Lin Evans

Hi Davy, That's true - but what we need to do is to demonstrate the differences between what is "possible" with PTE and what is possible with the competition. Xaver was kind enough to send me a link to AquaSoft's page where they have some demos - worth watching I think: A good one to start with is at the bottom labeled "Windmühle" - really professional animations http://www.aquasoft....ashow.as#videos And I added this Youtube link to a demo of a Proshow Producer presentation on Youtube with a rather interesting title on my prior post - see it here for comparison: Obviously, the above isn't a good example of what "could" be done with Proshow Producer because, unfortunately, it plays to Proshow's weaknesses rather than its strengths. But it does show what some people "think" are great examples of what can be done. I think it works "very" well in favor of what is done daily by members of this and the French PTE forum members with PicturesToExe and demonstrates quite well the differences.... Check it out and I think you will agree that the "competition," when they attempt to "animate" for the most part look pretty much like cartoon characters. There are "attempts" to overcome the obvious with loud percussive music, but if you turn off the tunes and just look at the images and animations, it's pretty sad in my opinion. Best regards, Lin

Hi Davy, Good comments and as expected! Actually, the purpose of the first demo has done exactly what was intended - stir up interest and commentary. 1080p on YouTube won't work for animations - there actually is no need to even try - been there, done that. The bandwidth is far too low and the quality goes down the tubes quickly (pun intended). 1080 works for simple transitions and stills without animation, but simply is, in my opinion, useless for trying to demonstrate smooth animation on Youtube or Vimeo. I'm completely familiar with the "right" approach for marketing. I was married to a very successful marketing executive for 35 years. This first example wasn't intended to be the end-all for demonstrating PTE's capabilities but was indeed intended as a challenge to stir up controversy both here and on Youtube about slideshows. So far it's woking perfectly for that purpose!! It's quite O.K. to "challenge" the competition. They can then post their best efforts and we all know what that will unveil... We here know that the competition can't compete with either quality or animations with PTE. The "world" doesn't know it yet, but maybe we can make more people aware of the differences. Competition promotes advancements in both features and quality. Tip toe through the tulips is not the way to get there in my opinion. I spend lots of time "looking" at what the competition can and can't do. It's a fun hobby. Some even here on this forum are fond of telling us where PTE has shortcomings and how thing are better with certain other products. Funny thing is, I can't find a single example of this demonstrated and I look very hard. Please, if someone has a slideshow done with m.objects or Wings Platinum or Proshow Producer, or Polaroid new "prize winning" software, which demonstrates superiority. lead me to them so I can see this superiority for myself. I'm not holding my breath because I use most of these products also and am pretty familiar with their strengths and weaknesses. Yes - the snowglobe took exactly as long to develop as it was intended and necessary - LOL. That was the absolute purpose. One doesn't go from Spring to covered with snow in a few seconds if the intent is to convey some modicum of "reality." Only the first (the snow globe) was a "complete" show. The remainder were only parts of shows designed to fit the intended background music and demonstrate, at a leisurely pace, some of the possible effects with PTE. Future examples planned as marketing devices and will be short and focused and should include something for everyone. There should be examples of fancy and animated and examples of smooth, beautiful and family oriented. The intent is to show people what can be done with this product. If in doing this a few feathers are ruffled with users of other products, that's fine. Maybe it will stimulate them to do better work. Keep the comments and ideas coming - the more discussion we can generate, the better things will be in the future... By the way, here's some of the "competition" .... Best regards, Lin

Hi Peter, Here is the Youtube link: If you get a chance see if you can post this link in a response: http://www.thebestslideshowsoftware.com Thank, Lin

Hi Mick, Those are great ideas, and one's we can implement in future uploads. This one is already on its way and there are technical reasons why I can't speed up this snow animation. With a "different" one, yes - but the one I selected has to stay as is. For future demonstrations, I hope to have a variety from PTE users which represent not only the animation capabilities, but also the true "slideshow" superiority via award winning shows if possible. Hopefully, we can get input from a number of not only this, but our French forum as well where there are some amazing demonstrations. Best regards, Lin

Lately, on YouTube I've seen several presentation slideshow companies post videos demonstrating why they think their product is "best" for creating slideshows. Some are pretty decent and some are, in my opinion, pretty pathetic - especially in their animation effects. We all know that PTE is the "best" available for our purposes and even though the competition has some pretty neat features, PTE can do things with the others either can't do or do with much difficulty. Each of the main competitive products have strengths and weaknesses, but my personal opinion is that "we" have the very best right here with PTE. Polaroid (not the same photography company, but someone who bought the name) has purchased a domain name (bestslideshowsoftware.com) and advertises their slideshow software as the "best" - see link here: http://www.bestslideshowsoftware.com This software has been winning "awards" from a company which "tests" and "rates" slideshow software. Of course they haven't tested or rated PTE or Producer or Wings Platinum or m.objects or any of the really "good" products - but I believe that the Wnsoft product needs to be advertised and promoted and the world shown what a "really" good and "professional" grade presentation slideshow software looks like. To help accomplish this, I purchased two domains (thebestslideshowsoftware.com and thebestslideshowsoftware.net) and put up a single page which when clicked leads to the Wnsoft site: http://www.thebestsl...howsoftware.com Further, I plan a series of YouTube video's demonstrating not only fancy animations and effects, but also simple and really "good" slideshows of the type found in major AVI competitions. I've made the first attempt which is one which demonstrates some of the more esoteric and "fancy" capabilities of PTE, but I'm asking for assistance from everyone to provide some really superior work. Let's all work together and get material which will knock the socks off of the competition - can we do that? So here are links to what I plan to post to YouTube later today. The show runs a little over 10 minutes and is about an 85 meg download, so for those with reservations about downloading large files, you can click the video link if you want to see it. It's a combination of a number of my previous shows and designed to show off some of the fancy things possible. However, I want to make it clear that my idea is to equally promote "quality" shows in a series to knock the socks off the competition - so I need help, suggestions and donated shows.... http://www.lin-evans...ample/index.htm (video which was done at 1280x720 but smaller for this post) the upload to YouTube example will be 720p http://www.lin-evans...lideshowmac.zip (84 meg MacIntosh native exe) http://www.lin-evans...stslideshow.zip (84 meg Windows zipped exe) Start Video and immediately click on Pause - Let the video buffer until the "gas gauge" is about half way across then restart for uninterrupted play back. Lin

Hi, Of course. The speed of a scroll is determined by the distance you move the text within the time frame between two keyframes. Type your text then move and size the text visually. The beginning keyframe is set to zero time for the slide automatically. Create a second keyframe and move it on the timeline to where you want the scroll to end. Highlight the second keyframe and drag the text to the ending position and run the preview. Here's a link to an audio visual tutorial. Click on the Tutorials Link and choose number 15 to get an overview of text manipulation. The tutorial is for an older version of PTE, but the basics are identical as far as keyframes are concerned: http://www.learnpte.com Best regards, Lin

Hi Tom, Thanks - I'll see if I can do that. It's just a rudimentary beginning. I haven't even put in meta tags yet for the search engines, but I will be working on it on a continuing basis. Best regards, Lin

Thanks Geoff, I've got a bit of work to do on it yet, but I hope to get some more good links to add... Best regards, Lin

http://www.thebestsl...howsoftware.com http://www.thebestsl...howsoftware.net the links above - for easily read reference are: http://www dot thebestslideshowsoftware dot com http://www dot thebestslideshowsoftware dot net Best regards, Lin

I have created two new simple websites which will be expanded later, which link to all my tutorials, demos, Wnsoft and this forum. The tutorials are duplicated here in the Tutorials and Articles section. Sometimes it's easier to give a quick link than to go find the local link here so the duplication may make it easier. Anyone wishing links to their free tutorials or templates please let me know and send me the links. The purpose of these domains are to provide free information about PTE including free tutorials, free templates and other relevant information. Just an announcement which I will delete in a few days. The links are as follows: http://www.learnpte.com http://www.learnpicturestoexe.com Best regards, Lin

Hi Bert, Just place the mouse cursor along the top line of the thumbnail area and move it up and down until it changes to arrows. Hold down the left mouse button and drag upward and the thumbnails will get progressively larger. Best regards, Lin

Hi Bert, The "AB" is the effect duration. By clicking on the tiny AB box, the customize slide window will pop up and let you change the value. By clicking on the number in the lower right, you can highlight and quickly change the display time for that slide. The only "option" you have is whether or not to display the caption and that is changed via the "View" - show captions in slide list check box. If your thumbnails are too small, you will only see these values and need to drag the window larger to make room for the full sized thumbnail. Best regards, Lin

Hi Eric, Mipmapping and unsharp mask are not substitutes for one another. Unsharp mask is a property setting affecting "all" main images in your slideshow. The "sharp/smooth" setting is applied as desired to selected individual objects. Perhaps the best way for you to see this might be to create a very small test show consisting of two slides which have great detail in them. Set the unsharp mask to maximum (200) in the Project Options, Screen Tab. Now add text to one - just the word "text" - no need to do anything else. Now with "text" selected and without zooming in (set the zoom ratio to about 50% - use the drop down arrow on zoom next to the "close" button at top of screen) , observe the word "text" while you manually adjust the slider through the extremes from -128 to 128. The "sharper/smoother" acts on individual objects while the unsharp mask is a universal applied equally across the board to all slides in your show. You will not notice the effect of the sharper/smoother settings very much when zoomed in close, but will notice them more from a distant zoomed out setting. Best regards, Lin

Hi Gary, You could express it that way (1:.77) but the convention is to use 16:9 and since we can't display less than a single pixel on a display device, we use whole numbers. The answer to Eric's original question is that his topic was setting "slide size twice" when, in actuality, he is only setting the slide size once and the aspect ratio once. I suspect what would have been a better way to phrase it would be to ask why, if we set an aspect ratio do we need to enter the slide size at all. I think the answer to that implied question is that we have the ability within PTE to control the size in pixels we want the display to be regardless of the capability of the display device. Of course we can't display a 1920 x 1080 pixel display on an 800x600 monitor, but we can be certain that if a 1920 x 1080 display resolution device is being used that our slides are taking full advantage of that capability, hence the option to choose between popular display sizes (1280 x 720 or 1920 x 1080). Best regards, Lin

Hi Gary, You can't set the "aspect ratio" to 1920x1080 that's a pixel dimension. You set the aspect ratio to 16:9 which is the aspect ratio of either 1280x720 pixels or 1920x1080 pixels. Best regards, Lin

Maybe because the program wants to know which 16:9 size you would like to display at: 16:9 isn't a "size" it's a ratio... Lin

Hi Wal, I'll try to answer your questions below: Best regards, Lin

I don't think there is any "good" reason to post more than the size of the download, but if it's a very "large" show and you care whether everyone who wants to see it will do so, it might be a good idea to offer it in video format with a link as well as perhaps in PC or Mac executable format. With video, the viewer still ends up downloading the large show, but generally not having to "wait" until the download has finished for the show to begin. Some here seem to only want to watch shows in wide format, etc., and that's a personal choice but really not something which the show's producer needs to be concerned with, in my opinion. I put the approximate size of the show after the link myself, but rarely bother with details about the format (wide or 4:3, 3:2, etc.) because regardless of the equipment the viewer has they will be able to see it. As far as the type of camera, lens, focal length, etc., - if one feels it necessary to give that information fine, but in the final analysis most could care less about these details. Opinions different from the prevailing ones are always welcome in my opinion. We may not all agree, and we may sometimes get into rather heated discussions about these differences but that doesn't mean that differences of opinion are bad or that one's having a different opinion are not equally welcome to express them. Unless the poster is asking specifically for comments or criticism on how to improve the presentation, it's probably best to say something nice or say nothing at all. Just my opinion and $.02 Lin

Turns out that my domain name expired with me being contacted so I put a direct link to my ISP"s server which will work. The domain name will be back on line in a couple hours. Best regards, Lin Hi Ken, Apparently the server is down for unknown reasons - my ISP is working on it, hopefully it will be resolved soon.... Best regards, Lin

Hi Robert, Here is the link to the little template and instructions: http://www.picturestoexe.com/forums/index.php?/topic/14457-panosfx-snowbulb-template-only/ Best regards, Lin

Slightly different from my other "snowbulb" template as it doesn't deal with snow build-up but just "snowing" inside the bulb and replacement of my "goosebulb" png with your own PNG transparency or a jpg, bmp, animated gif, etc. First download the zip file and extract into a folder. Then just open the PTE file in PicturesToExe, go to the Objects and Animations screen and click on the very bottom object (Goosebulb.png). Click on the Properties tab and then on the open file icon at the top right next to "picture." Navigate to your own transparent PNG or a jpg, bmp or animated gif you wish to have inside the bulb with snow coming down. Double click your selection then use the surrounding "handles" to size and position via the mouse inside the bulb. If you are putting in a jpg or bmp, you will probably want to enlarge it to fit the full available dimensions which will be everything "except" the snow at the bottom of the bulb. That's all there is to it. Save under a new name, export as an exe or mp4, etc. The snow animation will run for 60 seconds. If you wish you can copy and paste your slide as many times as necessary for your animation and background music. s104715615.onlinehome.us/sample/panosbulbanimatedtemplate.zip Best regards, Lin

Hi Robert, LOL - Thanks!! I'm having fun playing with non-serious things. This gives me a break from discussing Coyotes with Craig on Facebook. Craig is an old college friend whom I stayed with for six weeks on my 8000 mile trip in 2010. He's a "dyed in the wool" Vermont boy who is newly "semi-retired) with finally some time on his hands. We share a passion for Malamutes (I used to raise, train and race sled teams) and we can spend hours in friendly arguments about dogs, wolves, coyotes and politics - LOL. I'm trying to get him interested in PTE and I think when he finally completely retires (military) he will join us here on the forum. Best regards, Lin

Hi Greg, Thanks! Fractals can be addictive - I'm usually pretty sleepy by the time I play with them for a few hours!! LOL Best regards, Lin

Hi Dom, Looks great with the rising sun behind! It can be problematic to loop, so I usually make the start of the cube at zero, zero degrees and stay with even increments of 360 degrees for a given time frame. That way it's usually possible to copy and paste the slide with linear motion and no transition, so the next slide begins uninterrupted from the identical position of the end of the first or previous slide. Best regards, Lin

Hey Colin, Thanks! It was that "bunny/chicken" thing that got me into dreamland - LOL Best regards, Lin