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A good point well made Judy. I like your travellers tail too, thanks.

From the PTE FAQ section: "Question: How many slides can I include to my slide show? Answer: Up to 20000 slides (unregistered version limited to 10 slides)". Had you saved it??

Not at all Howard. Most, (if not all), digital SLRs will do a fine job so the first point I usually make when asked this by someone moving to digital SLRs is, what brand of lenses do you have? If you have invested a considerable sum in lenses it is best to purchase a SLR that is compatible with them. I understand from your posts this is not a consideration for you.I have photographed motorcycle racing, (motocross, desert racing), other forms of motor-sport and tennis with a range of digital SLR models and brands, (Nikon, Canon, Fuji, Pentax and Sony), in your price range and all have produced good results. My granddaughter is currently playing in the state level basketball competition and I have photographed her and the team successfully many times. The secret I think is in the lens. Image Stabilising is a must-have in this situation. Using 400-800 ISO "freezing" the action with very little noise is not a problem with my Canon 20D, 350D and the Canon EF 70-200mm f2.8 IS lens. This is a marvellous lens, fast with f2.8, sharp and gives very good colour rendition. I have just obtained a Canon 40D which is a truly wonderful camera. Although not applicable for sport I have hand held down to 1/8th of a second successfully many time with a sharp, well exposed result due to the IS of the EF 70-200mm f2.8 lens. Just check the SLR has continuous focus, (most modern ones do now), as I have found this to be very useful in taking action photography. Yes, most will with the right lens. Good luck.

Same here.

Thanks Tony, yes I couldn't agree more with you on that, we are defiantly all winners here with PTE and the members of this forum. I certainly do not wish this forum to become a competition, I like it as it is. It could be called an "exhibition" where viewers, if asked by the author, can comment on the exhibits. Long may it remain like that. Perhaps I didn't explain myself clearly. When I was using the term "judge" it was in the context of the viewer of a A-V, our subconscious is making "judgements" as we see the show. The process I touched on in my previous post was the method used to bring this to our conscious mind and become aware of how we access what we are viewing. When the show finishes and we say to ourself "well I really liked that or I did not like it" why? We have, if we are aware of it or not, "judged" the show. Judging, (or forming an opinion which we may or may-not keep to ourself), is something we are doing all the time in most areas of life, particularly in the areas of artistic endeavour. Receiving and analysing feedback on our work, particularly constructive, be it good or bad is how we can grow and develop our areas of expression. Using a points system is just a tool toward this end, for some it is useful and others not. I personally don't use it in this forum but in others areas it is very useful.Thanks for the interesting discussion here Tony and Andrew.

Tony some interesting comments on a perennial subject among camera club members, (and others). As someone who has both entered competitions and judged them I must agree that some judges do tend to let their likes and dislikes effect their judgements. I have found the better judges are the ones who are aware of this and take it into account, but as they are only human it is not always possible. The assessment of an image is done in two major areas, Technical and Aesthetic. The technical area, sharpness, correct colour, exposure, focus, etc is usually straight forward and can be one where there is general agreement. On the other hand the aesthetic area has been, is and always will be one of great debate, the basics, "rule of thirds", framing, etc can be recognised and accessed with general agreement but when we get to the "emotional" side of the subject our own feelings come into play and this is where the debate rages. Even the mood a judge is in, if have they had a good/bad day, will effect their opinion here. The best I feel we can do is gather as wide a range of opinions of our work as possible and this will tend to filter out the likes/dislikes of the individual. When judging 3 or 4 images or 1 AV, (as here on this forum), a points system is not required in my opinion but when judging 50-100 images or more than 5-6 AVs the only way they can be assessed against each other, (or to a consistent standard), is a points system of some sort with all its faults, even the relative merit of various points systems is a subject of debate. Looking at a large number of shows can take several days and the only way of maintaining any consistency is a form of awarding points to each. Also they can be a form of shorthand for the judge to refer to at a later date or when presenting the results. If the break-down of points is passed on to the author they can often be a useful guide for improvement to their work. An interesting document, attached is a sheet that was given to us, (I was on a panel of 5), to judge a AV competition earlier this year. It appears to be an updated version of yours.CVCC_Annual_AV_Marking_Sheet_2_07.doc

Jason you will find the download link for the free LAME encoder to export MP3 files with Audacity here: http://lame.buanzo.com.ar/

Mike, I'm not sure if this would work but have you tried Al Robinson's excellent "Adjustor for PTE" tool to do this?

I also have had a graphic card fail due to the cooling fan failing after only 4 months. I think that heat-pipe technology is the way to go in the future for my own PC and would recommend it for others. Glad to hear that the 512MB GEFORCE 8600GT is recommend as I an also considering this card for an upgrade in the near future. Thanks.

I have ignored the camera on my phone as I had assumed it would give a poor image due to the lens quality, even if the image size is 4 MgPixels. After looking at the good images you achieved Igor I think I will investigate mine further. It would be handy occasionally when the SLR is not at hand. Thanks for sharing.

Martin, it would appear you are doing the correct thing, the only answer I have is the .WAV file may be faulty. Have you tried several different sound files?

Like the new show Kim, better than the first. Sounds are good, (an improvement), and the ride off is a great ending. You have a creative talent and I am looking forward to seeing more of your work, thanks for sharing.

Glad to have been of some help. Kim have you posted the updated show? I/we would love to see it.

Welcome to the world of PTE AVs and the user forum Jonathon, you will find lots of help and advice here. At the present time there is no way to mix the background track and narration in PTE, this is best done in a sound editor and is somewhat a pain as you said. It will come in the near future as Igor has indicated he plans to improve the global timeline, and make it possible to add any tracks, (at any place in the timeline), with simple effects, (fade in/out, cropping, etc). The new music player he added to v5.00 allows these effects. See:, http://www.picturestoexe.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=6806 You can add sound files to individual slides using the sound field under the preview window, but there is no way in PTE to adjust the volume, or mix it with the background track. You can download Audacity for free from here: http://audacity.sourceforge.net/ In regard to the copyright laws it would appear that almost anything we do with media these days is "technically illegal". The general rule of thumb I follow is if it's not for commercial use and not too "public domain" it's OK. So far so good. Not to sure how thinks are in the USA.

Welcome to the world of PTE AVs and the user forum Annemiek, you will find lots of help and advice here. If you haven't already got the Windows graphic viewer "IrfanView" you can get it for free from here: http://www.irfanview.com/

"Hog Heaven." Thanks for the show Kim, I enjoyed it very much. Excellent choice of music, well presented images, good timing and I liked the the way you used B&W. All in all a very creative show. I have a cousin and a nephew who own Harleys and as an old biker I jump at the chance to ride one, your show reminded me I haven't done that yet this year. Only other comment I have is that I would love to have heard one or two of the bikes and I agree with Lin the ending could be improved with a little timing adjustment.

Tony this feature was removed in v5 as it caused problems for the developer Igor, see: http://www.picturestoexe.com/forums/index....tion+to+Desktop

Andrew, sorry I haven't been able to give you feedback sooner, I have been away for a week and then very busy, also I wanted to look at your two shows and leave it for a few days then view them again before I made any comments, so here goes now. The alternative show was more pleasing to me but after viewing it I looked at the original again and saw it in a different light. I think now I have been able to look at the wonderful scenery at leisure I am no longer looking for that in the original and am more receptive to the creative way in which you created the sense of movement. At this point I would have to say I like both equally. Sorry this is of little help to you in deciding which show you should stay with. I always view any show posted here and note my comments down before I read any other comments, then I read them and often watch the show again then post my comments. If you decide to make a composite show I hope the following may be useful. Neil is correct here also Peter said which I agree with strongly.Also I missed the first zoom into the funnel whistle very much. It you make the transition from the funnel to the pan a little quicker and reduce the time on-screen of the last slide in the opening sequence you can add this time to the pan thus slowing it down, please don't lessen the area of scenery covered with the pan as I think it is just right. Lin said I also agree with this.The second, (middle), section I find enjoyable and think you have it about right, the vertical pan was handled better here than the first show. Maybe the boat leaving the wharf could have been a little quicker, perhaps try changing images on each beat of the music instead of each second beat. In the final section with "Earnie" in dry dock then at the wharf and finally back out in the water there is one slide of "Earnie" powering out on the water, (this photo is showing the stern of the boat), which I thought was out of sequence and would be better positioned toward the end of this sequence, maybe the second last shot with a gentle zoom back from the stern. As I said in my comments of the original show I am very impressed with the way you handled the audio. A great choice of music to match the images and create the mood of each section. Thanks again Andrew for posting these shows it has given me much food for thought and created an interesting discussion. This exercise leads me to think there is a time where it may be best to post two different shows of the same subject. Oh dear more work!

I strongly agree Igor. Also I would like to second Freds comments above.

Enjoyable show if perhaps a little too long. I found the music very nice. Yes some images were OOF. Defiantly no sharpening in camera. No sharpening in RAW editor/handling. Small amount only if needed as the last job in Photoshop.

Gilbert, Bruce's advice above is quite sound. I would recommend that you make a backup of the RAW files first and save them somewhere safe, preferably on DVD or an external hard disk.

Thanks Lin, as the the poet and philosopher George Santayana said "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."

Welcome to the world of PTE AVs and the user forum Bohemia, you will find lots of help and advice here. Mario has said it all, I would just add that you save your work as a template which will give you a complete backup of the project files and save this on a DVD/CD. This will save you looking for files at a later date. If you are using PTE v5 you can also use "Create Backup in ZIP" for this.

I love this one nobeefstu. Is there nothing that the members of this forum can't do?