mbskels

Hi, Returning to P2Exe after several years. I am planning a project with voice-over which I have never done before so thought I would revue suitable microphones. Due to hand problems I also plan to use voice recognition software with the same microphone so have excluded recorders such as Zoom. After a few days research I feel I am going round in circles and would appreciate some help. I have concluded that a USB microphone is the best choice as it by-passes the sound card. Is that correct? I have considerable background traffic noise in the room I plan to record in and wonder if I could suppress the background noise better with a Lavalier rather than say a cardioid microphone. Have no experience of either so welcome any comments. I have listened to the Logitech H360 recording made available by Yachtsman1 in 2014 but think the background noise in my situation would be intrusive. Has hand-set technology moved on at all in the intervening years? My budget is £50-£70. Appreciate any advice or if subject already covered elsewhere a pointer to the post. TIA

Did you slice the original image at 100% magnification? Just a thought before you investigate more complex issues. Malcolm

John I have used 'The Light's Right' Professional Sharpening Toolkit which is currently a set of PS Scripts for several years. I find them by far the most flexible sharpening procedures around. The toolkit comes with comprehensive manual and series of examples in the use of the scripts. Particular advantages are that the sharpening is applied in separate stages (after capture and prior to print) - with an additional option (creative sharpening) where local sharpening is required. The sharpening is also layer based and can therefore be stored with the image and tweaked at a later date. The scripts can be used in automatic mode (click and go) or advanced mode which enables a high degree of control over the level/type of sharpening applied. Thoroughly recommend them. They are made available free of charge but a donation is requested if you find them useful. They are at http://www.thelightsright.com/view/PhotoshopTools?page=2 Malcolm

Gary, Think the important point is that you resolved the issue and the thread and your concise word doc will assist anyone in the future with a similar problem. Malcolm

Gary Surely your investigation confirms that a lock is being left on the executable after it is first created. Further attempts to recreate the executable fail because the original file cannot be deleted because it is locked. There is a utility available to identify who is causing the lock at http://www.dr-hoiby.com/WhoLockMe/ Perhaps that may be useful in confirming the cause. Windows task manager also can be set up to identify if a program has used a large amount of RAM retrospectively. You need to add an extra column to the default settings by opening the task manager and under view>select columns tick the column "peak memory usage". This column records the peak usage for each program. You could use this to examine usage after you have successfully created the executable for the first time. HTH Malcolm

John Thoroughly enjoyed the av and found the commentary informative and very professionally incorporated - not something that is easily achieved. As some else said - very relaxed. I think the av is so long it would benefit from being split down into sections and driven from a start-up menu. This would allow viewers to stop and pick up again from where they left off. Similarly there are sections that I know some of my friends would be particularly interested in and a front end menu would enable me to show them that section alone. Malcolm

Mike, Many thanks for the link. I must have missed that discussion and clearly I have some way to go in learning how to use the forum search facility! Personally I have no problem with PTE ignoring embedded profiles if there is a downside (delay in processing image) as described by admin1. My concern was purely to understand what PTE did with tagged/untagged images so that I could be sure I was using an optimal workflow. I work in aRGB from camera to print as I work with artists - as you can imagine they are somewhat picky about colours and of course have the original to compare the prints with! I have no problem in converting to sRGB for display in PTE as I do this routinely for output to the web. I believe PS SFW facility has had the option to convert to sRGB since about PS6 but it was not set as the default. You had to set that option (tick box) when using the SFW process. CS4 SFW default is to convert to sRGB and strip the profile. Presumably that change in default settings reflects the increasing adoption of sRGB for browser/monitor display. While full colour management in PTE would be a "nice to have" feature perhaps not if it has a significant adverse effect on image processing performance. I am grateful to you/admin1 for clarifying this issue for me and I will amend my PTE workflow accordingly. Malcolm

Mike I was not aware that the software developers had ever made comment on how PTE handles tagged/untagged images. I am aware that the question was specifically raised on this forum a few months back but no answer was given. I would be grateful if you could supply a link to any statement from the software development team on this subject. I have just tried the forum search facility with no luck. Thanks Malcolm

Well I guess the answer to my request is - No. So we can continue to have fun chasing shadows. DaveG - I believe (do not have it myself) that the default options in SFW in CS4 are radically different from previous versions. If you have not changed the defaults SFW in CS4 automatically converts to sRGB and strips any embedded profile. Previous versions did not convert to sRGB by default - you had to tick the box "convert to sRGB" if you wanted that to happen. Your workflow as described (convert to sRGB and strip profile) is adopted by web designers because many browsers apply a default monitor profile (usually sRGB) to untagged images. I suspect PTE may also do so although without further info it is almost impossible to determine. Whether there is a difference between v4 and v5 also - who knows? Only the developers.

As I said in a previous post surely it is now long overdue for a definitive statement by the software team on how PTE handles untagged images and images with embedded profiles before any more confusion is created? This issue crops up repeatedly on the forum and is followed by all sorts of misinformed statements regarding colour management in PS, PTE, printing, and web which can only serve to confuse. Surely it is time to clear up this issue? NB: to discuss the save for the web facility in PS it is necessary to define the PS version being used and the options selected in the process. They radically alter the output in terms of colour management.

Unfortunately it is not possible to discuss your issue properly until we know for definite if PTE strips/ignores embedded profiles as JRR asserts.

The issue raised by OP has been raised several times before with much the same outcome - several replies regarding colour management that tend to cloud the issue rather than clarify it. Perhaps it is time to have a definitive statement from the software creators regarding this issue. Is JRR correct in his assertion that PTE is not colour managed ie embedded profiles in images in PTE slideshows are disregarded when the final exe file is displayed?

My understanding is that the dpi (ppi) setting is contained within the metadata section of an image file in a similar way to aperture, shutter speed, date etc. The image data would be unaffected by any change in dpi (ppi) setting. If your observation is correct then it would have significant implications. Perhaps someone with a more detailed knowledge of how animations are created at the code level could comment. Malcolm

Hi Xaver and Peter, Thanks both very much for your help. It is certainly a great improvement over my attempts. Apologies for not replying earlier but I was called out after posting and just got back to the office. Thanks again Regards Malcolm

I have used PTE for several years but only got round to looking at O&A recently. I am trying to produce a realistic effect to show an object "growing" from a point vertically on the Y-axis - for example a tree growing from zero to full size as in time lapse photography. I have tried various combinations of pan/zoom/opacity but cannot achieve a realistic result. I have added the object as a png to the main slide and positioned it at its final position at 100% zoom and at 5s on the timeline. I then took the x,y co-ordinates at the point at the centre of the base of the object, copied the keypoint and moved it along the time line to its start position at 2s. I set the zoom x,y to zero on this keypoint. The end effect using this technique is not what I am looking for. At best the object appears to lift up through the z axis until it is full size rather than "growing" vertically on the y-axis. I have also tried disconnecting the x,y zoom parameters but with no success. I would appreciate if someone could advise if there is a better technique to achieve this effect. TIA Malcolm

Can I also add my support for this proposal. The ability to add transitions to objects (if technically possible) would greatly improve on the PS method currently available and described above. The PS method can create major timing problems where the "object" that is being revealed in the transition is small in relation to the size of the full slide. The transition effect (eg from left) appears to do nothing until it works it way across the slide to where the object is located. This introduces a delay before the transition is seen. It becomes very difficult to minimise the delay without then making the transition effect on the "object" appear too quickly. The ability to apply a transition effect directly to an object would resolve this problem. The facility to add opacity change into the transition would also be significant. Malcolm

Hi Ron, The size of the margin displayed round the image will depend on the browser being used to view the image and the default browser settings. It will therefore vary from user to user. Or have I misinterpreted your question? Malcolm

Without wishing to reopen the image size discussion (please!!) I think it needs to be noted that this approach will not afford any protection to those producing PTE sequences. As you have stated earlier in your response the only relevant issue is the pixel size of the image. The dpi (or ppi for the purists!) is simply a tag applied to the image (metadata) and can be easily changed with a variety of software products. The maximum print size without visible pixelation is determined by the number of pixels in the image - the larger the image size in pixels the larger the print size that is possible. malcolm

Interesting approach. Not used that method for toning before - must give it a try. The applied noise gives them a real darkroom feel.

Really enjoyed viewing your show. Images are superb with very thoughtful use of the light. Would be interested to know if they are digitally "toned" or perhaps scans of darkroom prints? Also thought the av presentation was excellent - refreshingly simple. Less is certainly more in this case. Malcolm

Hi Judy I think the inclusion of this proposal would open up a range of possibilities including - as you suggest - an image viewer. I could see the DOM selling some of his creations, for example, as a stand-alone image viewer. Although of course there are a large number of image viewers already available I cannot recall seeing any with the imagination of some of the DOM templates. With the P2E engine the quality of display and transition would be guaranteed and I imagine attractive to many photographers etc. The opportunity to call the P2E executable from within an application and have the last slide (mouse click event or as previously suggested on mouse hover) return control to the application opens up another - possibly endless - list of opportunities. As I said before not sure if the proposal is even feasible but perhaps if there is sufficient interest ... Malcolm

Hi Al Appreciate that is possible however the end-user would have to purchase the product, download it, enter the key (how many have problems with that!), and then learn how to use PTE to a certain extent before they can even run the slideshow. None of that is viable for the type of end use I have in mind. WnSoft would still get benefits from the proposed change (albeit it not a licence fee) as it would spread the word about the program (slideshow produced with PTE at the end as a credit for example). If the licence fee was an issue then perhaps a separate commercial licence (more than the current one) would be an option for those that wanted to use PTE as a graphics viewer in the manner proposed?

In all P2Exe versions the images used in the slide-show are incorporated into the exe file during the "create slideshow" process. Although this has many benefits it means that the images used in the slide-show must be supplied by the creator of the slide-show. Could a project option be included which when set allows the executable to read in the images at run-time? The images would have to be located in the same folder as the executable and would have to conform to a naming sequence (eg image1, image2, image3 etc) defined by the slide-show creator when the excecutable was built. No idea if this would be possible/easy/difficult but if it was included in a future version (obviously only as an option) it would enable slide-show designers to create executables that could display end-users images. The end-user would have to rename their images to fit the naming sequence used by the slide-show designer but there are many software utilities that would make this renaming process easy for the end-user. I believe this option would open up other uses for the P2Exe product and commercial opportunities for slide-show designers.

Hi, Just to say that there is comprehensive documentation of EXIF/IPTC data structures at this site http://www.hugsan.com/EXIFutils. The EXIFUTILS software is a command line editor and therefore may not be suitable for all but the documentation which is downloadable at the EXIFUTILS site is fairly readable and covers a lot of the issues. Malcolm

Yes it was. Thanks