Lin Evans

Hi Colin, Thanks! The font is called Bleeding Cowboys and is available here: http://www.dafont.com/bleeding-cowboys.font Best regards, Lin

Hi David, Just a little fun thing - the intro flames are, as you assume, a video clip. Best regards, Lin

http://www.lin-evans.org/lepona/leponaintro.zip (about 12 meg zipped Windows exe) Lin

Make them for yourself.... There really are no others available otherwise... Best regards, Lin

Hi Mary, You can't do that unless you have the PTE files. The executable can't help you publish, that's done via Video Builder which reads the PTE code embedded in the xxxxx.pte file. Best regards, Lin

Hi Tom, In all probability, there is no software available to do that. Your best bet would be to have the PTE file then create your own MP4 from that. I'm assuming though that since you ask, you no longer have the PTE files for these available. There are lots of software packages to convert video to exe, but none that I'm aware of to reverse this. It is "possible" to use screen capture software to capture the EXE and save it as video, but these are far from "good" quality and probably wouldn't be a very satisfactory solution. Best regards, Lin

Hi Mark, Nice job! Beautiful scenics, excellent photography and very nice presentation. The only change I would make would be to use a "smooth" rather than linear pan at the end of the pano. To do this without the "glitter or shimmer" which generally accompanies a slow, smooth start or end on a panorama, you could take a single frame which was used in the Pano for the last image on the right as the viewer watches, and just before the end of the pan do a fade which will cross fade a matched for size, etc., single frame to the last frame in the pano. The easiest way to get this is to take a copy of the original pano and "crop" a frame of the proper dimensions. Then everything will match perfectly as far as exposure, etc. Just use this with smooth and a "cross-fade" will hide the fact that there are two images. Other than the rather abrupt stop and change in direction, everything looks perfect to me. You make the duplicate image set to "soft" rather than "sharp" and it hides the shimmer on the slow start or end of a big pano zoom or pan. Best regards, Lin

Hi Eric, Nice job - I think you're getting the hang of animation! You may want to experiment a little bit with the 3D transform which can help add a little touch of more realism to falling leaves, especially if it's not overdone. One other technique which can be used very easily now that you have the little S30-IS is to put it on a tripod, shoot a few seconds of video then just interrupt the video by pressing the shutter and capture a still. Then you can use that to start a sequence with by showing the still, then fading into the short video clip and it's as if your image "comes to life." If used very sparingly, it can add a nice touch to scenes where there may be leaves blowing about, falling and "quaking" on the trees. I liked the music - melancholic and haunting. Nice mix with the autumn scenery and darker images. The bit of chromatic aberration up in some of the trees can easily be removed and make those few images where it appeared look a bit cleaner. The easiest way I've found is just to open the image in Photoshop (if you have it) then go to "Image" "Adjust" "Replace Color" - then click on the offending color in the edges of the leaves (usually purple, blue) and adjust the slider until you have most or all of it selected then just slide the "saturation" to the left and desaturate it. It usually looks fine after this little treatment and no need to clone blue or white sky. In general this only happens where the highlights are blown out so desaturation leaves it looking pretty normal. Best regards, Lin

Hi Dave, Try playing the movie clip alone on your HP Notebook. It sounds as if perhaps your video card in the notebook isn't up to the task of playing the video or that possibly you don't have a late version of Direct X and need to upgrade it on your laptop. Best regards, Lin

Hi Bobby, It doesn't actually have to be that complicated. There are some codecs which are very common and "most" people with PC computers will have them so the probability that one of the viewers might not be able to view the AVI file would be small. Codecs such as Microsoft MPEG 2 or MPEG 4 are so common that nearly everyone can view an AVI which uses this. If you simply choose "Create a Custom AVI" then PTE will present the available codecs on your system. The probability is that Microsoft MPEG 4 will be among the choices. In addition, if you simply suggest that your users download and install a popular free player such as Kantaris Media Player the necessary codecs are included and there will probably be almost no one who can't view the AVI file. This is not an issue with PTE, it's an industry wide issue. It's like Flash. If the computer which is playing the file doesn't have a Flash player (free from Adobe) they won't be able to play Flash either. For example, none of the Apple iPads can play Flash! There are so many video formats today that it's impossible to be absolutely certain that virtually everyone will be able to play your video. Players such as Kantaris Media Player are perhaps the best bet for PC based customers. Windows Media Player can leave you in the lurch at times unless you use one of Microsoft's formats. I write tutorials primarily using AVI format and whenever someone has a problem with audio or video, simply downloading and installing either Kantaris or VLC Media Player always solves the problem. To get back to your original problem, the "easiest" way to place a video on a website that I've found is to use Xara Web Designer 7. It will allow you to simply drop in one of the PTE MP4 or AVI videos and virtually everyone will be able to view it. It takes about 15 seconds to create a Video Page for your website with this tool and all code is generated. Highly recommended! You simply upload to a folder on your host server and give the customer the link or put a link in their or your site to the upload folder using your own favorite development tool. Here's a link to literally a 10 second generation with Xara Web Designer 7.... you can make backgrounds as you wish, change the size ot the player, etc., but this is just a literal dump of the generated MP4, export in 10 seconds then uploaded... From import to export is literally instantaneous. http://www.learntoma...ideshows.net/x/ Best regards, Lin

Are you stopping the sound for the duration of each of the other nine jpgs while the viewer reads the text? If so, you probably should look at my tutorial on inserting a video and fading out slide sound and resuming. Even though you have no video, if you are trying to stop the sound while the audience views the text slides, you can use the same technique of adding the same song multiple times (there is no resource hit for doing this) then stopping and resuming the sound via the technique described in my tutorial. You can always stop the sound on a music selection at any given time on the timeline by setting the duration field number for that particular time. You can also fade out sound and even use the waveform for this purpose. It's quite flexible. Best regards, Lin

Hi Jerome, I'm not clear on why shortening a song would help you? It seems that you would either shorten the display time of the slides or have longer songs things would work out better. If you "shorten" a song, then the music will just end more than 1 minute and twenty seconds before the slide show ends? How long are you displaying each slide ? With the number of slides than you have, it seems like a better solution would be to slightly shorten the display time for each slide. The easiest way to make the background music and slides end together is to click on the timeline then on the Timed Points tab then choose "Arrange All Points." This will cause your slides to be evenly spaced along the music so that music and slide display ends together. Best regards, Lin

Hi David, Yes, but probably not enough to really matter unless the aspect ratios were very different. Best regards, Lin

Hi Ian, You don't have to predefine the aspect ratio of the window. If you hold down the Shift key, you can drag the sides of any PNG rectangle to "fit" the existing image regardless of aspect ratio. Best regards, Lin

Yes, the aspect ratio is fine and the blanks should be the same size as the other photos. If you make the blanks with Photoshop, etc., you don't need to save them at a low compression because they are only backgrounds for the text. Just save them at about compression level 4 to save storage space. Once you get the show completed, then creating a DVD will lower the quality of the display a good deal because NTSC resolution is much lower than your computer screen resolution. If you can give some more details about your project and physical proximity to where the show will be seen, there are some other ways of showing your slideshow depending on the type of display, television, etc., which will be used. For example, it's possible to make a high resolution show, put it on a USB storage card and display directly on some modern flat screen LCD televisions which have provisions for such. It's also possible if the show is to be seen on a computer, to just send a PC or Native MacIntosh executable format show. More details will help us give you better suggestions. Best regards, Lin

Hi Ian, Igor has indicated that there will soon be some changes made so that the timings will make more sense. There will be an iterative release of version 7 soon with improvements to the slide timings so that they will be much more predictable. Best regards, Lin

Hi Jerome, What you want to do is pretty straight-forward, but there may be a little learning curve so let's break it down into basic blocks. First just put all your slides into the slide list and they will automatically be assigned a display time of about 5 seconds. This can be changed later either individually, or as a group. Next create the number of blank jpg's in a solid color or gradient to use as text slides between the groups of slides. On these you will write the text (story) before each group of photos. You can either create these in PTE or in your favorite image editor such as Photoshop, Elements or even the very excellent freeware PixBuilder which you can download from the wnsoft.com forum. Add these blank slides at the appropriate position. You can drag and drop them where your wish. Next decide on approximately how long you want each slide to be viewed. Multiply this by the number of slides including the spacer slides for text and you will have approximately the number of minutes of background music you will want. Select the music and add via the Project Options Music Tab. Just add them, don't create new tracks. Put them in the order you want them to play. Next go to the Project Options Main Tab and click on Synchronize Slides and Music and Auto Spread Slides Along Music. Next click on the Timeline Tab at the bottom right of your screen. Next click on Timed Points and then click on Arrange All Points. At this time you will have a slideshow with random transitions which you can either change universally or individually. Personally, I think for a first slideshow I would use all Fades and let PTE put the time in. These things you can always fine tune later. To get out of the Timeline, click on the Slides Tab. Now you can go to Objects And Animations and use the Navigation Arrows in the top right corner to go to your blank slides and enter Text. You have a wide choice of fonts, sizes and such and all text will be automatically rasterized so that on any system whether or not that system has the font you chose, the correct font will appear because the "text" will automatically be changed to a graphical representation. Text is treated like any other object. You can make it larger or smaller either by changing font size or by simply dragging the surrounding text box to fit and place it. It can be made to scroll if there is too much to fit the space. I'll provide a link to tutorials a bit later. Once you have the text as you want it. The final step is to decide whether or not you want navigation controls. Since you indicated that you will probably put this on a DVD, you may want to omit navigation controls because once you create a DVD there is no "computer brain" to allow the navigation controls used in executable slideshows. The tutorials can help you easily learn to zoom, pan, etc., Here's a link: http://www.picturest...uously-updated/ (these are AVI video tutorials) If you don't already have it, you may want to download the freeware Kantaris Media Player. Kantaris has all the necessary codecs to play the tutorials. You can download it here: http://www.winportal...0Media%20Player I suggest you start with PZR (Pan Zoom Rotate) and this will probably be enough to get you through this first slideshow. Don't be afraid to ask for help if you get lost somewhere - there is always someone on the forum to help. Another suggestion is for you to first create a little show with about four slides so you can get used to all the features before you embark on the big project. I think this will help you greatly and it will make the large show "much" easier once you are comfortable. Best regards, Lin

Hi Gary, After the developers corrected the false detection, the anti-virus program would no longer tag your executables as having malware, but the file placed in the vault would still be there unless you removed them or copied them from your backup. In general, when a fault with an anti-virus program is found and corrected, there is no remedial action by the anti-virus program. Things which were quarantined would still be gone unless you take action yourself. Best regards, Lin

Hi Gary, I'm not objecting to your discovering Avast's solution, but you said: --------------------------- -------------------------- The "virus" didn't "attach exe files created by PTE - the antivirus software reported a false positive and quarantined perfectly good files. It's important to recognize the difference. Best regards, Lin

Gary, If Avast found a "solution," logic should tell you that it wasn't a virus with PTE. If it were, how could Avast have a "solution?" In such as case, were it a true virus, Wnsoft would have to have the "solution." You send your exe files through multiple other anti-virus programs and no problems are found, ergo, Avast has a problem. The fact that after AVG removed two rootkits your problem went away should tell you that the "problem" was two rootkits not the "59" pte executables which were quarantined, right?? Best regards, Lin

Gary, It's not a virus - it's an Avast problem with a false positive. There is no virus.... Didn't you read what Igor just said??? You may have had a "virus" but it had "nothing" to do with PTE. Avast may have simply looked for executable code and made an incorrect "assumption" that this executable code was the culprit. If AVG removed rootkits they were not associated with PTE. To date, there has never been a PTE file infected with a virus of any kind that anyone is aware of. Each and every occurrence has been false positives caused by faulty anti-virus software algorithms. Lin

Hi Eric, Thanks for that! I hadn't seen it, but very nice and some great sunset photos as well. I didn't realize there was such a large tide there - that does make getting in and out a bit problematic. My sailing experience is limited to the North Atlantic, Caribbean and coastal Florida. I've never had to deal much with tides other than keel clearance getting into and out of the slip in Clearwater, Florida. The water is quite shallow at low tide and the channels constantly shifting so that getting high centered is quite common. We have a term for the "remedy" called "kedging" which you seldom hear any more unless you sail in Florida. It consists of launching the dinghy with an anchor aboard, rowing to the length of the anchor rode, dropping anchor by hand then using the winch aboard the yacht to help pull the keel off the sand bar. Sometimes it takes two or three times and can get exhausting - LOL. Best regards, Lin

Hi Ian, Unfortunately, once the files have been moved, there isn't an "easy" solution, but for your reference in the future; when you want to move a PTE creation to a totally different location, use the internal Zip feature which gathers all necessary files into a single zip archive which can then be unzipped on any drive and on any folder within that drive and PTE will not give you an error because the PTE template file itself is then modified and aware to look for the necessary file within the folder where the archive is placed and extracted. It is possible, with a text editor, to modify the .pte file to the new file path, but since you had your originals in numerous different locations, that creates a situation where there is probably no real advantage in doing it that way. As far as I know, there is no way to "replace" a music selection keeping the waveform, envelope, etc., as it was. That's one other good reason right now to use the Zip or Template feature to insure you will always have the files necessary so this won't happen in the future. Perhaps in a later revision, Igor might consider a "replace" feature fro music similar to the one presently available for images. You said that in some cases you had "zipped" the "project" then moved it but subsequently PTE couldn't find the files. Did you use the internal Zip feature, or did you use an external zip program such as PK Zip? If you used the built-in Zip or Template feature PTE "should" be able to find the files with no problems. Best regards, Lin

Nice one Eric! Excellent images and nice background music and commentary! It immediately brought back memories of the 60's with Gerry and the Pacemakers singing "Ferry Cross the Mersey" - LOL. Did you have a chance to try out the very excellent movie mode on the SX30 IS? Best regards, Lin

Hi Harold, Use Drop Shadow, Customize Angle - Doesn't matter - any setting Set Distance to Zero Set Size to 3 Under Spread Choose "Ring" or "Double Ring" That's as good as you can approximate a "stroke" in Photoshop with PTE This will outline your text - be sure to use a contrasting color. Best regards, Lin