LumenLux

Yes, Andrew, this show from you is different (from you) but certainly not disappointing. And in spite of the constraint of "available" photos, your excellent photography is the steady basis for your success. I think show length is appropriate for what you are doing here. As you know, I face the same concern frequently. If you just wanted to exhibit your finest or favorite 10 or 20 shots like an art gallery, you could do it in 3-5 minutes. But if you are wanting to share also your experience, you need the larger vehicle. Personally I find that a half-day "experience" can be packaged in 3-8 minutes. An active, eventful, scenic day may require 10-15 minutes. When a person has the good fortune of a few days for adventure or just absorbing new scenes, it is really painful to keep the presentation much under 30 minutes. I know I will have lost some potential viewers, but so be it. And if viewers sleep, it should be a pleasant experience too with the backdrop of nice music. Your soundtrack was well chosen and very carefully applied. I found it interesting that you lowered the volume for the unspoken text of the poetry. A neat technique which did help focus my attention to the silent words. You get extra credit for having a resident poet as part of your crew. You are the master of the expansive pans! I assume you are using a stitching software - which one? I am also interested in how much PTE zoom power you apply to gain enough horizontal range for the still-very-sharp panned views. I think your pans are paced just right. They are faster than what I usually expect, but just right considering all the territory they cover. Beyond your scenic pans, I found one zoom-action especially effective. That was on day one as we rode with you into traffic, maybe across a bridge. A well done treatment to help the viewer be there. I think you used tasteful constraint with your black & white inserts. Thus they were effective mood movers as well as nice photographs. Among your landscapes, I had several favorites. But my one "quirky" favorite is your friend's apprehensive expression as he views the pastry landscape surrounding Englebert Humperdink! I envy the clouds in a few of your shots. Much of your landscape appears very similar to some of our Utah landscape, but your large bodies of water are lacking here. One of my own photographer/hiker friends just returned from a visit to New Zealand, so I will link him to your show so he can see how a transplanted "native" handles some of the scenery. Then when you decide when you want to give our landscape a try, give me a little warning and I will try to talk you into an exchange of some kind so I can get a shot at New Zealand. Thank you for sharing your photos and your experience.

If upon viewing, Indian Summer seems a little familiar - it is an Autumn view of a short route we hiked in Spring and Fall. Interestingly (to me) the amount of snow on some of the mountains is about the same, five months apart at the beginning and ending of summer. This winter however has had unusual amounts of snow so I think we could probably not even find the trail by May 2, this year! "Indian Summer" is linked above and should soon be on Beechbrook. If you want to compare the Spring views, they are here in the previously posted This Morning. My (often) central purpose of creating and posting is to share personal experiences and the beauty encountered along the way. With that in mind, I like to know what might be appealing to viewers or what might make the presentations more interesting to you or my "in house" or "participant" viewers. So please feel free to share any reaction you have.

Yup Andrew, bring it on. You've got a bit of a following here, anxious to have a look.

Dom, I think your old movie demo is quite amazing! But much of your work with PTE is amazing. As some of us are working to clean up our old movie films with digital technology, you give us a fun way to imitate the cozy feel of the old time flicks. I think it is great. In the demo, only the cog holes on the edges seem maybe not exactly "correct" yet. But the overall presentation is very effective.

David - I especially like your opening shot and the zoom-out treatment. I think your view angle was a perfect play for the zoom. As Barry suggests an opening shot with some awe-power can get a presentation off to a good start. I think also your personal grounding in music led you to a fitting piece that works well with the opening view too. As for the fast paced zoom - I understand. I often find that the pace I want for the sequence does not allow time to fully appreciate a particular scene. I think that treatment allows some possibilities. 1. It can be frustrating/annoying to a viewer. 2. It can leave them with just a touch of wanting more, rather than being bored by an image that stays on screen longer than it can hold a viewer's interest. 3. I make a point now of almost always publishing the presentation with the space bar as an easy pause for a viewer to enjoy, at will, any particularly interesting slide. And I notice you have allowed that here. Good work.

Ahh, very nice Jim. If I may add my observations - Although I have for years concerned myself with the vertical-horizontal integrations of images, I find it a non-issue in this particular presentation. The "solution" you have used has been one that I have felt has worked quite well for some of my intentions. In your Winter, I see your frame as a tray on a table where the photographer is setting out the individual prints for viewing. Using the gates as you have, the effect to me is no more disturbing than if you personally put a portrait format on the table after I had enjoyed several landscape formatted prints. So in your case, I just see each photo on it's own and am really not concerned at all. As for the frame and color you use - I don't know if you have already modified your posted show - but I see no "pink" in your frame at my monitor setting. I do see the outer frame edge as having a warm tone, which appears to me to be in fine harmony with the warm contrasts within your photos. A most interesting beauty in your shots is the highly localized occurrences of snow or hoary frost. I'm thinking it is largely the hoary frost type accumulation resulting from high humidity and temperature concentrations outside of the original storm? Finally, congratulations on your results. I have oft times enjoyed a winter snow shoot of a newly covered landscape. I have less often been impressed with my own results when they are contained on my monitor.

Eight minute presentation of a morning hike in beautiful alpine country. Hiked in May, there was still evidence of the huge avalanches that rip Broads Fork each winter. Broads Fork download This one is posted just in case someone might enjoy watching it. Of course any comments are always welcomed whether you enjoy it or not.

Thanks Brian for your observations. The first music piece is A River Runs Through It from the movie of the same name. The composer is Mark Isham. I'm thinking further about your preference for the first of the four songs used. I think your personal analysis of "why" makes sense. But you have awakened another thought or question. Let me explain. The "Valentine" was originally a "Congratulations" greeting that I had made a couple of weeks earlier with the same photos. In the congratulations presentation I employed yet different music. My wife first viewed the congratulations presentation and then immediately viewed the Valentine. She then concluded that she preferred the music used in the congratulations version. Now with that, and your preference for the first piece used in Valentine, I am wondering whether there is possibly viewer bias toward the first music heard with a particular set of photos. Of course I think that would only be if the first music seems reasonably fitting to the photo content. What do you think? If you, or anyone else is interested, here is the link to the original congratulations PTE so you can hear that music and see what you think. Congratulations. And if you are curious, you can take a look at another related experiment. The very short "experiment" is available for download as Untitled so as to not bias any evaluation of the content. If you weren't around when originally posted, ThisMorning2.zip is another way that I have experimented with the use of alternate music tracks for a single photo sequence.

Soon to be on Beechbrook.com, but available directly here, is a little personal valentine for downloading. The sequence includes 2 1/2 minutes of photos and 10 minutes of varied music. The presentation of the photos repeats with modest modifications intended to partner with the music through "seasonal" life-moods. (And to point out once again, how the musical tone is almost always very important as to how we experience the photos.)

Very nice Judy. You exhibit the results of a very good eye for photos. Quality, composition, all just very appealing. I did like your continual motion in your stage/frame view more than I would have in a normal screen view. Thanks for sharing your photographic and presentation skills. What was the context of your opportunity in China?

Clever and well done animation Judy Kay - perfect valentine for your "heart throb". To help sustain interest for the duration, I might think you could get a box of tiny candy hearts and use some more of the inscriptions.

Hi Mark - I just viewed your latest version with your vocal interpretation of Norway. It sounds good to me. As you may know, voice tracks on AV's done in America are really quite rare. At least in my circle of experience. That doesn't mean I don't like them. I had some years ago quite a bit of discussion with Peter Coles as to the necessity or benefit of same. In the end, I think some of us are not eager to allocate our precious (read "limited") time required to do a really credible job. Especially if we feel our AV purpose is nearly met, sometimes totally met, without the voice over. I think your dive into the voice over world comes over well. As to the appeal of your voice - For me I really enjoy all the "old world" versions of English - if I can understand the voice. Even with my new hearing aids I can not always understand all the voiceovers that I run into. Maybe that is why I enjoyed your's so much. I can understand it very clearly and the background soundtrack is not too loud. I think I have only used a spoken voice in three of my many PTE presentations. One of the three used my voice but intentionally digitally modified to a sort of computerized child-talk. On the other two, my equipment did not help, but I had a very hard time coming up with intonation that I thought sounded natural. Sometimes I convince myself that it ended up sounding OK, but my family usually laughs when they hear my voice inserted into the more professional music track. On the other hand, they are usually very complimentary about the photography. Perhaps that is the ultimate reason that I have not done more with the spoken word in my AV projects. Thanks for sharing both your presentation and your creative experience. And thanks also to the audio-experienced users who have been helpful in this topic. The irony of this for me is that my path to PTE came because after trying 30+ early photo presentation programs, I found PTE, which could indeed, handle a voice track on top of the sound track. In that early stage of the industry, in my seeking, PTE was certainly the leader.

I think Dave that you did a very fine job of conveying the beauty of the church you stumbled upon. Church buildings can often be very interesting to the photographer on the scene and still not reach a viewer of the photos or AV. To me, your choice of music was very effective with your style of presenting the photos. If a person never heard a word or cared for the message, the sound is (my opinion) undeniably beautiful and provided a perfect pace for the flow of photos. I think your use of PTE software was without flaw on this one. Visually, very pleasant. I suppose if one were seeking "perfection", you could spend more time and solve the few compositions where the exposure for most of the scene resulted in light fixtures or bright spots of stained glass blowing out. But, if I had been there, I would have likely been content with the circumstances and felt good if I had shot the photos you got.

Mark - Although it has taken me a couple of days to see your post, I am absolutely interested. I would love the actions and even more, your offered instruction/help. Personally, I am embarrassed how little I know of Photoshop. Because I have never taken a broad, organized approach to the software, I find myself jumping from program to program to accomplish certain tasks. At least two of the batch tasks you mention, resizing, and levels with a custom stop to adjust, are two that would be especially nice to have a good system within PS. Also, you had mentioned earlier your love for RAW. Again, I admit I have done nothing with the few RAW exposures I have made. So I am interested there as well. A side issue - Do you have any idea how much of your Photoshop action work can also be used in Photoshop Elements. I have really become more and more satisfied with Elements. I have a desire to get better with Photoshop but would also like to understand better how far Elements can go with actions such as yours. Now, I will share a personal observation. What ever you determine to share with members of this forum will be widely appreciated. Far beyond those who will post a response, there will be many expressing silent thanks.

Barry, I viewed Enigma on my usual 1024x768. (Of course) everything worked perfectly. I am trying to decide how I feel about the white lower border as solution to the excess screen shape over your chosen picture shape. I think I remember that you do not appreciate seeing a black stripe across top and bottom. And I too detest having to alter a carefully composed full-frame camera photo for the sake of the computer screen shape. In addition to the white lower border you used, did you try other color choices such as a more neutral gray or other shades before concluding to use white? Photography of course is excellent and I found your custom transitions very fitting and appealing. Now, just what is the Enigma?

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.

And do I understand Igor correctly that the first accomplishment from Igor will be that we (all current PTE users), will now be able to share our presentations with Mac users without all the caveats and explanations and reams of concern? The Mac user will simply be able to receive same enjoyment as PC receivers of PTE shows.

Of course you are doing the right thing Dave, thank you. As you suggest, there are indeed many other shots that could, and will, be used in a more complete treatment of the very scenic area. However that show will most certainly be too long for many or most viewers. The idea to try the Weathered Water idea came about while working on the longer presentation of the actual experience. I was intrigued with trying to focus on the wide range of water character from the chocolate colored flash-flood water to the normal turquoise-green water. I had found so much interest in the relaxing pure water and in the relections, etc. in even the muddy water. As I wanted to explore some presentation ideas, I decided it best to test with this excerpt rather than possibly bog down the flow of the already in process longer show. I personally think the posted show is adversely hit early with the less-than-perfect transition from the the muddy water slide. The muddy water photo had to be hand-held at near dark and pumped-up iso. Thus, not a clean image to start. And yes, your feeling on too long a "linger" is understood. Actually, the last slide is set to stay on screen forever, and the music actually plays again if one were in the mood to just "linger" to the music or mood. From your appreciated observations, I think I may have ended up pursuing the idea for my own pleasure and training in pan & zoom etc, without really coming up with general "entertainment" or pleasing experience for others. The other thing it did for me was send me to the tutorials from Evans and Evans. Even though I thought I had made decent shows with Version 5 early Beta's a year and a half ago, I sometimes feel I have not progressed since then on some features. Maybe even gone backward. Again, thank you Dave, and now after seeing your candid comments, maybe others may feel inclined to opine also.

Someone once told me that in some cultures, it is not polite to accept the first invitation. So with the many cultures covered in this fine forum, I hereby issue a second invitation for comments or observations. Many of you know me well enough to know I like to learn from everybody. Constructive or complaining criticisms or just plain opinions are appreciated.

Mike, I have experienced no problems with XP-produced DVD's playing on Apple machines. However I prefer not having to mail a DVD to distant viewers. Recently I made a presentation I wanted to make available on our family blog site. To accommodate family members using the Mac's, I decided to use WnSoft Video Builder to make an .avi file and post it along with the .exe version. I was newly impressed how good the .avi version is now. However, the .exe file is 37 megs, vs. 217 for the .avi.

Weathered Water is a 5 minute excursion now on Beechbrook, open for comments.

Ken - I always try to learn from others. So, be aware that even while you are down, you are doing some good by reminding the rest of us what to avoid. As Lin suggests, those of us that have ice available in its natural state have great opportunity for unintended movement. I'm not going to mention that the ground always comes up faster as we get older! Carry on Ken, we're all cheering for you.

Thanks for sharing what appears to be your personal experience with the event. A spectator's view can be quite personal in this day of digital. When the 2002 Winter Olympics were here, I took many photos from spectator range. I found many of the photos were fun and surprisingly good even though not the same as the myriad pros at the events. My only regret was not having ever put the photos into an AV. In my opinion, you did well with this one of your photos.

In my Firefox setup, the image defaults to fit-the-screen, "scaled" to 37%. If I tap the "+" key, the image shows full size.

I know Project Options/Main/Customize Startup Window/ exists, but at the moment I can not find how to customize the contents of the "Help" button that is at the bottom of the Startup Window. How do we modify the help contents and how do we modify the actual actions of the hot-keys described in the help contents? ( I don't think the default help-screen contents correctly list the default hot-keys. For instance, the default action of the space bar is to pause the show. But the help screen instructions do not agree.)