mhwarner

I loved your little book demo! Beautiful photos and you've got the animation just right. I would definitely like to see a template. I have some software that creates a similar "flipping book", but it only creates a flash file. It's nice to know that PTE now has the ability to create something similar. Thanks for sharing this.

I agree with your last statement 100%. We all want to post shows directly on the web and it would make our lives so much easier if PTE could produce flash output. In addition, I just know that Igor and the team can come up with a better flash result than the conversion steps required to get there now.

Hi Jean-Charles, I actually found this show about a year ago via one of the French sites. Since then I have watched it numerous times and have been inspired every time to work harder on my own shows. The photos are stunning and the animations are superbly done. After finding this show, I went out and found every other show of yours (the second Iceland show mentioned above, as well as several about Algeria, Italy -- particularly Burano) that I could and downloaded them all. They are all at the top of the list in my "KEEP" folder. Now I will go directly to your website to be sure I haven't missed any. Thank you so much for sharing these. And please let us know when you create new ones. They are joy to watch and a great inspiration!

I moved my reflections template and my other one for video simulation under my name here: http://www.picturestoexe.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=10658 Hopefully, this one is good. I can download from it so it seems to work from the above link. Let me know if it doesn't work for you and I'll re-post. Best regards, Lin

Excellent tutorial, Lin! As always, thanks for taking the time to put this together. A few minutes watching the avi saved me many hours of experimentation. FYI, the link for the template you so generously supplied is broken. Would love to download it as well. Thanks again!

Peter, Thanks for the reply! Indeed I did miss it. I was out of town for a week with no internet connection and I have been trying to catch up on all the important posts since then. Somehow I missed that one. Can't wait to try out the latest beta!

Question regarding borders ... I just created a slideshow and wanted to take advantage of the "borders" option. I like the effect and the ability to add a white border without editing each slide in Photoshop. Unfortunately, I could not find a default or a universal way to add the borders without going into the O&A editor and clicking the "Adjust Image and Border" button. In addition, I wanted only a 10 px border instead of the default 20 so I had to edit every slide the same way. Is there some place to set the default width and is there a project option or something I can set to force all slides to have this border (and then turn it off for the few that I don't want it on)? Am I missing something? If not, it sure would be great to have the ability to add borders to all or a selection of slides. Otherwise, for a full slideshow it is much easier to edit the pictures in another program and do batch processing. Thanks in advance for any suggestions.

I'm confused. Are we actually testing PTE version 6.0 or version 5.7? The original beta for this go-round was described by Igor as: In the next posting, it became: It stayed at 5.7 until the 15th beta, which then became 6.0 again. Are we working Igor too hard, did he just decide to skip 5.7 completely and push everything into 6.0, or am I missing something? No big deal, but I am just curious.

I am somewhat confused about what version of PTE we are actually discussing and testing here. In the original posting of the latest beta, it is referred to as The next available beta download is referred to as

I don't have an HDMI output on my computer, so I cannot do a comparison.

I would agree with this statement. I have a Dell Inspiron 6400. If I run the laptop by itself and use only its built-in monitor, the maximum resolution is something like 1680x1050. If I plug the laptop into my Samsung SyncMaster 245bw monitor via the standard 15-pin vga monitor output, I am then running on the Samsung at 1920 x 1200. I would expect, based on this article (http://blog.shutterbug.com/davidbrooks/lcd_hd_tv_for_slideshows/), to be able to plug my laptop into my new 42" Samsung HD TV and see my shows at full resolution. Unfortunately, the new HD TV is packed away and waiting for final completion of my new house, so I can't try it. FWIW, the spec on my laptop monitor are "Liquid Crystal Display 15.4WSXGA+". I assume if you are only running a laptop with standard VGA or SGA resolution, you may not be able to achieve the full HD 1080i resolution. Following is a list of monitor resolution specs I found. VGA 640 x 480 SVGA 800 x 600 XGA 1024 x 768 SXGA 1280 x 1024 & 1400 x 1050 UXGA 1600 x 1200 WXGA - 1280 X 800 SXGA - 1280 X 1024 WSXGA+ - 1680 X 1050 (this is what I have) WUXGA - 1920 X 1200 QSXGA - 2560 X 2048 Another solution you might want to try which won't require the purchase of a new laptop is this: http://www.westerndigital.com/en/products/products.asp?driveid=681 You can purchase one for about $99 at Amazon and other places and with the cost of an HDMI cable, use any USB flash drive or portable backup drive to display slideshows which you create from PTE as "HD Video for PC and MAC" (this process creates an MPEG4 file). (Note: This device can also use standard "RCA" input cables, so you can also use it with an older TV that doesn't have an HDMI input). That saves you the step of burning to a disc and doesn't require a blueray player. This nice thing about this device is that it will also easily display standard jpg files and play music so you can create a very quick slideshow presentation (without all the nice bells and whistles provided by PTE, of course) just to view your daily shots or show some photos that you haven't had time to put into a proper slideshow. The WDTV device is very small and since I happen to have about 6 or 7 WD passport drives, it's a perfect solution for me until I get my new HDTV set up. I hope this all makes sense.

Lin, I hope what you've described is in the realm of "simple management of audio tracks" within PTE. While I agree that stopping there might not satisfy the most technical among us, it would make me happy and probably a good percentage of those creating all but the most sophisticated presentations.

Maureen: I very much enjoyed the show. The photography was just stunning. As for the music, to be honest, I was so engrossed in the pictures that I hardly noticed it (except to notice that it didn't seem inappropriate). The only thing I would have loved is a very brief explanation or maybe a map to pinpoint the general area in which the photos were taken (so I could put it on my list of places I'd love to see one day). If you could just give us some details here, that would be great. Thanks for sharing this show!

Hi Dom, My laptop resolution is 1680 x 1050. In this latest show, there is definitely nothing wrong with the music. But I still see the jerkiness, which is most apparent again in the transitions to and from black. The animations themselves are pretty smooth. I did go back and rerun the 5.7b2 version of the show and there really isn't much difference between it and the latest. It is mostly the transition that is jerky and the fade from light slides to black and then back again makes it particularly noticeable. Anyway, it's still a nice slideshow.

I have a lot of flickering on both of the new versions. It's almost the same as those old-time movies and is especially noticeable in the transitions to/from the black. As someone else remarked, it also seems as if the music is stuttering as well, although that may actually be the music itself. I have a Dell Inspiron I6400 with Intel Core 2 CPU T5500 @1.66 GHz with 2 GB of RAM and an ATI Mobility Radeon X1400 graphics card. Not top of the line, of course, but most other shows run pretty smoothly on it. For now, just using the laptop screen itself as I don't have access to my external monitor at the moment. Also running XP SP2.

I live about 2 hours from the Canyon, so I might be interested as well if this ever materializes. When I did it last November, I actually booked a tour because I didn't want to go alone. The tour company was located in Flagstaff and supplied a medically trained guide, all the meals, the backpacks, sleeping bags, tents and took care of the reservations. The guide even prepared all our meals for us! They also handled all the reservations and permits. I just had to show up. It was about $900 and although they have several designated hikes, they will also do customized trips for groups.

Hi Dave, Enjoyed your slideshow. I made almost the same trip last November, but I did it in 4 days with a 45-pound pack. We went down the South Kaibab, spent two nights at Bright Angel with a day hike up the Clear Creek Trail, then hiked up to Indian Gardens (with a sunset hike to Plateau Point) and then out on the last day. I could certainly appreciate the "sore feet" photos (and even the black-and-blue toenails in the one). Going down was the hardest part, I think. I really appreciated the little minnie bottles shots as well. We just went to the Phantom Ranch Canteen to do our imbibing. Fortunately, we had much cooler weather for our trip. In fact, it went down to 17 at the top on the night we were at Indian Gardens and we all slept with every piece of clothing we had with us. In any case, be proud of your accomplishment. I know what it took to do the trip and I applaud you all. I know it's not that big a deal to young folks, but at our age, it does take some effort. Thanks for sharing the journey. One of these days I will get around to putting my photos of the hike into a show.

I love the anti-aliasing on rectangles! Can't wait for the beta!

Ed, Glad you like the software. You may also be interested in the forum: DAPainter forum. One person posted some very cool results which had been obtained by taking the layered file into Painter and into PS to add some finishing touches. There are also a couple of interesting threads on the AOP templates and how to create your own. I have been experimenting some and am looking forward to having a bit more time to get into it. These threads over at DPReview have some neat examples to give you some inspiration as well: http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/readflat...thread=31991231 http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/readflat...thread=31960463 http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/readflat...thread=31977950

Thanks Lin. I actually tested the software a while back and ended up purchasing the stripped down "Redynamics" version, which I use often to create HDR images from single exposures. It does a really good job on many of my southwestern "rock" photos (Monument Valley, petrogyphs, etc.).

Patrick, Magical is the word I would use to describe your show. The colors were exquisitely captured and the transitions were well-done. I must admit, though, that I don't recall ever having seen a circus before where there were llamas and ostriches. How interesting. Anyway, a most enjoyable show. Thank you for letting us see it.

Hi John, What a beautiful area. You are so fortunate to be able to "climb some hills" in this place! Nice choice of photos and the music was a good match. I have two comments on the pictures. First, you apparently had some dust spots on the camera's sensor (or on your lens) that could use a bit of touching up (or cloning out). It is most evident in the blue sky areas. My second suggestion would be to perhaps do a bit of post processing work on a couple of the dark photos to pull out the shadow detail. The second image of the castle actually has a good bit of detail that I was able to pull out on a quick test. The only other observation I had -- totally unrelated to anything your show or photos -- was that the highway bridge to the island was seemed so out of place in all that lovely scenery. I guess that's progress, though. Thanks for sharing your photos!

Nice presentation and the photos are all the more impressive knowing that your mobility was restricted. My only comments are that the transition I would have chosen is "Curling of Page (Horizontal/Vertical)" rolling up from right, which would to me be more like flipping through an album. The direction you have chosen seems backwards to me. The other thing I might have done is to check the "color of backside" box and select a gray or white so that the previous picture doesn't show through as the transition is happening. Again, to me more like looking through an actual album. Just my 2 cents. Thanks for sharing!

This may not be the correct place for this posting so the moderators can feel free to move it to the "Slideshow" forum if they feel that is a better place. I just wanted to share a link for some really amazing software I have been playing with for the last month or so. It's called Dynamic Auto-Painter and can be found here: Dynamic Auto Painter website. I know there have been tutorials and links to various Photoshop actions to give photos a more painterly look for intros to slideshows and even to entire slideshows, but this software can be a one-click solution to some pretty interesting and amazing "painted" results. It has been evolving over the last month and there is a forum where the author (like our wonderful Igor) participates frequently to hear ideas and requests which are promptly incorporated into the software. The software is not really dependent on the original photo resolution so it can be a great solution for older 2-3 mp digital photos (but it also does a great job on 10 mp photos as well). There are a number of included templates and the website contains details on how to create your own if you are wanting a special or unique look. There is a free trial download that is only limited in that it puts a banner across the bottom of the photo, so you can easily see the results which can be achieved. In my opinion, the results are far superior to what can be achieved by the autopainting feature in Corel Painter or Painter Essentials and the price is significantly lower. There is a pdf file included in the download. Be sure to read it first to understand some of the controls which are available. The only downside to the software is that is extremely habit forming. I have spent many hours playing with it when I should have been doing other things. Here are a couple of "paintings" I created with it: This is apparently the last week for the low introductory offer, so if you are interested, you should probably get it now at $35 US before the price goes up. Lifetime updates are free. I have no association with the software, but I just wanted to return the favor of a heads up on it to my friends here who have over the years shared links to other software which can be useful in creating PTE slideshows.

Thanks! Will give it a try. And it's really great to have you back. We have missed you here in the forum!