Lin Evans

Congratulations to you both!!! When will we get a chance to see your creations? Best regards, Lin

Hi Steven, Thanks for watching! Indeed you did hear the crackling of the wood, etc. My intent was exactly the effect that you experienced which was to draw the audience into the fireplace and provide the "ambiance" for enjoying the music. There is a good deal more going on than is apparent at first glance. If you look carefully, you will see the flickering of the fire reflected in the bronze eagle on the hearth as well as on the edge of the leather couch. The 3D transform and masking features of PTE allow for proper perspective for the fire inside the fireplace - proper placement and effects for the sparks and smoke to appear to go up the chimney, reflection of the fire in the bronze statue and on the edge of the couch. These great PTE features provide a means of creating heightened "reality" which I really like. When it's done correctly, the audience "should" be able to "experience" the reality but not necessarily understand why without careful analysis. Best regards, Lin

Hi John, The audio track is a stereo track in PTE. The two waveforms are displayed top and bottom on the display. Mono tracks added through PTE play on both channels. Can't comment on the possibility of flac format audio.. Best regards, Lin

Hi Mike, Peter's advice is a good way to proceed - but if you need to produce this effect and have time constraints, there are a couple ways you might want to consider depending on how you intend to present this slideshow. The first consideration is whether this is to be an auto-running show in the video type format, or whether it will be intended to run only on a computer as an executable type. The reason it is important is that there are differences in the way you may want to proceed. I'll try to briefly outline the possibilities. First, let's consider a slideshow you would present manually for an audience. If you will be sitting at a keyboard where you can control the show, it's very easy to pan your video then "stop" it at some point, click on an area of the panorama which will then elicit a zoomed image of that area, then click on a specific invisible "hotspot" on the zoomed image and continue the pan. This is easily done via the ability of PTE to allow the user to place hidden objects such as "frames" which have no opacity (i.e., invisible) but can be used to direct the show to a different slide or even run an external program, etc. This is a very powerful feature of PTE, but only will work with executable code and only if you are going to "drive" the show. The second way would be somewhat similar to what you described, but it would not be necessary for you to "cut" and "splice" you pano to achieve the desired result. You simply load the pano multiple times (no penalty in file size for an exe show) and stop the pan and/or zoom at the point where you want to go to the zoomed view. Then simply place the zoomed view slide as the "second" slide. Then place the original pano, zoomed or panned or both to the position you left it on the first slide as the beginning of the third slide. The show would run seamlessly this way and no need to go to an image editor. There are also alternative ways, but it would help to know more specifics about your intended use of the show - whether you want it to be able to be run on a television (video mode) or you in control on a computer or send the autorunning slideshow to friends, etc. Just a bit more information would help us determine the best way to help you proceed... Best regards, Lin

Hi Joe, Assuming that the jpgs are not overly compressed (smaller number than Photoshop 6) there really is no advantage in using bmp files. There will almost always be a slight change in color when creating a DVD because the gamut for the television is slightly less than for a computer display. In general, DVD's created with PTE are very good. Actually, I find them about as good as can be made these days. Best regards, Lin

Hi Ken, In a way - it is a test to see if anyone caught a couple of the nuances in the fireplace and associated parts of the image. The new and improved masking makes it more useful for doing subtle things which enhance reality. I'll leave it at that and let you download the file again and see if you can detect the very subtle changes.... LOL Best regards, Lin

LOL - pretty plain "vanilla" .... Best regards, Lin

Just a nice way to listen to one of my favorite Richard Thompson tunes. I don't have a fireplace anymore so I make these instead.... http://www.lin-evans...mo/waltzing.zip (about 18 meg) Windows http://www.lin-evans.org/demo/waltzingmac.zip (about 18 meg) Mac Lin

Hallo Alfonso, Zunächst bitte vergib mir meine Englischen ins Deutsche Übersetzung mit Google Translate - ich spreche nicht Deutsch. Obwohl PTE hat keine in "Effekt" für diese gebaut, wäre es sehr einfach zu bedienendes Programm, indem Sie die Maske und Keyframes. Ein Video mit einem breiten Seitenverhältnis läuft beschränkt auf eine geringere Breite könnte sich schnell "erweitert" werden in der Breite über Keyframes, um die Simulation "flash". Es wäre nicht eine sehr schwierige Sache zu bewerkstelligen. Mit freundlichen Grüßen, Lin

Hi Joy, It would be best to email Dom and ask him.... Best regards, Lin

Hi Andrew, A fine review of the lad's tour in Helmand - my only suggestion would be to leave the very last slide on screen for a few more seconds to facilitate reading the text. Very nice! Best regards, Lin

Hi Eric, The symbol you refer to places the keyframe at the end of the designated slide time. I'm afraid there is no way to make a zoom any slower than the length of the slide. If the slide is 10 seconds, the zoom for that slide must be started and ended somewhere within that 10 second period. If you have begun the zoom at zero time and ended it at 10 seconds - for example - the zoom will take 10 seconds to complete. If you want it to be slower than 10 seconds then you must use a longer display time for the slide. If you want to continue the zoom beyond the length of the slide, you can "pull" the keyframe beyond the end of the timeframe which infringes on the following slide's time since the "zoom" will continue during the transition, but in such a case you are splitting the zoom between two slides, not extending the zoom for a single slide. I'm not clear on what is "different" about what you are describing than extending the distance between the keyframes as suggested above?? Best regards, Lin

Hi Tom, I had to laugh when I first read the post because Canon has "repeated" the model number of a camera they made back in 2000 (the S100 "Elph" model). When I heard S100 I immediately scratched my head because I though to myself - wow! That's a really old model! Then I read about the built-in neutral density filter, and a few other "features" which didn't jive so I looked up the model and sure enough, it is a dandy! I think you will be very happy with it. Best regards, Lin

Hi Steven, Yes, if the zoom is too fast for what you have in slide display time with keyframes at the beginning and end, they the only way to slow it down is to extend the display time of the slide. The zoom can't be any "slower" than the slide time. Deep zooms usually require more display time while small zooms can usually work with 10 seconds or so. Best regards, Lin

Hi Steven, The distance between the keyframes is the way to control the speed of the zoom. The "smooth, slow, accelerate," etc., are ways of controlling the ratios of change within the parameters of two keyframs, but they do not control the "speed" of the zoom. For example, if you use smooth without changing the distance between keyframes, the zoom will begin very slowly and end very slowly but will be quicker between the end of the slow start and the beginning of the slow end than a "linear" zoom. If you use "slow" the zoom will begin in linear fashion but slow toward the end while the actual time between keyframes will remain the same as if you had used linear. If you use accelerate, the zoom will start slowly and continue to speed up until the end. The overall time allotted to the zoom will be the same as if it were linear. So to make the zoom slower, you move the start and end keyframes further apart on the timeline. Best regards, Lin

Hi Jim, It works fine for me as an MP4 - be sure to check your aspect ratio on the MP4 versus your preview and the position of the text. Suggestion: Make a one slide "show" and place your comment somewhere near the center. Create an AVI "and" an MP4 with the "same" aspect ratio you are using in the preview and see what happens.... Best regards, Lin

Hi Mick, Beautiful photography and very enjoyable look at fall colors and the great Peak District and Wakehurst area! The music fits perfectly - seems like a fine AV to me! Best regards, Lin

Just a little 2 minute one slide show... http://www.lin-evans.org/bryce/brycesnow.zip (about six meg) PC http://www.lin-evans.org/bryce/brycesnowmac.zip (about six meg) Native Mac Exe Lin

The Original links to the demo of TheDom's template below: http://www.lin-evans.org/bryce/brycecanyonbox.zip (about 42 meg) For Windows http://www.lin-evans.org/bryce/brycecanyonboxmac.zip (about 42 meg) For Mac Lin

The forum software is once again giving me fits - I deleted my post in error after yet another double post. Fortunately, I was able to save an "image" of the post as a JPG thread which I will post here.

Hi Jim, I'm not clear - your bullets say "Appear in avi video" and "Do not appear in avi video" - Do they appear in Preview and in Executable format? Do they come and go in AVI video? Later: Hi Jim - I just tested this and it works correctly for me. If you are not seeing them in the AVI video, the first question is "where, on your image do you have them appear?". The default is top center. Could it be that your AVI video has a different aspect ratio and that it simply cut's off that top portion of the image? Some more information will help to pin down the problem.... Best regards, Lin

Hi Eric, No, video shows are "canned" and you can't use normal manual controls on them. You can stop them, reverse them, etc., with the navigation bar, but because you are not issuing commands to an operating system, it can't work like an executable file - at least not in MP4 format. It is "possible" to build interactive web shows with the right software, but normal exe shows meant to respond to mouse clicks and such which work very well in exe format will not work that way in a video. See link below: http://www.softwaremedia.com/design-creativity/web-design/interactive/ Best regards, Lin

Igor is on Holiday and won't be back for a while - but he will likely respond once he gets back and settled in... The way the posts go, the original question or suggestion always takes priority no matter the sequence of comments - so your request will always be at the top of the list. Best regards, Lin

Hi Tom, One of the primary reasons I believe that Flash will be around for a long time is that it is embraced by 98% of enterprise level web solutions providers. Large companies do not make changes quickly or without good reasons. Yes, there are millions of telephone users who also browse the web with their tiny screens, and as long as there is fallback to HTML5, they function just fine on the web without Flash. But Flash is not just about displaying content and video players, it's also a "very powerful" programming and streaming environment and controlled very carefully by a single provider, Adobe. HTML5 is primarily controlled by a committee made up of Mozilla Foundation, Opera Software and Apple. HTML5 is not even a "standard" yet, but is scheduled for a release as such in 2014 Of course Apple would love to do away with Flash but it's not all that easy. I think this Forbes article explains very well my own opinion about why this is not likely to happen anytime soon. http://www.forbes.co...is-a-non-sense/ Best regards, Lin

I don't believe you will get much buy-in about "replacing" the EXE file with an HTML5 version here. The name of the product is PicturesTo"EXE" - LOL. Perhaps it may someday be possible to include HTML5 as an output option, but it won't be at the expense of the exe option. As for Flash going away - that's unlikely. There are many million Flash users and thousands of products which produce Flash. HTML 5 has a "long way" to go before it will even begin to catch up to what can be done with Flash. It's nice that Apple supports HTML5 but Apple is a long way from ruling the internet or the hardware platforms. HTML 5 has many great points, and it's being somewhat embraced by Youtube, etc., by creating both Flash and HTML5 but many of the things which can be done with PTE simply are not totally amenable for the present with HTML5. The users of PTE include many AV competition people and among the things HTML5 doesn't do is support the supreme image quality possible with executable PC and MacIntosh code. It would be great to have the ability to output to "both" HTML5 and Flash in my opinion.... Best regards, Lin