Lin Evans

Hi Threllie, A couple questions: What color is the waveform icon before and after you click on it? How did you add your music - through the Project Options or on the slide? If you added it on the slide, you won't see the waveform and the waveform icon will be gray. If you added it through project options, the waveform icon will be blue and when you click it, you "should" see the waveform below the timeline. Best regards, Lin

Hi Mick, Great job. I find nothing wrong with your speaking voice and the photos were beautiful. Just drop the overall volume level of the background music and in my opinion it will be fine! Best regards, Lin

Hi Robert, This is great information Robert. What I believe may be the usefulness, is to overlay small chroma keyed videos over stills. Once we have the ability to use video as a mask, there are numerous types of things which, when used sparingly and with good taste can, I think, enhance the still image without becoming intrusive. I think these type mini-animations might be useful especially in introductions and in closing scripts. An example of this was one I used some months ago in a show where I animated a "paint-brush" painting the subject in the first slide. I wouldn't use the paintbrush for a serious show, but the water-drop video I used in a couple places in the introduction and second slide might be the type of use which could be accepted by judges in time. Of course I didn't have "video as a mask" which would have made it very easy to do, but I did run the video "in a mask" and with opacity control was able to make it work. Here's a link to that show: http://www.learntomakeslideshows.net/almost/almost.zip (about 17 meg Windows pc exe file) Best regards, Lin

Hi Boogie, Here's what the "help" says: Chroma Key Select the Chroma Key color by clicking on it in the preview image. Then, using the preview image as a reference, adjust the Background and Foreground sliders until the desired transparency is achieved. Note you can click different positions on the timeline to see how the video will look. Click OK to apply changes. If you would like to make changes later, first select the overlay in the list on the Overlay tab, then click the Change button next to the Use Chroma Key checkbox. It's not very helpful, but I would assume that you can save the alpha channel as an AVI provided that you have the necessary Codec installed. There are several (at least 3) codecs which support the Alpha Channel. So this program at least lets you remove the Chroma Key color and leave transparency, but whether it can save this as a black and white alpha channel video or just overlay it on another video is the question. Once I get my system back and running, I'll try to find out what it can do. I can make a quick green screen video and test it then... What we would need - to make this work with video masking is what is commonly referred to as the Luma Matte. The luma matte is essentially a black and white video. The white being opaque and the black being transparency. In PTE, the white would allow the chroma key portions (black in this case) to be transparent, and that part of the video which was not (green or blue, etc) to be visible. Best regards, Lin

Hi Colin, It could be that you overlooked something such as start time, offset, etc. The fade feature seems to work fine for most. If you could send me your PTE file where you had the problem, I would be glad to look it over and see if I can determine what's happening. The structure of the audio features isn't visual, but if you work with them for a while, I think you will find that it's actually much easier to get the results you are looking for right in the program than to go to Audacity or other audio editor. I use Audacity too, but I find it more convenient to do nearly everything right in PTE these days myself. Best regards, Lin

Hi Tillman, Thoroughly enjoyable! What a wonderful way to see this beautiful place and its people! The only thing I would change would be to use "smooth" for your pan of the wide frame.... Best regards, Lin

Hi Tom, Chroma Key would be nice, but not necessary. What I have in mind is just the ability to use video as a mask. A number of software applications can create a video with Chroma Key technology which have both the black and white alpha channel as well as the color channel produced. In PTE with a using video as mask option, we then insert the alpha channel black and white video as the mask and inside the mask run the regular matching video. This then gives us the ability to use the video just as we now use a PNG transparency. Let's say we have a video of the earth in rotation made on a black background. The alpha channel video is pure black and white. The Earth is simply a white circle within a black background. Then when the actual video is inserted within this video mask, we have the Earth rotating just as a still PNG cutout except with full video motion. We can then overlay this "video" as a mask on any background and the only parts we see will be the earth in full color rotating on our choice of a still "or" video background. We can size and manipulate (pan, zoom, rotate, 3d transform, etc.) this rotating earth. The black surrounding the rotating Earth is transparent in the mask revealing everything "except" the Earth on the layer beneath (that being our choice of video or still backdrop). The white alpha channel revealing only the rotating Earth which can be manipulated as desired. Now take this same concept and apply it to an alpha channel made by Chroma Key extraction of any subject whether static or dynamic and we have the ability to, for example, overlay a video of you made with a home video camera against a green or blue backdrop for extraction. You might be walking about, talking, sitting at a table, whatever. This alpha channel black and white (video as a mask) then coupled with the associated regular color video from which it was made, lets us place you and your table, etc., anywhere in the world. Let's say we have a video from Paris on La Seine by the Eiffel Tower. You could be sitting at a table as people walk by and it would appear that you were actually there. This video as a mask has some seriously powerful implications I think... Best regards, Lin

This post is simply an effort to stimulate discussion about possibilities for the "video as mask" feature.... One of the features several of us have asked for in a future version of PTE (hopefully the next one) is to be able to use video as a mask. This will open up a number of great possibilities for PTE's extended use not only in AV productions, but also in the business world. A feature we sometimes see on the web is a website with a "talking head" or with a tiny "actor" walking back and forth and talking about the website or some of the features, etc. This is done using green screen (or blue screen) alpha channel extraction. With video as a mask, we could easily do this with PTE and create really interesting possibilities. Today, there are multiple video editors capable of doing alpha channel creation along with a normal video so that the user has both. How this ends up is a black and white video and a color video to match. Programs which create special effects, such as Particle Illusion can be used to create an alpha channel along with the regular video. Once we have the Alpha Channel black and white video which can be used as a mask - we would put the black and white in as the mask and run the video underneath. Then only the animation would be visible through the mask. We could then "animate" the mask as desired. For example, let's say we had an alpha channel extraction of a horse running. We could move this running horse across a pasture still image or a video. We could have a person walking and talking and this could easily be overlaid on a business presentation, etc. There are myriad possibilities once this feature is manifest in PTE. How would this be possibly used in a dynamic AV presentation of the sort used in AV competitions? How would it be received by judges? These are questions which we might discuss. I have no knowledge or experience with AV competitions so am depending on those who have a background and experience to give their input and open minded commentary.... Best regards, Lin

Cool stuff Jan - looks great in HD! Best regards, Lin

LOL - Great job, Herhey! Question - Did Wally like the cake best or the "desert" at the end of the show? Loved your show - by the way, I used your running skeletons in my little Halloween skit here: Good to see you back on the forum! Best regards, Lin

Hi Vic, Actually, there are ways to do what you want to do without the blank, etc. You can do this in either of two ways: 1. Add the background sound two times on the same track. Set the "duration" for the first instance of the background audio to terminate just before the start of the video. You can use a fade out for "X" number of seconds. Next go to the second iteration of this background sound and set the "start time" to correspond to the ending time of your first track. This will "continue" you background sound right where it left off. But, you must also set the "offset" to the ending time of the video. You can set a "fade in" on this iteration for "X" seconds. So what will happen is your slides will progress with normal background audio until the one just before the video and at the termination of this slide, the audio will have faded out and the video's audio will begin. Then when the video ends, the audio from the second iteration will begin to fade in. You will probably, however, want to put your video into your video editor and fade the audio track in and out. There is no provision yet for this in PTE. 2. Put the audio first on track one and set the duration to the time of the video's start with a fade out of "X" seconds. This will effectively terminate the first instance of the audio with a fade out as the video starts. Add a track and put the same audio in the second track with the "Offset" equal to the end time of the video and the duration to the end of your last slide or where you want the audio to end. Put the "start time" equal to the end time of the fade out of the first track. Use fade out as desired. The reason I gave two ways of doing this is that sometimes one might have other things going on in separate tracks..... The audio is actually pretty sophisticated with PTE but you must keep in mind that "start time" is "how far into the audio track you want to begin to hear the sound" while the "offset" is how far along the time line you want to actually begin hearing audio. Then the "duration" is how much of the audio you want to actually play. If left at default, the entire audio mp3, etc., will play assuming there is sufficient time along the time line (enough slide time) to complete it. There is actually no resource penalty for having multiple instances of the same audio in a single PTE show. Best regards, Lin

Vic, Ctrl V doesn't work for me either - Shift - Insert does. Ctrl V does, however, work to copy paste slides in the slide list. Probably it would be a good idea to let Igor know when he gets back so if you don't hear from him in a week or so - remind him and we'll see if this is intentional or a bug. Best regards, Lin

Hi Vic, We're neighbors! Actually, I haven't tried keyboard shortcuts yet - I usually right click and choose paste so let me try that and see what happens. If there are changes in keyboard shortcuts I wasn't aware of it, so maybe you have uncovered a bug. We will have to confer with Igor when he returns from his holiday. I'll check and see if the normal Ctrl V works for me... Best regards, Lin

Hi Ken, That problem was a horizontal white line and turned out to be a slight numerical miscalculation with PTE when determining aspect ratio. It "could" be that this is a related issue, but seemingly only on MacIntosh which is why I wondered what the screen resolution was on Mark's Mac and his OS. AFAIK, the aspect ratio for Mac displays and for Windows displays are identical for same resolution and same displays, but it would be interesting to see if I increased the size of the video slightly, if the problem went away. We will have to wait for Mark and see what he is using before experimenting. Best regards, Lin

Hi, Could you give some details of your operating system, version, etc. I can copy and paste into either the comments or the text block from Word, Wordpad, etc., with no problems. I'm using XP Home Edition and PTE ;7.02.. Best regards, Lin

Hi Leo, First - in order for this to work, all slideshows must be "created" in the same version of PTE. So if they were created with different versions, open each with your current version of PTE then re-create the executable files - put them in a single folder for convenience. Next open the slideshow you want to start your 24 minute sequence with and go to Project Options - More Tab. Locate "Run Application/.Slideshow on Exit (2nd block down) and click on the down arrow beside "Do Not Run" and choose "Run Slideshow". Next look to the right and navigate to your next choice of slideshow. For convenience, let's call the main show "Master" and the next shows "show 1, show 2, etc.). After you have selected Show 1 - save and close. Open Show 1 and repeat the steps choosing show 2 as the one to run on exit. Continue this until you have reached the next to last show. When you get ready to present these, have them all in the same folder with the same name or put them all in the "root" of your drive. If you are running them from a USB "thumb drive" then put them all in the root folder. The essence is that the Master show calls show 1, show 1 calls show2, show 2 calls show 3, etc. The last show calls nothing. In this way, all sound tracks, etc., are preserved and the sequence will continue until the last show has played. Best regards, Lin

Hi Leo, I think the only way to do this without losing your audio track is as Xaver suggested in the first answer. Best regards, Lin

Hi Dave, I think he needs the sound preserved as well - I don't think that the copy paste will preserve audio? Best regards, Lin

Thanks Luc, Do you see anything like Mark does on the left side of your display? What resolution display are you using? Best regards, Lin

Hi Mark, Thanks for checking it. What resolution is your display and which OS are you using? I'll have to let Igor work this one out because I don't have a Mac and my highest resolution display right now is 1600x1200. I've checked carefully on the PC at various resolutions and can't see anything in the periphery on the left so assume it might be Mac OS or screen resolution centric. Best regards, Lin

Hi Noel, I wouldn't agree that the presentation was "gimmiky" but I think you could perhaps improve it by a bit smaller script writing in the beginning so that the viewer could see the words before the end of the display. So if the pen and text were smaller, I think the continuity would be more sound. Perhaps you could use a gradient background with the script effect reduced in size so that there is more that two letters at a time visible. You don't want the introduction to overpower the presentation. Perhaps slightly longer on each portrait might be useful unless there was some time restriction on the presentation. The only other "niggle" would be that the background music and the last image could be slightly "tweaked" because it appears that the music continued slightly beyond the end of the last slide. It was almost as if there were one "note" too much. With PTE 7 you can fine tune your background music or sound to a very fine degree. Best regards, Lin

Hi Tony, You can copy any "object" along with the associated keyframing and past to another slide, but you really can't copy the object and associated keyframes points and put them somewhere else along the timeline. You're right, you would need to duplicate the slide to do that. Best regards, Lin

Hi Andrew, There are a number of "differences" in various RAW converters. Some of the features of Capture NX2 are not duplicated in Adobe RAW and some of the features of Adobe RAW converter are not found in Capture NX2. The version which came with your camera is a "light" version - sort of like the difference in PhotoShop Elements and the full blown PhotoShop product in a relative sort of way. My prime dislike with View NX2 which came with your Nikon is that it is terribly "slow." I've tried lots of different RAW converters with my various cameras but I personally prefer DXO Optics Pro 6 for my Nikon D7000. I suspect you will be perfectly happy with the combination of ARC (Adobe - if you have the latest version) and View NX2, but since there are free trials for both Capture NX2 and DXO Optics Pro 6, you might like to try them as well. Capture NX2 is dedicated to your Nikon while DXO Optics Pro 6 actually handles a plethora of different lenses attached to different make and model camera bodies. Each of the different converters and photo manipulation products have differing specifics, but all allow you to greatly enhance the original copy. In answer to your implied question about "anti-shake" - the Nikon camera body doesn't have optical image stabilization built in. Like Canon dSLR's it then requires any stabilization to be built into the lens. Stabilization compensates for the normal "shake" when you hand-hold your camera. Two primary things other than focus issues cause image blur - camera shake and subject motion. Both can be taken care of by faster shutter speeds but this may or may not be possible depending on ambient lighting conditions. So anti-shake, optical stabilization, image stabilization (all different terms meaning the same thing) are a means of taking care of camera shake. The "normal" shutter speed compensation for hand holding is to use a shutter speed at least equal to your focal length. For example, if you are hand-holding and shooting at 100mm focal length, to minimize the probability of camera shake becoming a problem, shoot at no slower than 1/100th sec shutter speed. If you are using a 600mm lens, then 1/600th would be the "rule of thumb." However, because of the telephoto boost with so called crop factor sensors (yours is 1.5x) you need to add this into your factoring so that in this case you would need 1/150th of a second for 100mm and 1/900th second for 600mm. The "anti-shake" technology gives you a break and lets you shoot somewhere between two and four stops less than you would need without it. So essentially you can sometimes hand-hold at 600mm and shoot at 1/150 th second. It depends on how steady you can hold and how good the stabilization actually is. It varies by lens. Bottom line is that it helps you take images with less blur as long as the potential blur might be caused by camera movement. It won't help with subject movement. Best regards, Lin Best regards, Lin

Hi Ken, Fun to blow things up eh? LOL. Probably would have been better if it had been further from our solar system.... HA! Lin

Hi Colin, LOL - the end of civilization as we knew it! No doubt, PTE is a fantastic tool which lets us combine the outputs of disparate tools into a very integrated whole. It's going to become even more powerful once we have Alpha Channel capability with video. Right now, work-around's are required to get some of the effects possible by combining video and various types of still image animations, but in the future with planned features, PTE will become a tool of choice not only for the AV enthusiast, but I believe it will also become a part of many animator's tool kits. Some things are so much easier to accomplish with PTE than with Photoshop - especially dealing with layers, opacity and especially "movement." It's definitely a fun learning experience to probe the possibilities. Best regards, Lin