mhwarner

Thanks for the heads up Lin! The software looks really interesting. I have downloaded the trial to play with.

Andrew, Thanks for a very interesting and well-done presentation. I believe many of us typically think of PTE as a medium for presenting slideshows of photographs we or others have taken. You have cleverly exploited the program to bring to life a wonderful collection of memorabilia that many of us might not otherwise have seen. Thanks for bringing it to us!

Maureen, My connection is horrible at the moment so I will reply here for both Parts 1 & 2 of your Pyrenees shows. I thoroughly enjoyed both of them! The photography was incredible and I very much liked the mix of scenery/landscapes with close-up details. I especially liked the many window/door details in Part 1 as well as the painted frying pans! Part 2 was just amazing. I felt as if I were standing right there on the mountain with you as you took the pictures. (I also liked the purple door image.) While this looks like a place I would really enjoy visiting, I'm not sure I will ever make it in person. But your slideshows have at least given me the opportunity to see the scenery through the eyes of a masterful photographer. Thanks again for sharing these lovely shows. I'm hoping there will be a Part 3.

Chris, Nice little show. Would love to see the full-screen PTE executable.

It seems to me that the only difference between what you are suggesting and what has been suggested by Dom and nobeefstu is that you have saved your files to a zip file and they suggest creating a template. As far as I can tell there is no difference in the end result. The bottom line is that you have to use some sort of consistent naming convention for the underlying photos and music in order to easily replace them with a different set. If you want to get really clever, you could just name your photos with a convention like "johnsmith013110_01" etc. and then edit the .pte file directly with a text editor and change all references of "johnsmith013110" to "susiebrown020110" and rename all of the slides for the new project as "susiebrown020110_01", "susiebrown020110_02" etc. Then regardless of whether you store your backups as .zip files or in a series of "template" folders you don't have a zillion "pic_01", "pic_02" files and can easily relate the underlying slide files to a client or event.

Hi Michel, If I understand correctly, you are just using simple slides (without animation or additional objects) and you want them NOT to resize. If that is correct, look again at the picture attached above by Ronniebootwest. It does in fact limit the resizing. So for instance if you choose "Fixed size of slide in pixels" and set it to 1920 x 1200 and you resize all of your slides (OUTSIDE of PTE), then on a wide-screen monitor, those pictures would totally fill the screen. If, however, you have one or two slides in the show that are only 1024 x 768, those slides will NOT fill the screen but will be shown at their original sizes. If I were to watch that same show on my laptop monitor which has a maximum resolution of 1400 x 1050, then your show would still fill the screen, EXCEPT for the slides you have sized at 1024 x 768. They would still have black (or whatever background color you have chosen) borders. Again, if you are not using object animations (as opposed to the standard transitions), then you make the setting once for the entire show. I believe what Xaver suggested is more relevant to using multiple objects on a slide and animating that slide in the O&A window. I hope this helps and I'm sorry if I misunderstood what you are asking.

Thanks Dom! I did get the basics of the "page turning" animation working after Peter's suggestion but have gotten pulled off to another project for the moment. Your templates are always so elegant and professional (and instructive!) that I will definitely be on the lookout for your notification email when it is posted. At least now that I know how it is done, it will be easier to make any customizations I might want to do. Also, thanks for the reply Wideangle. I have used the page curling transitions on the last "album" show I did, but I think the new 3D rotations are just a bit more professional looking. I have Dom's other album templates but the demo he mentions above is the template I was waiting for.

Thanks Peter! I thought I had tried that but apparently I didn't get the center point close enough to the edge (or it was the center point of the wrong rectangle). Anyway that worked. I appreciate your help!

I am trying to do a 3D rotation and not having much luck. What I want to do is make a book-like animation, but I don't want to rotate my image from the middle (similar to the "My Little Book" template that was posted) but rather from the left hand side of the image so that I am essentially seeing only half of the book. Is there some setting I am missing to modify the point of rotation? I want the rotation to take place from the left-hand side of the image instead of the center. I have set the 3D Y parameter to -180 and I have tried moving the little center point dot back and forth, but so far I'm not having much luck. I got it to work (sort of) but it is very jerky and ugly and I needed lots of keyframes. If somebody could point me in the right direction, I would be most appreciative. I am attaching a zip file with a single slide project to provide an idea of what I am attempting. I know that Dom did a similar thing in his last album demo so I assume it can be done. Unfortunately, Dom is far more skilled than I am. I would have just purchased his template to save the aggravation, but unfortunately, he never created one. Thanks in advance.RotatePageMW.zip

A wonderful show, as usual! The colors and the light you captured were magnificent. Really stunning images. You are fortunate to live near such spectacular scenery and to have the eye and the photographic talent to transform it into a show that I'm sure many of us will look at again and again. You should be proud of the show .. proud enough to put your name in the closing credits! Well done!

If you get it working on the BluRay player as well, I would love to hear more specific details on the steps taken and the software used from start to finish. Thanks in advance.

Hi Colin, Not sure how the photos in the show were sized, but on my 24" monitor, some were a bit pixelated. You might think about limiting the size of the show to a specific size rather than letting it expand to fill all size monitors. The other thing I noticed is that many of the photos could have benefited from a bit of parallel correction for the "inward leaning" caused by tilting the camera in an attempt to get it all in. The music was well chosen and I did like the way you transitioned to/from the vertical/portrait orientation shots. Thanks for sharing this.

Davy, I really liked Fractal Worlds. Beautiful colors, of course, and it was very relaxing to watch. It was a bit like being in a very expensive jewelry store or glass gallery. It looked great on my 24" monitor. I wish I had time to play with some of the fractal software myself, but there are not enough hours. Thanks for sharing this.

This is getting ridiculous! Cici posted a show here and by doing so -- based on past practices and traditions in this particular forum -- he invited comments and/or criticism. Some people liked his show, some people did not. Cici was apparently offended by the comments of those who did not. (I was one of those who did not but refrained from posting my comments as they were pretty much in line with what others said and it became obvious quickly that the OP did not want to hear any criticism.) As others here (and in many other forums I frequent) have pointed out, without facial expressions, tonal expressions and body language, it is often easy to take offense to the written word when the same words spoken in person might not raise emotions. In this particular situation, I suspect that native language differences may also be an issue. While it would be very nice for us all to take extensive time in crafting our postings so that they are totally unambiguous and completely polite and contain no possibility of offending somebody, that is not likely to happen. Most of us don't have that much time. We are all grownups here. My opinion is that if you post a show here in this forum, you are tacitly agreeing to accept comments -- good, bad or indifferent. Take those comments for what they are worth. Learn from them or ignore them. It's your choice. But don't try to change people's opinions. And don't get into pissing contests with those who may not share your feelings or attachments to a particular show. I don't believe any of the comments expressed here, regardless of anyone's interpretation, were petty, mean, small minded or derogatory. Nor were they politically incorrect. It did not appear that any of the comments were meant as personal attacks, either, until the OP turned them into such. If you (anyone who frequents here) don't want comments, post your show with something like "Here's a show I have created. Please do not comment. I like it and I don't care whether you do or not." You are sure to win many friends here. NOT. Otherwise, post it on Beechbrook and let people find it. Or just send a link via email to your friends. I believe that most of us who do post slideshows (or frequent this forum on a regular basis) learn from the comments (positive or negative) -- those made on our own shows as well as the shows of others. I would hate to see that facility go away because people decide that it is not worth the effort of commenting for fear that they will be attacked for their opinions. Could we just let this thing die and move on to posting slideshows and learning from each other? Thanks!

Hi Jeff, My thought is that most people post their slideshows on Beechbrook or Mediafire or some other free download site because they don't have a place (or the bandwidth) to do it elsewhere. Unless you are running your own server or have a service provider who doesn't charge a fortune for bandwidth useage or server space, you have limited options. I prefer to post on my own site (as apparently Lin and some others do). I feel it gives me just a bit more control and security over the shows I post rather than uploading to somebody essentially unknown site. I have no qualms, of course, posting to Bill's Beechbrook site and have done so occasionally, but I figure why burden his server when he is providing such a wonderful free service and there are obviously others who really need to take advantage of it. Mediafire has become less of an annoyance to download from, but if I couldn't post on my own site, I would probably use Beechbrook. I'm not sure what limits Bill has set as far as size of uploads, but I've downloaded some pretty big shows from there, so I would think the limits are pretty high.

Hi Andrew, I uploaded the zip file to a directory on my web server, then clicked the little link icon which appears above here when you are responding (next to the smilie face) to add the URL and text. You just need to have the ability to upload files somewhere on a server. Is this what you are asking?

We had almost record amounts of snow (and rain) here in Northern Arizona during the past week. This is a short show (with no fancy effects except one pano) which I put together to share some of my snow images with my friends on Facebook. I created an MP4 to post on FB, but this is an .EXE file. I hope you enjoy it. Snow is over ... (for now) And yes, I did forget to hide the cursor but by the time I noticed it I had already done the upload and didn't feel like redoing it.

Maureen, Absolutely stunning photographs! You've captured some amazing light. As others have said the show was well put together and the music most appropriate (of course, I am a big Enya fan anyway). I agree that you should definitely include your name in the credits. When you have a minute, I would love to hear a little about the actual location of the photos. Is this where you live? Or near where you live? In any case, it's a beautiful place. Thank you for sharing this show. And I look forward to the next one. It seems each one you post is better than the last!

Peter, Not sure whether this actually works but if you create a DVD from PTE, once you have entered tne Video Builder window you click can the "Project Options" button to display the options dialog. On the first tab you have "Menu Aspect Ratio" and "TV Screen Aspect Ratio". Try selecting 16:9 in both of those places and burning a DVD. If that doesn't give you want you are looking for, then I guess you would need a bluray burner to create HD video. I haven't actually done this myself so I could be wrong, but I believe from PTE you would burn an HD (H.264) video and transfer that to a disc to play on the blu ray player. You would need software to transfer the HD.264 video to the bluray disk -- probably something like Nero. From what I have read in some of the Panasonic photography forums regarding HD movies, it may be possible to just copy the file onto a bluray disc and play it but I couldn't say from experience. I usually hook my computer directly to my TV, but that obviously doesn't work if you want to send the show to others who may not have that sort of connectivity option.

Colin, Thanks for the look back at 2009. Nicely put together although I might have restricted the size of the show (virtual size of slide) as some of the full-screen pictures were quite pixelated on my 1920 x 1200 monitor. The smaller ones which were shown with text looked fine. What was the name of the main music piece which played throughout the show? I liked it and I think it was well chosen.

I'm sure you must have spent a great deal of time on this endeavor. Just putting together the blended family pictures must have been quite an undertaking. Thank you for sharing this piece. It's given me some ideas for a small project I'm thinking of putting together since I have recently connected with quite a number of young relatives on Facebook.

Posted by Francis Demange on the French Diapositif.net forum. http://diapositif.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=33988 (click the "Telecharger" button for the download) This is one of the most incredible PTE slideshows I have ever seen. If possible, listen to it with headphones on to get the full effect of the stereo sound.

Paul, I did not see the original, but this version is excellent! From the photography to the sound effects to the sepia/old paper treatment it is beautifully done. I felt as if I were transported in time back to WWI for a few minutes there. Thank you for sharing this.

Happy New Year to all my fellow forum members! We had a beautiful sunset on the last day of the decade. I made it into a little panorama show which I hope you all enjoy. Last Sunset of the Decade

Mark, So sorry to hear about your stolen laptop, but I'm glad you've got some backups. I very much enjoyed watching this show. You've got some lovely images, nicely blended together and the music was well selected. Your narration was tastefully done (and just the right amount). Thank you for sharing this show with us!