Tappaholic

To all the experts who have helped me, I am so thankful. I am working on my project, keeping in mind all that I have learned from you. I think that I took on a lot, with so many slides (over 650) for this project, which I am paring down a bit. I have done over 100, and did a preview to see how it looks on the TV, which has been very helpful. As the project is of a vacation over 40 years ago, it was exciting for me and my husband to 'relive the experience'. It was a challenging effort, as I had to scan the slides and negatives, then clean and edit them in PS, before I could even begin to put together the slideshow. I love what PTE can do, and hope to continue with other shows with the rest of the slides (over 3000) of vacations & family events that I have already scanned. I think this will be a 1 year project. I have many digital pictures that will be so much easier to work with, so may play with them first. Maybe someday I can share something at http://www.beechbrook.com/pte/ when I have the confidence to do so. I hope so! There are so many experts who have posted there, and it has been an enjoyment of mine over many years to enjoy watching them. Thanks again, Sue

Hi Xaver, Thanks for your response. When I'm trying to synchronize the music to the slide, where should the high point or beat of music go in the slide if the transition is fading in? Should it be when the new image is totally visible? I would like to start off with doing this properly, so as to not have to unlearn later. There is so much to remember, but I would like to do the best that I can from the beginning. Thanks, Sue

Hi Lin and all, Wow, what great responses to my continuing issues of mine. Thanks so much, Lin, for taking the time to do the sample show for me. This is exactly what I want to do. This is very helpful. I just need to understand the 'layers' to the image. I think for now, I am just going to make duplicates of the slides and add or subtract the individual pics and allow them to fade in and out. Since I am just learning this program, and it's many features, it will take a little, no a lot, more time to know how to get around in it. Lin, I did link to the site at the bottom of your note, (http://www.learntomakeslideshows.net) and see that I have lots to enjoy as soon as I have just a bit more time! Thanks again to all for helping me --- I really do appreciate it. Sue

Hi Lin or another kind responder, Just one more question ( I hope) as I am making progress. When I want to have one portrait slide on the left side of the screen and have it held there while adding a 2nd portrait on the right, and then either fade both to a landscape, or change one or the other, while keeping one, is this done by 'masking' or is there another process? I have arranged individual slides for this to the proper locations, but just couldn't see how to hold one while advancing to the next one. I did try reading some of the manual, but didn't find what I was looking for. Maybe it is just time for me to call it a day and go to bed! Thanks for helping me. Sue

Dear DG, thanks for your advice, and it worth my listening to. I hope that I never have any deadlines again in my life, as I am in my mid-seventies and ready to just live without that stress!!! But, as I am just learning this program, any advice is really appreciated. Thanks, Sue

Hi Lin, you have been so much help to me. I did convert the 650 slides from PSD to PNG, after writing a little script ( the script took no time, but the conversion certainly was lengthy). Now, I wonder if I should use JPEGs or PNG in doing the slideshow? Since I now know I can do the 'floating' in Pics2Exe, I can use the JPEGs. But, is there a reason that I should use the PNG files? I hope that I am getting closer to actually getting the show in process. Since most of the pictures are of Italy, and family there, I plan to use some Italian accordion music. I think that will be the easy part! I have looked at the tutorials on doing panning and zooming, so may try that on some of the slides. I guess the last question is if I decide to do the show again with smaller files that can be done online for the Italian family to watch, how easy is it to change the file sizes? I guess that I could resize in PS with a script, but would have to redo the effects that I might add, or is there a way to do this in Pics2Exe. I think that I need to get the manual out and study it a bit so I don't have to keep asking questions. I did 'bite off more than I could chew' on this project, but it is such a great program, and I am anxious to learn it as quickly as possible. Thanks again for all your help. Sue

Thanks so much for your help. I am working on getting the size and opacity correct, and will just try it on a few slides to see how it works. I am trying to also work on the slides in PS to see if I can get the pics to "float" on the background. Since I am using JPEGs and not PNGs I am having to make a narrow layer edge in the back choosing a color from the background that I have selected. If I take the time to convert the original PSD files to PNGs then I can avoid this, but I will have to do a script to do this conversion. My 'old' brain in learning a lot in PS and PicturesToExe in this process. I have been working for several months scanning on my EpsonV700 to get this far with all my old slides. I still have about 4-5000 more to do, but will delay a bit on them. There is a definite advantage to a digital camera! Thanks again, Sue

I am just getting started, after scanning over 3000 slides from the last 50+ years, and want to put about 500 vacation photos in one slideshow. Since I am going to put it on a DVD for watching on the TV, they are high quality JPEGs. I would like to use a background for all, but hopefully, it can be saved independently from slides, especially since I will want to zoom and pan the images and want the bg to stay in place. Is this possible? In my previous effort, I didn't use a bg or do any special effects. I used 300 slides with several music selections, and I had no problem. I have read a lot of the tutorials, but haven't found any info on this. The pics are as large as 3100 x 2100 pixels (and the reverse for portrait) The have been edited and corrected in Photoshop, so I do have that resource available if I need it. I used a script - image processor to change from the PSD format to JPEGs, so I can do a script or action if needed to add a background, but it might be a bit hard to do that as all the pics are of differing sizes. Thanks for any help on how to accomplish this adding of bg. Sue