have a touch more impact.

I find that it is these small attentions to detail are what makes one show stand out from another and it is one of the reasons why I can never undertand PTE enthusiasts having anything to do with the automatic spreading of images along the time line. Not for a finished sequence anyway.

Loved the images and the presentation.

Here is a little tip when putting lines around images with the stroke command. If you add the stroke to the outside of the selection you will find that Photoshop rounds off the corners a little, as it has in your sequence. If you add the stroke to the inside of the selection then you get crisp square corners.