Lin Evans

Hi Ernest, That's specifically the purpose of the ability to show back side or not, please download and view my tutorial on this here and you will understand how it works. In short, you "can" already do what you suggest. It is all explained in the tutorial. It's number 16 (currently the last tutorial in the list). http://www.picturestoexe.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=7901 Best regards, Lin

Sorry for any confusion. This post was only for Barry and in regards to an ongoing discussion about the fact that people are using "animation" in their slideshows. These are "NOT" shows which have been (to my knowledge) entered in any competition nor do they represent in any way my opinion of what constitutes either a quality or non-quality slideshow. They are randomly selected shows representing what users of competing products (Proshow and MemoriesOnTV, etc.) are asking for and doing with animation and effects. Barry decided to begin an off-topic discussion about the quality and content of a demo show example I posted specifically for users to "stress test their video and system resources" with and constructed of portions of various past demos to demonstrate some of the effects possible with PicturesToExe 6.0. Barry has apparently not seen the use of animation in very many slideshows and I informed him that animation and effects are some of the most frequently asked for features by users of competing presentation slideshow products. Do not confuse the word competing with "competition." This is about the use of animation and effects with users of competitive "products" not about slideshow competition. To understand what this is all about you would have to follow the discussion here: http://www.picturest...showtopic=10652 I want to move the off-topic discussion of what constitutes an aesthetically pleasing slideshow and whatever else about the appropriateness or not of using animation and effects away from my thread about stress testing the video card and here where it has a venue more appropriate for the purpose. The other thread is going far off topic which is both confusing to the reader and detracts badly from whatever value my original post there might have. Any further discussion of what may or may not constitute a "proper" or aesthetically pleasing presentation slideshow should be continued here rather than in the other thread. Best regards, Lin

See my answer to theDom. It has "nothing" to do with slideshow competition but is about the use of animation and effects with competitive "products". Best regards, Lin

Hi David, I understand your reasoning for purchasing the 1920x1080 projector for the club's purposes and that having a larger pixel count image allows for better viewing and a better projected image. I also understand that transporting a large, wide screen display would not work for you, even though it would be no big issue for most here in the US. Just for the record though, and to avoid confusing the reader, throwing away pixels does not greatly affect optical resolution. It's very common for people to confuse the term "resolution" with pixel count and that's the fault of marketing and advertising in the digital camera business. Optical resolution is measured by either lines per image height (in the case of digital cameras) or by counted line pairs per mm in film captures. This value is determined by a combination of lens quality and the number of photosites on the sensor used to "directly" capture the light values across the subject. It is only indirectly related to the number of display pixels used to display an image. So the number of and configuration of photosites (sensor pixels) largely determine optical resolution since for practical purposes, all lenses used on modern cameras have greater optical resolution capabilities than the sensors behind them have. As an example, my Foveon based Sigma SD14 dSLR only creates a 4.7 megapixel display, but the optical resolution is equal in black and white resolution to a 10 megapixel Canon or Nikon capture and the color resolution is greater than that of a 12 megapixel Canon or Nikon capture. Why? Because the Foveon sensor uses over 14 million photosites in a three dimensional array with all three RGB values collected at one relative display pixel location to create each single display pixel, and it captures all three RGB values at this single loci. From these 14 million RGB values, the camera produces a 4.7 megapixel image of high optical resolution. A Nikon, Canon, Olympus, etc., dSLR uses, in a "10 megapixel capture," 10 million CFA (color filter array) photosites on their sensor and interpolates 2/3 of the red and blue color values by averaging color values obtained from adjacent pixels. So all CFA captures (all digital cameras except Sigma) are initially "interpolated." A good example of the non-linear relationship between display pixel count and optical resolution can be seen by examining the Hubble telescope's WFC (wide field channel) camera which produces a four megapixel display and its HRC (high-resolution channel) camera which produces a one megapixel display. The HRC has "much" greater optical resolution than the WFC even though the WFC produces a four megapixel image versus the one megapixel image of the HFC. To understand why pixel count has only a bit to do with optical resolution, think of a capture make using photomicroscopy. A one megapixel capture made through the lens of an 800x microscope has infinitely more resolution than a 100 megapixel capture of the same subject made without the microscope. So throwing out pixels in terms of pixel count by downsampling does not greatly affect optical resolution. The primary factor in optical resolution was determined at the time of image capture and only indirectly affected by downsampling or upsampling. This, of course, is not to be confused with image size and one's ability to "see" this resolution based on our own human visual acuity. We can see a large image much better than a small image from a distance, and it's really the image size and not the pixel count per se which is important. Of course an image made with a greater number of pixels will look "sharper" to us and we will be able to see it better when it is larger (i.e., more pixels) from a given distance than a comparable smaller image, even if the smaller image has greater optical resolution. Best regards, Lin

Hi Reinhard, The feature is new and only found in the 5.7 or 6.0 betas, not in 5.6. This feature works on individual slides and is not a universal feature. It allows creating a border of your choice of color and thickness. Best regards, Lin

Hi Barry, Here is a new thread where you can pursue discussions about the use or abuse of effects and animation in slideshows. I don't think anyone is trying to convince you that animation or special effects are either "good" or "bad" for presentation slideshows. They are simply a "choice" and any decision about either their use (or not) is purely subjective and personal. No one wants to "educate" you about what you are "missing". The point which is being made is that animation and special effects are being used and being used by many, many people making slideshows. They are requested by users of not only PTE but by users of competitive products such as Proshow Gold, Proshow Producer, MemoriesOnTV, m.Objects, Wings Platinum and a host of other presentation slideshow products. Animation and special effects are here to stay whether one likes it, approves of it, loves it or hates it. In order to stay competitive, PTE also must not only have this capability, but someone must demonstrate these effects. Whether you or I believe they are "tacky" or "fantastic" is totally immaterial to the rest of the world. People will accept or reject their use based on individual preferences. Like shoes, one size does not fit all. The links I have given you on the other thread are just randomly selected shows from Photodex users and CodeJam users. They have one thing in common - they all use animation. To me some are decent, some are poor and most fall somewhere smack in the middle of mediocrity. You use the term "mistake" as if there were a right and wrong way to do these things. There is no right and wrong, only different. The only time right and wrong enter into the equation is when there are established, written "rules" governing a particular event such as AV competition. Even then, the "rules" are arbitrary and simply constitute an agreement or consensus among those judging the event. People create slideshows for multitudes of reasons. Some of the results are aesthetically pleasing to some while horrendous to others. It's like art. Those who love realism might embrace the work of Native American Navajo artists Harrison Begay or Jimmy Abeta and hate the renderings of Pablo Picasso and vice versa. The beauty of human diversity is just that; diversity. We all have our preferences and PTE is simply a tool which allows us the latitude to explore those preferences. Here's the link: http://www.picturestoexe.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=10741 Best regards, Lin

http://www.photodex....l=3040128&alb=0 http://www.photodex....l=2972209&alb=0 http://www.photodex....l=3094570&alb=0 http://www.photodex....l=3087324&alb=0 http://www.photodex....l=3132263&alb=0 http://www.photodex....l=3128945&alb=0 http://www.photodex....l=3084006&alb=0 http://www.photodex....l=3095223&alb=0 http://www.photodex....l=3059487&alb=0 http://www.photodex....l=3125682&alb=0 http://www.photodex....l=3134840&alb=0 http://www.photodex....l=2924686&alb=0 http://www.photodex....l=3135406&alb=0 http://www.photodex....l=3124100&alb=0 http://www.photodex....l=3091674&alb=0 http://www.photodex....l=3003153&alb=0 http://www.photodex....l=3135137&alb=0 http://www.photodex....l=3094389&alb=0 http://www.photodex....l=3094878&alb=0 http://www.photodex....l=3094878&alb=0 http://www.photodex....7639&alb=148191 http://www.photodex....5192&alb=148191 http://www.vimeo.com/1357240 http://www.vimeo.com/817061 http://www.vimeo.com/867192 http://www.vimeo.com/1693090 http://www.vimeo.com/1209425 http://www.vimeo.com/932980 http://video.google....19731357178642# http://video.google....32271397&hl=en# http://www.vimeo.com/754095 http://www.vimeo.com/1069952 http://www.photodex....l=2584724&alb=0 http://www.photodex....l=2721312&alb=0 http://www.photodex....l=2662808&alb=0 http://www.photodex....l=2788724&alb=0 http://www.photodex....l=3136033&alb=0 http://www.photodex....l=3079217&alb=0 http://www.photodex....l=3079217&alb=0 These will get you started.... Best regards, Lin

Hi Dave, Storage could definitely be an issue if your club rents a space and has no way to transport a 52" display back and forth. I forget that in the U.K. you don't have lots of vans and pickup trucks like we have here in the states. Here, it would be no problem at all to transport even a 60" LED wide screen back and forth. As for 100 people huddling around a wide screen, actually that wouldn't be necessary. With a 52 inch display it's quite comfortable to see from a distance of even 40 feet or more. Twenty chairs across by five deep seat 100 people and that would only create a viewing distance of around 22 feet or so for those in the back row. If you only seat 10 in a row you could still fit comfortably into the approximately 40 feet space. My business customers often have large conference rooms with as many as 150 people watching 50" plasma displays. The LED displays can be watched comfortably from even very wide angles without loss of image quality or brightness. The brightness factor is "soooo" much better on an LED display than on virtually "any" projector that they can be easily seen without even killing the lights. Also there is no loss of seating space for the location of the projector. It's difficult to step outside one's comfort zone of use, but even with the very best and brightest high resolution projectors my clients have had (IBM, Hewlett-Packard, etc.) if you enlarge sufficiently to make a really nice sized display, the brightness level is so diminished that the room must be nearly dark to accommodate a decent image. It may not be a solution for your club, but I suspect it could be for many. Yes, of course there are many more users of 3:2 than 4:3 dSLR's and even some of the newer digicams offer 3:2 which makes it even more puzzling for me that displays are all going wide screen. Small sensor digicam users "far" outnumber dSLR users in the great scheme of things, but probably serious AV people have a much greater preponderance of dSLR owners. It's as if the manufacturer's believe that computer users are using their displays more for watching DVD's or BluRay than for computing or displaying photographs. Perhaps gaming is partially driving manufacturing - who really knows? Best regards, Lin

Hi Dave, Right, but it depends on the dSLR. My pro body E3 Olympus shoots native at 4:3 while my pro body Canons, Nikon and my Sigma dSLR's shoot native 3:2. The majority of older digicams shoot 4:3 with the option of using only part of the sensor's capture (i.e., sensor crop) for 3:2. The issues about projectors are important to those using them for displaying their images, but in all fairness, the "majority" of presentation slideshow software users don't really use projectors at all, but rather create slideshows to be displayed either on a computer via executable or video mode, or on a television screen via DVD, BlueRay or HDMI connect. Projectors (Beamers) are primarily the tool of choice for the business executive using PowerPoint shows or some AVI enthusiasts for shows, etc. They seem to be more popular among AV clubs (not speaking from experience here) to me. I suspect that this practice may change as very good LED (not LCD or Plasma) large screen televisions become popular and prices go down accordingly. Best regards, Lin

Hi Dave, I'm not sure where you got the 273,065 pixel figure. A 1024x768 image produces 786,432 pixels. It can be interpolated to any size, but that's not the point I was making. Actually, my point has nothing to do with 1024x768 "or" 1920x1080. It has to do with the necessity of loosing pixels (image information) in a crop regardless of the actual pixel count for the final display. The point is to "fill" the screen without having a border surrounding the image and without excess image content loss. In order to fill a 16:9 or 16:10 aspect ratio with a 3:2 image capture, you absolutely "must" either loose significant pixels or distort the image. I often display my slideshows at four megapixel resolution (2560x1600) at 8:5 aspect ratio and in the past have displayed them on my own display and for clients at 9.2 megapixels. I don't use projectors - actually, even when displaying for clients I either used a high resolution LCD or CRT display or a large screen television. You are absolutely correct that it's possible to have the entire image displayed on screen, but with a 3:2, or 4:3 aspect ratio original capture, there will be an unwanted black border on the horizontal aspect if one fills the screen vertically, or a major crop in the vertical aspect if one fills the screen horizontally with the native capture. Neither, to me, are desirable outcomes thus the need to "crop" my images. Fortunately, PTE Version 6 allows that without actually affecting the original or without the need to perform the crop outside PTE and have additional saved images. Best regards, Lin

Hi Eric, Congratulations on a successful venture back into slideshow projection. I think your conclusions might be "if it's not broke - don't fix it!" The tried and true works wonders and it's always more comforting to know that our equipment will deliver as expected. I'm perplexed as well about the recent move to wide screen aspect ratios, especially since the vast majority of our cameras, etc., are designed to shoot in either 3:2 or 4:3 mode. Even though the newest dSLR's support capture in wide aspect ratios, it requires "wasting" a good portion of the CCD or CMOS sensor's native capture. I strongly suspect that the move toward 16:9 or 16:10 is a concession to the movie and video industry. Actually, it makes it a bit awkward in my opinion to have to crop those images to be used in slideshows from all my photo archives and shoot wide to accommodate the anticipated need for cropping for future use. Medium formats have traditionally been "square" so the recent fascination with wide definitely seems to come from the movie and video industry which seems to be driving manufacturing these days. Again, congratulations on a successful experience. You'll have to consider serving some strong tea to wake up those few old reprobates who insist on sleeping through your shows! Best regards, Lin

Hi David, You know the old saying about "you can't please everyone" .... The younger generation loves animation, movement, flash, etc.; just look at the success of video games and gaming computers! The older codgers like us have little use for it, but the product absolutely "must" have the ability to please not only those of us on the downhill side of life, but also those who will be the future users of PTE. Also, it's imperative that the capabilities of the product be demonstrated. Virtually "any" presentation slideshow product (even something like FastStone or Irfanview) can do simple slideshows. If that's all it took to sell product, then there would never be a need to go beyond 4.9 and the world would beat a path to PTE... Unfortunately, it takes more... Best regards, Liln

Hi Barry, I suspect that you are a bit out of touch with what is going on in the world of slideshow creation and presentation among the competition. Animation effects, transition effects and 3D are perhaps the most frequently asked for features and additions to not only presentation slideshow software, but even for tools like Photoshop. Even Adobe has even added 3D effects, etc., to Photoshop CS4 extended. If you take the time to seriously inquire into the various forums for competing products, you will learn that people want these special features. Whether or not they add anything of perceived value either to you or in any serious way to a photographic slideshow, they are vital to the success of a presentation slideshow product in today's market. If a developer does not put these features in their presentation slideshow software, that product will fail in today's market. Further, if you don't demonstrate that your product can be used to create these effects, then that product will remain in obscurity in terms of commercial validity. The market success of PTE doesn't rest with us old codgers (that includes you, me, Mark, Ken, etc.), it depends on the ability to capture the imagination and interest of the younger generation. You only have to look around you. Open your eyes and mind and you can't help but realize that from cell phones to television, from digital frames to software, and even the web itself; the future is motion, flash and what you may consider foolish gimmicks. It's what the public wants and what a developer must give them to succeed. Actually, you "can't easily see the Earth rotating around the Sun." It takes a year for the Earth to make a single orbit around the Sun and, of course, during that period the Earth rotates approximately 365 times on its own axis. Even from the space station we can't see the Earth rotating around the Sun. As a matter of fact, no living person has actually ever "seen" the Earth rotate around the Sun. So what we can see are simulations of this natural event made with a variety of software tools, and yes, some of them are very, very good. When you were a child in school, I'm certain that at one time or another you probably visited a planetarium where there were mechanical models of the solar system. They were not very realistic, but they served a purpose. Using software such as PTE to create teaching models of our solar system or even a theoretical model of atomic structure is a valid and useful purpose just as using it to display "your" photographs complete with "artistic" interpretations made with various Photoshop techniques such as craquelure, etc., serve a purpose. No, the simulations I make with PTE do not compare with those made by Hollywood which cost millions of dollars to produce any more than your photographic art resembles a Monet or Rembrandt. Neither are remotely representative of the best possible, but that's not the point, is it? As for the question of where various special effects are used in slideshows? If you are truly interested, I will be very glad to link you to literally hundreds of slideshows where they are used. Because you don't download or see shows where numerous special effects are used speaks only to your personal experience and not to any type of statistical validity. Believe me, they are, whether it is in your experience or not. Personally, I don't believe that some of the effects I and others create with PTE add any particular aesthetic value to a serious photographic slideshow, but once again this wasn't the point of my post. I posted this particular presentation to help people test their video cards so that should they want to use features such as animated OOB, 3D transforms, snow, water, or planetary simulations, they would know whether their systems were up to par. I believe that I made that quite clear in the original post. I created this collection to demonstrate some of the possibilities with PTE which may or may not interest everyone. Choosing to use this thread as a platform to express your personal bias and opinions about the show's content is off-topic and deserves a thread of its own. I notice that you didn't even comment about whether it ran smoothly on your system, or really respond to the original thread, but instead chose to use it as an opportunity to express your opinions about the quality and appropriateness of the content. Why not start your own thread and discuss the proper aesthetics of a presentation slideshow? I think there is a valid place for your point of view, but I don't believe it belongs in this thread. Best regards, Lin

Hi Mark, The nice thing about PTE is that it offers not only the ability to create amazing animations but also the finest image quality and smoothest transitions possible today. From the perspective of animation versus video; it would be very difficult with a video camera to capture the Earth rotating around the Sun or even to travel to places you may have a photo of to capture a waterfall or snow in a winter scene inside a snow-globe, etc. So though there is certainly a place for using a video camera, for some there is also a place for creating animations from still images too. PTE offers the best of both worlds and soon will also offer those who wish to include video in their presentations that option as well. Of course Proshow also allows the creation of a simple slideshow with executable output and simple fade transitions. The only relevant differences in this respect between PTE and Proshow is, in my opinion, the quality of the output. Hardware rendering gives PTE a decided edge in this respect, especially if the highest resolution monitors and displays are being used. It's a bit difficult to see the true advantages of PTE over Proshow and most other presentation slideshow software at 1024x768, but once you've seen both at WQXGA resolution (2560×1600 pixels) the differences are immediate and convincing. So PTE offers you and others who only want a great slideshow with fade transitions and first class image quality the zenith of performance. At the same time it offers those who wish to experiment with animation and special effects a splendid tool for that purpose as well. Best regards, Lin

A while back I created a PTE demo show for testing video cards, etc., which was a 100 meg download. The show contains 3D transforms, OOB (out of bounds) creations, reflections, water animations, snow animations, an unusually animated Panos FX "watch," mask animations, Earth rotating on its own axis around rotating Sun, etc. The show requires sufficient resources to tax less than optimal video cards so I suggested that only those with excellent resources try to run it. So that others can see some of what PTE is capable of, I created an MP4 and uploaded a lower resolution version to Vimeo. Of course it's not nearly as smooth as a Windows or Mac executable, but it is better than I expected on Vimeo. It can be seen here: http://vimeo.com/6844405 Best regards, Lin

Though it is possible to select multiple keyframes, the message above does say" select a keyframe," (not select keyframes) so the intent is not to create multiple keyframes simultaneously. You only see a timeline for one object at a time. The blue "arrow" marker stays when you create a keyframe then select a second object, so you may once again click on the "Create a New Keyframe Here" if you wish to create a keyframe for the second object at the identical time. It probably wouldn't be helpful, or would at least possibly be confusing to most to create multiple keyframes for multiple objects simultaneously, so I'm assuming that you would like the "Create a New Keyframe Here" message to not be available by either being greyed our or invisible when multiple keyframes are selected? The purpose of allowing multiple keyframes to be selected is either for deletion or to copy them as far as I know. Best regards, Lin

Hi, I'm not clear either. On the timeline printed on any Keyframe itself is the absolute time relative to the zero start point of slide one. On the little square marked "keyframe time" found when the Animation tab is selected, is the time relative to the start of the presently selected slide in 1/1000th's of a second. So you have visible at any time both the time relative to the beginning of your slideshow and the time relative to the beginning of the presently selected slide. Best regards, Lin

Hi, What "differences" are you seeing between preview and exe file? There "shouldn't" be any difference because the preview requires creating a temporary exe file which "should" be identical to what you see after the permanent exe is created. There could be a difference between the mini-viewer and exe file depending on certain circumstances but it's really strange to see a difference between the preview and executable. Are you hearing synchronization issues with sound on executables or on AVI, Mpeg II or MP4 between different PC's? Best regards, Lin

Hi Reinhard, Click on the Objects and Animations, select the Properties Tab, then click on the slide in the Objects List. You will then see a tab which says "Adjust Image and Border." Click on this tab and uncheck "Enable Border" on the Border Tab. Best regards, Lin

Hi Peter, The AVI uses a DivX Mpeg 4 Fast Motion video codec. If that codec isn't resident on your Mac, it may not play the video. Unfortunately, I don't know whether that codec is or is not available for certain QuickTime versions for the Mac so perhaps Henri can help you with what he has available. It is apparently available here: http://www.pure-mac.com/video.html#divxcodec Best regards, Lin

Hi Henri, Thanks! It's great to hear that the AVI will play well with Quicktime for Mac! My hat thanks you too! It's a Stetson Crushable Wool type which I wear because the brim is very soft and doesn't interfere with my dSLR's viewfinder when photographing wildlife. We have strong winds in the Colorado mountains and the "chin strap" helps keep my hat from blowing away down the side of a mountain when doing high altitude photography. I button the bottom of the leather strap inside my top shirt or jacket button and even if the wind blows my hat off, it doesn't blow it away - LOL. In earlier years when we still had horses and cattle, it helped keep my head warm and dry even when herding cattle in blizzard conditions. You can order them from Stetson here: Several models available: http://www.stetsonhat.com/collections.php?prod_id=36 Best regards, Lin

Hi Rob, I'm afraid you've run afoul of the issues of a "smart" machine (computer) and "dumb" machine (DVD Player). Executable files can be very interactive in that you have controls such as the keyboard and mouse which send "interrupts" to the operating system which can turn on and off various functions in real time. DVD's and CD's have very little interactive capabilities, primarily because they are "canned" programs. Even when you use a computer and attached DVD player to play a DVD, you can't just send an interrupt via this "canned" type program which will control actions. The bottom line is that if you want to furnish the code to your clients via DVD, to play on a computer, then you don't want to actually create a DVD show, but rather copy the executable show to the DVD and either play it via the "autorun.inf" file or better yet a batch file to copy the slideshow to the user's hard drive and run it from there. This way your client will have complete control over the slideshow via the navigation bar, etc. Unfortunately, there is no way to really control a DVD slideshow which is really nothing more than an executable slideshow converted to a video. So just use some software such as "Copy To DVD" to copy your executable slideshow to DVD or CD media where it can be run as an executable program. Best regards, Lin

Hi Igor, I emailed you examples which show the issue with lowercase "x" in Times New Roman font. Best regards, Lin

Hi Mary, I'm happy to hear that you found it useful. It isn't really detailed, but does explain the basics of the choices and a few things people might want to do with the features. I moved my reflections template and my other one for video simulation under my name here: http://www.picturestoexe.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=10658 Hopefully, this one is good. I can download from it so it seems to work from the above link. Let me know if it doesn't work for you and I'll re-post. Best regards, Lin

Hi Xaver, I just tested the lower case X in beta 16, 15 and 14 and each have the "crooked" small X, but not for the "bold" - only for normal X. I also checked 5.6 and there it looks normal. So "some" characters are not being reproduced faithfully while other are. Very strange. There must be a flaw in the vector math somewhere.... Lin