Johnwnjr

Thanks. I missed what you said in your opening piece. It all works OK now. John

I get nothing but a black centre screen with a text heading on a grey background. I have Adobe Flash Player v 7,0,19,0 and right clicking gives a small panel saying allow Lin Evans access! John

The other replies are all valid but I would add that I have used both a Minolta Dual II Scanner and an Epson Perfection 4990 Photo Flatbed Scanner, as well as photographing the screen, and the Epson produced the best results. This scans a load of 8 slides at a time and saves much time in editing as it removes most of the dust on the slides. The last ones I did were taken on Kodachrome 64 in 1975 and they have reproduced beautifully without removing the glass, but cleaning the glasses as they are put on the scanner. The Minolta did the job very slowly and each slide needed a lot of editing. The Photographing the screen worked but did reproduce the slides so well. With regard to resolution I scanned these as high as the scanner allows and then reduced them to 1024 x 768 for Pictures to Exe. Ian Bateman has written an article in the current AV News were he suggests doubling up the number of pixels to be future proof for screens and projectors. John

I have just thought why you may not be getting a reply from orders@wnsoft.com You need to give them your full name and your original Order ID, plus your e-mail address, when you request your key. John

I lost everything on my computer due to another program going wrong and trying to correct it. I asked orders@wnsoft.com to let me have another key and downloaded PTE again. It was just like starting again and the key arrived after a few days with three lines to copy and paste to Notepad. You then open PicturesToExe and a dialog appears with - at bottom left - Load Key. You will then see an Open dialog, and you navigate to your saved file in Notepad. Your PTE will be registered and any upgrades will afterwards be similar registered automatically. I hope that this helps - you can contact me at johnwnjr@aol.com. John

I was at the same meeting and I noted the same comment. She was living in the past. John

Something went wrong with my last reply, but it read: Designed by me years ago but revised today! By the way if you copy and paste it should fit neatly onto an A4 page. John I am sorry but I am still having trouble in adding a reply which should read: Designed by me years ago but revised today! If you copy and paste it should fit neatly onto an A4 sheet. John

AUDIO VISUAL MARKING & COMMENT SHEET (Also can be used as a guide when constructing a sequence) Marks are given (detailed) 5 per line or (overall) 20 per section. Either = out of 100. Poor-1 (4). Fair-2 (8). Good-3 (12). Very Good-4 (16) Excellent-5 (20) Title of Sequence: Time/Author: PHOTOGRAPHY (Visuals) Consider:- Composition: ……………. /5 Arrangement of subject matter on screen Lighting ………………… /5 Against Light. Use of Special Lighting /20 Viewpoint ……………... /5 Original – Lens use – Variety – Close Ups Overall Quality ………… /5 Degree of Interest maintained in Visuals SOUND (Audio) *Music–Choice/Effects …. /5 Is soundtrack appropriate to the visuals *Scriptwriting ……………/5 Script – approach – story telling/facts. /20 *Commentary ……………/5 Clarity/suitability of voice for subject. *(if sequence does not use any one of * features above enter a weighting of 3 points) Mixing/Balance ……….. /5 Quality of mix & general quality of sound CONTENT (Structure) Beginning ……………. /5 Does intro catch attention & interest? Middle ………………. /5 Story/seq. move along. Not Single Slides? /20 End ……………………/5 Is conclusion satisfactory? Overall Clarity ……….. /5 Has the theme been well communicated? IMPACT (Overall feeling) Emotional ……………. /5 Did it convey feelings (beauty/anger etc) Length ………………... /5 Too long – Too short – About Right /20 Originality …………….. /5 Any unusual approach, angle or theme? Overall Reaction ……… /5 Poor / Fair / Good / Very Good / Excellent PRESENTATION Pace ……………………/5 Variety & overall speed of the presentation. Effects …………………/5 Use of suitable effects to the subject matter. /20 Titles …………………../5 Was titling satisfactory? Overall ………………../5 Could the Presentation be improved? /100 Total: %

I found that this story held my attention throughout and was very interesting. I had not heard of the subject matter before, and felt it was very well presented. I wondered whether every audience would take the time to read all the captions. I liked the separate and different voices used, and wondered whether less print and more spoken words would be better. As it is it is a bit like a Power Point presentation. The effect of the names on the memorial towards the end are very effective, if rather drawn out for the ordinary viewer. It depends a lot on the intended audience, but I can appreciate the amount of work that has gone into this and it has great depth and substance. John

The large brown one is a moth but pleasant little sequence with a clever begining. John

Fine photography and atmosphere. Feel it needs a commentary, - I know nothing about Shrubland Hall. Didn't like the choice of music but this is always personal. The Deer at the end seem just tacked on and would have been better included as a change from all house shots to break them up. Most of the v.5.0 P and Z were very acceptable to me, although I would imagine some people would decide that there are too many of them. The early morning shots were very good, and one tranistion stays in the mind after viewing once - that of the frosted fucia and the stonework that comes in from behind it. Thank you for letting us see it and I hope these comments are helpful. John

You asked for comments so here we go! I am afraid I did not get the message of Philosophy of Willow Lake, unless it was an enjoyable day that four fellows had walking through some lovely woods to a lake. The music suited the mood very well and the photography and lighting was very good. As far as the new v.5.0 effects go I thought these were used to advantage. I find now after a few weeks of them that it is very easy to quickly become tired of PZR, and yet a sequence without any seems rather ordinary and needs something more. Your dissolves were well chosen. John

This is an excellent demonstration and in the PTE file you can SEE all the construction of course. John

An Experiment with Image Sizes In Photoshop Elements it is possible to select two slides and view them on the screen at the same time. I therefore scanned in a photograph from a film slide, finishing up with a JPEG image at 2224 x 1467. Then giving it a different name reduced it in Photoshop Elements to 1024 x 768. So with apparently two identical pictures, I examined them one above the other. I didn’t expect to see any difference because the computer screen is set for 1024 x 768, but I did:- They first appear at different sizes, but even then the larger image had better quality. I magnified the larger image by 100% for detail and to bring the smaller one up to the same viewing size had to magnify it 200%. As these are now viewed at the same size image on the screen it was easier to see that the larger image had the best quality. The smaller image has about half the number of pixels as the larger one, that is the reason the magnification has to be as stated. According to Lin Evans (professional photographer) who has used all the programs mentioned “PicturesToExe allows full resolution images and ProShow Gold and ProShow Producer do not. Rather than allow full resolution images they optimize for DVD quality (low resolution) then interpolate upward from not more than 800 x 600 pixels to effect executable slideshows with greater screen display resolutions. This takes a serious toll on image quality which is in part why so many professional photographers prefer PicturesToExe.” The reason for reducing to 1024 x 768 pixels has been to have smaller files for the computers to handle and is the limit most reasonably priced projectors work at. It has been said that slideshows should be made for the display resolution available for showing. However, if your computer can handle the larger files then even with present projectors it seems the image quality on the screen should be slightly better with larger files, and especially if zooming is used. Or am I missing something? John.

Anita & I liked this one. Somewhat Japanese with a hint of Tibet? Held our interest all the way through, one of the first sequences of yours that we have understood! Music and Pictures blended in an excellent way. John and Anita

Enjoyed this but rather liked the first one the best. This becomes a bit too complicated to watch, whereas the single moving cube was so fascinating. While responding how did you produce the particles of snow in your Storm Coming. I have revisited that and find it very clever, especially now that it has lightning and clouds moving too. John

I downloaded this in about 15 to 20 minutes, and finished up with a PTE with 140 slides which I viewed. That is I have not been able to see an .exe file. My comments on what I saw would be, that you have an host of different formats to deal with, a lot of editing to do, and it will need a commentary. The photography and conditions were excellent. Avoid too many personal pictures of people, and those examining the results of photos, focus on the general trek. I would think five or six minutes would probably be long enough on this one topic. John

Intriguing! What's on the side of the cube we don't see. I could imagine this been used in a ghostly sequence, the background looks so real. The cube appears to have nothing to do with the rest of the scene except when it bumps on the lobby. Great little sequence. Thanks. John

An interesting experiment but I had to think of movies when it rains and the sun shines. That is they often have a marvellous shower of rain and if you look carefully the sun is shining, - it is simply a giant hose being used! I know the sun can shine snow falling. Is this is getting too near to video, and I am not sure but it would be easier to do that way! It depends how you use it in a sequence, not as effect for effects sake? While responding to this can I mention that I have shown your Colorado on a large screen at 1028 x 768, to myself and was suprised that it didn't look quite as good as on the computer screen. In particular when you started your usual Zooms outwards the initial picture showed the stress of the zoom, and as it ended with the normal size picture it looked very good. Also I noticed a sort or hardness to the pictures, almost as though they were copies from prints. I do not get this normally when projecting my original digital slides or scanned in film slides. Would it be anything to do with downloading through the Internet. I doubt that because other sequences seem OK. Best wishes, John

In Magical Movement I have checked and found that most of the images were 1024 x 768 except the big wheel which was 2624 x 1968. I have noticed in other experiments that a zoom of course can degrade a picture, usually when it enlarges the image up to 200%, - so it seems best not to zoom too large. I noticed in Lin Evans Colorado sequence that he zooms out more often than not, and the picture improves as this happens. - This was particularly noticeable when I projected the sequence at 1024 x 768 on a large screen. John

Thank you for your comments. The closing credits is a .png file and I do not know why you can still see the base that the letters are on. Perhaps someone knows the answer? John

By coincidence I have just posted Magical Movement to www.beechbrook.com/pte/index.asp which is almost the reverse of what you have done: Please see my comments on PicturesToExe Presentations. However, I still like simple sequences and I found yours very pleasant and enjoyable although I do not know Cardiff. It is probably more interesting to people who know the place and buildings, and without commentary it is just a series of very good slides. The music was very nice and quite appropriate, again I like Male Voice Choirs so I am a little biased! I would be interested in your comments on my sequence. John

I wondered about PZR and thought that this might spoil the magic of AV since Slide/Tape and simple digital dissolves, but now I find, used carefully it can add a new dimension. This sequence tries to keep the magic (although it is all movement) but at the same time uses many of the new features in v5.0 including PZR with Zoom In and Out and altering the centre of Rotation plus Opacity. Comments will be particularly welcome. John

I downloaded without difficulty or trouble, and had a quick look at re-installed transitions which worked fine. Thanks for all the hard work to produce v.5.0 and the Betas. John

A very crisp pleasant sequence. Before I read the previous comment, I too thought that there was a lot of changes of format and a few varying transitions, but really I was so interested in the excellent script and the way it was spoken, these didn't bother me too much. The photography was excellent and the weather favoured it. The music was nice and bright and added a lot to the feel of the sequence. With regard to using v.5.0 with commentary, yes it is definitely possible to do it via Audition which has exact timing figures along the bottom so that you can match the commentary times to fit the timeline in v.5.0 If at first you do not get them exactly correct it is a simple matter to right click on them in Audition and slide them along to the appropriate place. A commentary can also be split up into little sections so that it comes in the right place in Audition. I know all this because I have just made a 5 minute sequence on Caerlaverock Castle in Scotland in this way. John