What size slide show do I make

[Barry Beckham]

I would be interested to hear what experienced PTE users on this forum would say if asked the following question by a new user of PTE and someone new to slide shows and AV.

What size slide show should I make?

And then Why ?

Now I already understand most of the discussion that this topic could generate, but perhaps we can steer clear of that. So, for this poll I am interested in you as an individual, your personal thought process and why you choose the slide show size you do.

As a secondary point, do you like to fill your screen with the slide show, irrespective of the resolution of that screen?

[fh1805]

Barry,

What an excellent set of questions!

What size slide show should I make and why?

For a newcomer to AV I would suggest that they pick a short piece of music that they like and set some images to that. I would advise them to think in terms of needing 10-15 images per minute, to use simple fade transitions of between one and two seconds duration and to start and end with a black slide. I would also suggest that they should aim to start with a stock of slides that is between two and three times the number that they will eventually need; to give plenty of scope for editing down. I would point out that they need not be worried about throwing out images since, every time they remove one, the overall visual quality should go up because they should be discarding the weakest image. Finally I would advise them that, for this first sequence, every image should be in landscape orientation and of the same aspect ratio. Keep it simple!

Why do I choose the slide show size that I do?

I build various types of sequences: those that tell a story, those that interpret a piece of poetry or a piece of music, those that explore a subject or a place. The duration can be constrained by many factors: the length of the piece of poetry or music, the time taken to convey all the details in the voice-over, etc. For sequences without voice-over, I try to find a single piece of music that captures the same mood as the images and then build to the length of the music. For sequences with voice-over, I use as many different pieces of music and sound as I feel that I need, with some complex editting in Audacity when necessary. My sequences currently range in duration from 1 minute 20 seconds through to 16 minutes.

Do I try and fill the screen?

Yes and no! If the sequence contains only my own, digitally-captured images then I will retain the original aspect ratio of 3:2 from my Nikon D70. If I am not using any animation, I will present these at 1024x681 (to match the 1024x768 of my digital projector), with a two pixel white outline. If I have used animation, especially zoom-in, then I overlay each image with a windowed mount so that the growth of the image vertically is hidden from the audience.

However, one of my interests is local history. When building a sequence on this theme I will often be using historic images as well as my own. These old images can be in any aspect ratio and sometimes are of poor resolution. This kind of sequence will be set on a coloured background so that the illuminated area of the screen stays constant despite the changing shape and size of the superimposed image.

There are my thoughts on your questions. I hope you, and others, find something of interest in my approach to digital AV. I'm happy to elaborate further if required.

regards,

Peter

[Guest Yachtsman1]

Hi Barry

I've been using PTE about 18months now. When I first started I had loads of stock low res pictures from our 3 years living on a boat. So one of the first things I did was a number of shows aimed at yacht clubs & the like, these had up to 250 slides and lasted up to an hour. However as it happens these shows have never been shown publically, and I don't think they would be, as they look very basic to what I do now.

I had also just moved to the Yorkshire Dales and produced 2 or three shows based on pictures of the area, these were taken with an up to date Nikon D200, with one 18mm to 200mm zoom Nikon lens, which I still use most of the time, but now have an alternative 28mm to 55mm zoom lens which was on the wife's Christmas present a D40. Without exception, the Dales shows have been modified to suit what I think an audience will tolerate without boredom setting in, maximum run around 15 to 20 minutes. The biggest inovation to my shows was learning how to produce a decent sound track using Audacity.

Over the last six months, the shows I have produced are what I call Camera Club or Women's Institute shows, Camera club versions I limit to between 5 & 10 minutes, & WI shows between 10 to 15 minutes. The reasons being obvious, the competition among the CC fraternity is hotting up dramatically and the shows have to be somewhat special to hold a CC audience, the WI are a little more tolerant.

Most of my shows now contain a voice over of one sort or another, either poetic or descriptive. I could go on & on, but I don't want to appear boring.

Yachtsman1.

[Barry Beckham]

Thanks Peter

But what size do you create a show? Lets say you have shot the high res images what next?

Create them to fit your monitor, retaining format 1024*680 ?

What if you have different sized monitors in your home, which one do you choose, the largest perhaps?

Do you consider that in a couple of years time you may have a monitor twice, three times the size of the one you have now, do you take that into account while making a show now.

In time we are all likely to be using widescreen monitors, so do you take that fact into account when making a show now.

Do you ever consider making all your sequences at 1920*1080 the HD resolution.

??

[trailertrash]

As a very basic newbie to P2E,I pondered over this question when first trying it out. I searched for shows [before I found this forum] and watched hours of them.

What got my attention was the fact that the authors did in fact fill the screen. I love to see that, but I do like the image within a border too.

Thus far I have learned to keep the shows I have done [which will be for CC audience's ] to around 6 mins - 40 slides.

As yet I dont know enough about monitor size and resolution to add anything usefull. I will watch this discussion with great interest tho, to [hopefully] learn a bit more.

This is of-course a newbie's opinion, not as Barry, asked an experienced author's view.

Andrew.

[Guest Yachtsman1]

Something I didn't mention, all my shows are full screen 1024x768, I also pre-view them on a 32inch LCD TV before comitting them to a public show on a projector.

The shows on the TV didn't predict the recent jerkiness I encountered with 5.6 using a projector, which has been resolved by switching off the laptop screen.

Slightly off subject, beware switching off your laptop screen then shutting down the projector without reverting to the laptop screen. I didn't & had the devils own job getting the laptop screen to fire up, had eventually to re-connect the projector.

Yachtsman1

[fh1805]

Andrew (trailertrash),

All opinions are welcome. As a newbie you are better placed to tell us, experienced, old hands what it is that you would like to know.

Barry,

Sorry, I mis-understood what you meant by size. I interpreted it as = duration whereas you clearly had in mind = resolution.

All my sequences are built primarily for my own pleasure: to me - building AVs in PTE is great fun! But they are also built with my end audiences in mind. Therefore they are built to suit my current projector - which is 1024x768. Unlike Eric (yachtsman1), I don't distinguish between my audiences. With each show, I try and create the best possible sequence that I can knowing that it will then satisfy an AV Group, Camera Club or Photographic Society - and will more than satisfy any other general interest audience.

Leaving aside the laptop which I use with the projector to deliver the shows to the audiences, I have only one monitor at home - a 17 inch, 1280x1024. I don't consider this when re-sizing my images. Nor do I try and "future proof" my work. Over the course of a thirty year career in IT, I learned a long time ago that it is impossible to "future proof" in the world of technology because of the continuous and ever-increasing rate of change. Sure, HD is today's buzz-word but what will it be in a couple of years time?

When (that really should be IF) I decide to change my equipment, then I will consider what to do with my existing repertoire of shows. I have the original ex-camera image files. I have the ex-Audacity WAV and MP3 files. If necessary and desirable I can, at that future date, rebuild any sequences that I want to at that new standard - whatever that new standard might then be.

To answer your specific questions in post #5: Do I create them to fit my monitor, retaining 1024x680: Yes. The answer to the subsequent questions is, in every case: No.

regards,

Peter

[JRR]

I would be interested to hear what experienced PTE users on this forum would say if asked the following question by a new user of PTE and someone new to slide shows and AV.

What size slide show should I make?

And then Why ?

Now I already understand most of the discussion that this topic could generate, but perhaps we can steer clear of that. So, for this poll I am interested in you as an individual, your personal thought process and why you choose the slide show size you do.

As a secondary point, do you like to fill your screen with the slide show, irrespective of the resolution of that screen?

Barry:

As Peter says, excellent questions and ones we deal with frequently in our Photo Club. We have a few "papers" on those subjects on our website at here

See picture below for recommended "papers"

But to answer your questions directly:

What size slide show should I make?

For a first timer, I would recommend a 3 minute show (30 images approx) for their first show. In other words about the length of one piece of music.

Our own shows (after having produced well over 200) tend to be 5-6 minutes.

Why

A first timer needs practice and will be on a learning curve. If they want people to watch, with interest, their first few shows, those shows should be kept short until they can improve their techniques.

For our shows, the guidelines are "Keep it short and simple" (KISS) and "Leave them wanting more" (don't bore them with EVERY shot you took on a subject)

We try to determine the target audience for our shows, that will give guidance as to what length of show, and then we try to find a "hook" that will keep them interested. Suspense, special effects (not panning and zooming)

For example we have two 25 minute shows, one with music alone, and one with narration and music. Both shows are nature oriented, we will only dare show AVs that length to a nature-oriented audience. They will enjoy the show for its entire length and want more. Show the AVs to a general audience and you'll have them sleeping in the aisles after 5-10 minutes.

For shows targeted at a senior citizen group home, we usually will run up to 15 minutes, but will have narration along with music to help maintain their interest.

For general audiences we keep the shows to 5-10 minutes depending on the strength of the topic and images, but again most of our shows have narration and music. There is one show that I have featuring a heron and a hippopotamus. The interaction in real life took place over 10 minutes, but the slide show is 42 seconds as people only want to watch so many pictures of a heron landing on the back of the hippo and the resultant reactions. I had to cut the show back from its first version that was 2 minutes long, because it was boring.

do you like to fill your screen with the slide show, irrespective of the resolution of that screen

I make our shows 1280x960 currently (up from 800x600 and 1024x768 over the years) and I click the appropriate options to not allow PTE in scale up the images on larger resolution screens/projectors.

Why the size ? It fits nicely on my monitor, is handled well on our 1024x768 projector. Yes it leaves a black border when projected on another projector we use at 1400x1050, but that does not bother me.

I do not allow scaling up as I want to ensure the quality of an image is not compromised if upscaled too much.

The 1280x960 size also works well as I crop every image used in a show so as to try to obtain effective transitions.

Sorry for lengthy answer, hope that is what you were after

(added after original posting: I see now that I misinterpreted the "size" question as well - hope I still answered the questions)

[JEB]

Jim,

Please forgive me if I have got this wrong but had you intended to make public the documents highlighted in the thumbnail attached to your recent post?

The reason I ask is that I am embarking on prepairing a course to be given to my club during next season and am interested in any material that can give me ideas.

John (Plagiary a speciality)

[JEB]

Barry,

If I understand your request correctly there are four questions.

1) What advice would I give PTE and/or AV novice regarding size of first show?

2) Why?

3) Why do I choose the size of show I do?

4) Screen size preferences.

Answers

1) KISS. This has been enlarged on by others.

2) As has been said above there is a steep learning curve to be surmounted and a novice could easily (and do in my experience) become disillusioned. (While on the subject this is why I would very much like to see Igor and the team give some attention to simplifying the process WITHOUT compromising the flexibility of a wonderful product)

3) I make shows from three to thirty-three minutes in length. It depends totally on the subject and the proposed audience. Again much has been said about this above most of which I would go along with.

4) This is one that does give me some concern and ties me in knots! However I’m not too worried about PC screen size in itself as I make my shows for projection. I don’t find any problems with borders when projecting on a large screen. Up until recently I have been making shows at 1024x768 but now that my club have invested in a 1400x1050 projector I have now moved to this. Recently I have been quite impressed with the quality of shows converted to DVD for TV so in light of that development I may have to try to get my little mind round that.

Hope this helps.

Glad to see that your move to the Colonies has not meant we’ve lost you.

Regards

John

[JRR]

Jim,

Please forgive me if I have got this wrong but had you intended to make public the documents highlighted in the thumbnail attached to your recent post?

The reason I ask is that I am embarking on prepairing a course to be given to my club during next season and am interested in any material that can give me ideas.

John (Plagiary a speciality)

John:

They are available in the "public domain" on the web, so yes use them as research material (or "as is" ) but giving credit to the source would be nice

[Ed Overstreet]

Adding to the poll:

I'll only comment on the image dimensions I use for my own shows, as everything else I'd say has been covered above and I agree with it. JRR and I have very similar views on these matters (except on the image dimensions), and the two of us are responsible for most of the material in the link that JRR provided. I recently gave a presentation to a group at our club (on March 30) on how to do an AV show in PTE 5.6 (for beginners) and there is a link to the PDF notes for that presentation on our club website at the link that JRR gives, which anyone is welcome to download and use (preferably with some credit or attribution). (There is a more direct way to get at the presentation notes, go to http://www.mediafire.com/?ztnz05izmiz where you can get a zip folder that has the PDF notes plus a "template" PTE show for beginners with the project options all set the way we recommend for beginners who want to present a show on our club's equipment. I explained those options verbally at my presentation but this isn't covered in the notes; if JEB or anyone else has any questions about why we use certain settings in project options, send me a private email.)

In terms of image size -- I run my CRT monitor at 1600x1200 and my laptop LCD monitor at 1920x1200. Yes I know this produces pretty small text on screen, but I've got used to it. I use my computer heavily for photo-editing, and I figure if I'm going to edit a photo I might as well use the most resolution I can squeeze from my system. Our club has a Canon SX50 projector that we normally use at 1400x1050, so while I create all my AV shows in PTE on a 1600x1200 monitor, I size my JPGs for 1400x1050 and set PTE to display full screen. That results in some upsizing-on-the-fly on playback on my monitor, but it doesn't cause any problems for me on my monitor, and it's ideal for the club's projector. I don't normally use other projectors or display my shows anywhere except at the club, but I have from time to time given presentations to community groups in local churches or libraries that have 1024x768 projectors, and (barring the pesky image-tearing issue on panorama issues we've worried to death on another thread) I haven't seen any problems running my 1400x1050 images on a 1024x768 projector. So my bias, preference and advice is to size images for the maximum size that you're likely to encounter on a monitor or a projector. In my experience PTE seems better at down-sizing on the fly than up-sizing on the fly, so keep your images as large as possible.

PTE 5.6 in my experience can handle some pretty huge images pretty well on down-sizing. My infamous panorama file is about 4500x1050 pixels and 1.2 mb in size, and while the Canon projector tears that pan (and JRR's projector doesn't if you set Frame Lock to On), on my monitor at 1600x1200 the display is beautiful. Just don't crowd too many large images too close together, though (keep them at least 5 seconds apart on the timeline), or you may start to see some jerkiness in the followng images after the first big one. But if you space large images out with smaller ones in between, PTE and the computer seem to "catch up" OK on the memory demands from downsizing a big file.

Not very elegant technical explanation I guess, but that's been my experience and what I suggest to people if they ask my advice.

[JEB]

Jim, Ed,

Thank you both for your generosity, typical of this community.

At this stage I am simply reading and thinking but will and always do give credit when I use anything as a teaching or demonstration tool that is not my own work.

Thanks again,

John

P.S. I was very impressed with your club's web site and the size of your club. We have about 35 members of which a maximum of eight are interested in A.V.

[Ed Overstreet]

P.S. I was very impressed with your club's web site and the size of your club. We have about 35 members of which a maximum of eight are interested in A.V.

Slightly off topic, but 8 out of 35 is pretty good. Our club now has 300 members at last count a few weeks ago, but at the annual AV showcase night next Tuesday only 12 of us have provided shows (a total of 20 shows, we allowed second shows to fill the 90 minutes for the program). In the past we've started out some years with an AV Group of 40-50 folks showing up for the first workshop, but by April we never seem to get more than 12-15 producers. Lots of people seem to be interested at first until they find out how much time and energy it takes most folks to produce their first show, though we've always told them it's a lot easier and faster after the first dozen or so. Some of the 12 of us next week have been producing shows with various technologies for 20 years and more, but we usually get one or two newbies each year -- but rarely more than that. I think the three other clubs in the Ottawa area have the same experience; one sister club didn't produce any shows at all for our annual interclub AV night last December, and the other three clubs only came up with six or seven each (we limited it to one show per person, but at 19 shows most of which were first-rate it was a very good evening).

[xahu34]

... As a secondary point, do you like to fill your screen with the slide show, irrespective of the resolution of that screen?

A present time I use the feature "Fixed size of slide" with a width of 1400. This precisely matches the width of the projector I sometimes use, and it also works well on my monitor (1680x1050). So resizing only takes place on PCs with small monitors.

Regards,

Xaver

[Barry Beckham]

Thanks for all the replies, but perhaps I didn't make things as clear as I thought. I am only interested in image/slide show sizes and what the general consensus is among the more knowledgeable user of PTE.

If we all had a crystal ball, then I suppose this question would be an easy answer, but from what I read there is quite a variation in what you all choose.

The question, "What size images should I use in my slide show" Has never been an easy one to answer, too many if's and but's. However 5.6 has put right some of those and I am coming around to this line of thought. Create everything at high resolution.

I am now working on a 27in Dell 1920*1200 monitor. It will be a while till I exhaust that, (I hope) and even then I doubt we will go much bigger as the desk size starts to become a factor. The monitor does have a great deal of WOW value when a slide show created at 1920*1200 is displayed on it. If you followed one of those shows with an older 1024*768 show it does tend to look a little small. Now a larger size doesn't mean much if the show isn't good, but on the assumption that the show is a good one, a larger slide show does look pretty good and also has the edge on the smaller one, when all else is equal.

As you have all said it also looks pretty good on smaller monitors too, although we have to accept the black bar top and bottom. So, for the future my thoughts are make my slide shows at full resolution.

Here's my thought. Make the shows at full resolution from the images as they come from your camera. (Obviously this will depend on the camera and pixel count) The image sizes from my current camera are 5616*3744 and that is a very large file, but I could cut that in half and still have 2808*1872. If I made my slide shows at half size (2808*1872) I would still have enough resolution to cover my monitor resolution and a fair bit to spare for future eventualities.

Now, I know what you’re thinking here, that many PC's will not handle the file sizes and they probably would not, but those of us who know PTE well could make the show at these sizes and on completion we could save all the components of that show. (Save to Zip perhaps)

Now it is a simple matter to make a copy of the entire show and reduce the resolution of the images to whatever you want at the time. Even changing the format wouldn't be out of the question or a long drawn out process.

Its just that I would love to have all the shows I have even made saved in this way now, but of course I haven’t because I didn't think to do so at the time. They would be saved OK, but at the resolution they were created at.

Does anyone else see some merits here or not?

[nelson]

Barry, I agree with what you are saying.

Since I was new at learning the program in hindsight I wish I had made the images at a higher resolution.

My projector is 1024x768 so I assumed that would be the resolution to make my images at.

The show I put together was 25 minutes long and was about my recent journey in the southwest of China.

If and when I upgrade my equipment I will have to redo the photos.

It is almost the same as shooting in raw, you can always make jpegs from these files.

Having the images at the highest resolution allows you to downsize to whatever you want for your show and you will still have your master file so to speak.

In the future for my larger shows I will revert to this method.

Kieron

[Guest Yachtsman1]

I think you'll find most photographers who shoot in raw save the original image. I recently bought a 1 tetrabyte HD just for that purpose. Previously I was using CD's & DVD's.

Yachtsman1

[Barry Beckham]

Yaughtsman

Your missing the point a bit, this has nothing to do with RAW whatsoever.

[Ken Cox]

5 yrs ago i had my current main system built

prior to it's completion all i could make was vcd's - did not have dvd burner

one of the first tests i wanted to do was to see if pte and the system could handle full size picts without resizing - my daughter had a HP camera as well as one of my former co workers

i made shows with their images as taken from the cameras - the picts ranged in size 700kb to 2600kb +- -- +- 2048/1536

screen shot of the details of on of the larger shows -- had 228 images and 6 tunes

pte and my system handled the job hands down

at that time myself,Hawk and Al Robinson were doing a lot of experimenting -- Hawk had access to hd ws tv, Al had a beemer as well as hd ws tv -- i had to go to my A/V shop and experimented on various size hd ws tv's and a beemer projecting on a 100" screen in a room specifically designed for viewing - all the staff and customers that were in the store at the time were amazed at the quality

pan and zoom was still a long ways off but when it came i soon found that if i did not use large pict size - at least 1280/960 80% quality when resized, i could not do much zoom without pixellation occuring.

my reasoning behind all this -- use the largest you have because pte will resize it and from my days in the darkroom - a lot easier to print med format negs than 35 mm -- the quality is in the neg/and or the digital picture -- let pte do the work

ken

[Guest Yachtsman1]

Yaughtsman

Your missing the point a bit, this has nothing to do with RAW whatsoever.

No you are, the answer was to the post before, be cool

And it's Yachtsman1

[JRR]

Barry:

I understand where you are coming from.

When I first started using PTE I used 800x600 pixel sized images in the shows. In those days we were being advised to keep the image to about 100-200kb. Plus my monitor was not much bigger than that, and the projector I had access to was also that size.

I still present the 800x600 shows, but they are relatively small on the monitor or projection screen compared to the current productions.

I have gone back and redone some of the 800x600 shows by getting the original scans of the 35mm slides and cutting them down to 1280x960. I plan to do it to the remaining few in time.....

These days PTE will easily run with full size images out of my current cameras (3300x2200 pixels). While I say PTE can easily handle that size, yes it depends on the computer as well. My main computer is about 4 years old, as is my laptop that I used most of the time - so they are not "cutting edge" but they work fine. (However my shows don't have the razzle-dazzle that some of the more advanced members have been demonstrating using the latest bells and whistles)

I have been musing about going to a larger size than the 1280x960 I use now, but have not gone there yet, partially because of the size of the resultant exe file and the transferability of it. That is not a major consideration, but still there in my mind.

Because I crop/size every image individually to get the best transition (or image out of the original) I would likely crop/size the original image to some large size and keep that as my master show. (then do a smaller version if I had to for some reason)

[fh1805]

Barry,

Thanks for opening up this debate. This is a fascinating discussion. It is giving me food-for-thought in respect to my approach to sizing my images and sequences.

regards,

Peter

[xahu34]

I am sorry to say, but this discussion reminds me a little bit of Mr. Shakespeare.

Best regards,

Xaver

[Barry Beckham]

Thanks for all the replies, but doesn't the topic drift easily. I think I am reading one thing when its something completely different. I shall have to learn to keep up better

Xaver, sorry I don't understand your post.

JRR I remember getting hooked on Kia Power Show in the early days before I tried PTE, I don't know if any of you discovered that, but I am sure some did. I was turned off a little by the 800*600 size limit, but I think I will make my shows differently in future, more like I described earlier.

I suppose the only problem may be some of my shows where every image and fade is created individually starting with image 1. Montages maybe somewhat different to produce at high resolution to scale down later, but I suppose the only way to see is to try it.