Lin Evans

Hi Bart, They are amazing big shaggy beasts! We have a fair number in Colorado (where this herd was photographed) but I often spend time in Cimarron, New Mexico where Ted Turner has huge herds and the Boy Scouts have a herd of about 150 or so - I never grow tired of watching them.... Best regards, Lin

LOL - now if they would just give me an advance I might be able to make my next house payment! Best regards, Lin

http://www.learntomakeslideshows.net/sample/wandering.zip or Vimeo: http://vimeo.com/2163505 Lin

Hi Chris, The thing to keep in mind is that any black and white image can serve as a mask. The black portions will become transparent while the white portions will show those portions of the layer under the mask which correspond to the white portions of the mask. To see how this might work, make a monochrome (desaturated) copy of a color image and use that monochrome image to view the color image.... Myriad different types of masks can be created - your imagination is your only limit. Multiple masks can be applied to a single image or one can have multiple images and masks inside a mask container. Chris, here's a pte file to experiment with. Try deleting the image inside the mask, then click on undo and delete one mask, then use undo again and delete the image outside the mask, etc. You will find that as I have presented it you have elements of actually three possible images. You have the image outside the mask as the background, the young lady dancing inside the mask and revealed by the Mask1.jpg then also additional elements revealed by the full white mask. As you delete and undo you will get a feel for how this can work to produce many and varied effects. Notice that I have the opacity of the full "white" mask set to 20% which allows Mask1 to give 100% opacity of the face of the dancer yet blended opacity for the background of her shot. Having the background image outside the mask container allows this to happen. http://www.learntomakeslideshows.net/sample/sample1.zip The best way to learn is to experiment.... Best regards, Lin

Hi, That's not correct (that the music would only play for one slide). If you add music through the Project Options, Music Tab the music will play until it either finishes or the slides finish display. If you add a second or subsequent song they will play in sequence in the same fashion. The only reason they would stop shy of finishing would be if you had opened "cutomize slide" "music" and placed a check mark beside "play new background music file(s)." If you can give details about the nature *mp3, wav, etc.) of the songs you want to play, the length of time in each, then we can explain further about how to either spread the length of the slides to fit the songs or repeat the songs, etc. Best regards, Lin

Hi Peter, What does "intuitive" mean to you? What may seem "intuitive" for some presents a total mystery for others. I agree with Ken and Brian that the majority of issues people complain about have little to do with the interface not being "intuitive" but rather that a majority have to do with jumping into the deep end without flotation devices before learning to swim. Try to understand keyframing as presented by the competition if you want to see a perceived non "intuitive" interface. Try to understand Sony Vegas Video's interface for an enlightening experience with possibly the epitome of non-intuitive. Try to unravel and plumb the depths of Photoshop and layers, etc. There really is no such thing in my experience as software which is particularly "intuitive" but rather individual learning curves associated with different approaches. I believe that after sufficient time with nearly "any" program a user with moderate intelligence and normal computer savy can learn to work with it. It takes time and users need to begin with the simple and work toward the complex - that's why we write user guides, provide PDF and AVI tutorials, etc. Cross-cultural issues and language issues may play a role in how PTE is perceived by various users, but it's not generally useful to attempt to oversimplify complex software by crippling it by trying to oversimplify it for beginners. Just because a function is available doesn't mean one must immediately use it in my opinion. At the basic level PTE is extremely easy to use and understand. Just load images and run a show complete with transitions. If you want to add background music it's very easy to do. People only need to learn a few simple commands to produce beautiful results. With power comes complexity. With great power comes great complexity. As PTE advances in terms of power and flexibility the interface necessarily becomes more complex. I've been using Photoshop since it has been available and I still have much to learn. Is it because the interface isn't "intuitive?" I don't think so. It's because to use it to its full potential one must learn a great deal of new terms, procedures and different approaches to different problems. Likewise I believe with any powerful software. Can there be improvements to PTE's interface? Of course there can, and there have been. Will it be possible to make it fool-proof for those who rush into attempting to do things before they fully understand the interactions? I don't think so...... Best regards, Lin

Do you have an executable of your show? If so the images can be recovered. Lin

Not really. There is no way a single text message can span multiple slides unless those slides are objects with a main slide as the master. You can easily do this with keyframing which is what I "think" you are referring to. Put all slides you want to have the text scroll across in the objects list on the Objects and Animations screen then create your own transitions between these objects. It shouldn't be that difficult to do synchronization to music using the timeline, but perhaps I'm misunderstanding your design? Best regards, Lin

Hi Dave, That's quite normal because fonts are not embedded but are called from the computer the executable is played on. Obviously then if these fonts are not resident Windows will substitute. In a future version of PTE plans are to change this but the present solution is to simply click on the "Rasterize Text to PNG Image" choice in the Properties Tab of the Objects and Animations screen. This creates text then as a graphic and it will be identical on any system. Should you need to alter the text, simply uncheck, make your changes and recheck. Best regards, Lin

Hi Paul, LOL - I wanted to play the sound track last night for our little Halloween Trick or Treaters but we live on a ranch in a very rural area and only had four little neighbor children from two families stop by and they were so young I decided it would not be wise to frighten them. We have enough normal nightime howling from local coyotes, growling dogs, shrieking foxs and lots of glowing eyes from cats, dogs, deer, raccoons, skunks, foxes and the occasional cougar that the little munchkins are already nervous. I was hoping we would have more kids this year but most in our area are now teens and deem themselves much too "mature" to go door to door. Alas, I see five pounds coming from eating left-over Halloween candy.... Yummy... HA! Fortunately, the eye healed up nicely and now rarely gives me any grief. Thanks for asking! It's just a normal aging issue according to my Opthamologist. So now I can see about as well out of either eye and that's a great comfort because for a while It was a real pain. Best regards, Lin

Something new near the start...... just winding down from Halloween - LOL http://www.learntomakeslideshows.net/sample/masks.zip (about 28 meg) and the Vimeo Link for a low res version: http://vimeo.com/2125709 Lin

No, this is not possible. Even with software to decompile the executable code you can't retrieve a project because the project file is only used to program the executable and not saved as a part of the executable code. You "must" save the project file (PTE). Best regards, Lin

Very nice demo Andreas! Beautiful photos and great use of layer masking! Best regards, Lin

The best way to be sure is to try it. In general, there are numerous disadvantages and no real advantages to having greater resolution than that of the projector. The only time you will want greater resolution than that of the projector is if you are doing a deep zoom in where you need to preserve the quality of the subject you are featuring in the zoom. Any time you have a deep zoom you want to zoom no further than about 1:1 so that the object zoomed on does not exceed the size of a 1:1 crop at 100% viewing in your editor such as Photoshop. When you use a projector, the projector will automatically downsample to its native resolution so it takes more resources if you feed it a significantly larger images than necessary. The way most handle this is to create the slideshow at the native resolution of the projector and on only those images which are being used for significant zooms are the images larger than the projector's native zoom. It perhaps helps to remember how an executable show works from the perspective of the computer. Unlike a video show (MP4, MPEG II, AVI, etc.) where there are up to 29.97 images created "and saved" for each second of viewing then saved as separate frames (which makes video files so large), an executable show uses your original photo to create all intermediate photos which make up the zoom or pan. These images are created "on demand" as the executable file instructs the computer. So when you do a zoom or pan up to 60 or more images are created by the computer for each second of show time then discarded. This means that if you feed large images to the projector it will necessarily have to deal with lots of data in a short period while downsampling to reach its native display size. This can overwhelm a projector and result in jerky movement. It's a better use of resources then to only use larger images than the native projected resolution only for cases where it's absolutely necessary to avoid unwanted consequences. Best regards, Lin

Hi Umberto, My guess is he is referring to this: http://www.griffintechnology.com/products/imic And reviews here: http://www.kenstone.net/fcp_homepage/review_imic.html http://www.soundadviceblog.com/?p=430 Best regards, Lin

Download and install the latest version (not beta) of PTE which is 5.52. You will find it as indicated. Just open your PTE file using 5.52 rather than 5.0. Best regards, Lin

Hi Bob, The issue is very likely related to the ability of the laptop to properly render motion because of the video card. Many laptops do not have sufficient video card resources to enable proper smooth movement of pan, zoom and rotate. The next thing I would try is to be absolutely certain that the PNG files containing the hot air balloons are as small as possible in original dimensions. That is, crop all the "checker-board" transparency around the balloons to an absolute minimum then resize the balloon PNG files so that they are only as large as your maximum needed zoom. Of course it's much easier to create these files at full size but it greatly loads the video resources and laptops typically have little reserves in terms of video power. The size of your original jpgs are a bit large for some laptops in terms of RAM and Video RAM but not so much that I would expect to see the video card overloaded. Do the same diagnostic on the laptop and see what type video card and RAM it has available. The Video chipset on your desktop as reported by dxdiag is marginal but sufficient if the video requirements are carefully monitored (I had to actually purchase video cards myself for a couple of my computers which used this on-board Intel chipset). My best guess is that if carefully cropping and resizing the PNG balloon files to get the video loading to a minimum doesn't cure the problem, a different laptop might be necessary to run pan, zoom, rotate on the projector. Best regards, Lin

Hi, Project Options, Main Tab, Click for checkmark next to "Wait for a key press or Mouse Click to show next slide". You can opt for using the Navigation Bar or control via keypad as desired. Note: if you are using Beta 5 of version 5.6 this feature is not yet enabled. If you are using the release version 5.5 it should work normally.... Best regards, Lin

You may be correct about that, I haven't used it myself. Perhaps Brian can comment. After reading several reviews I got the impression it serves both as an external sound card and a filter, audio input and audio line output but my impression may be a wrong interpretation of what I read so better safe than sorry. Here's the review which made me think this serves as a sound card as well: http://www.kenstone.net/fcp_homepage/review_imic.html Brian? Best regards, Lin

Hi Picsel, I believe that what accounts for the difference in what one would "expect" to see in relation to keyframes, non-linear slopes, etc., and the observed reality is the lack of an "anchor" point keyframe at zero time on the timeline for "all" objects. To fully understand how the keyframes are designed to work, the expectation is that each object will have a full timeline beginning with zero time for the individual slide. So to keep things working as expected, do not move or delete the initial keyframe for an object. When you click on any object in the object's list there "should" be a keyframe at the "start" position which is automatically inserted. Though it may be possible to get the desired result without this, it makes it difficult to understand "why" it works or does not work as expected and also upsets the logic. Try doing the sequence again but leaving the default keyframe for all objects at the start of the timeline. I believe this will solve the mystery. As for the reasons for needing to either "glue" or "separate" keyframes rather than have it automatically done such as with linear, the reason has to do with "flexibility". With linear motion across all objects the logic is simple and straight-forward. But when the need is to "mix" linear and non-linear motion, the requirement becomes much more complex. One must specify "when" on the timeline the non-linear motion is to begin and end. In order to do so keframes are inserted at appropriate times for the start and finish times for the non-linear movement. Also the option to "customize" the start and finish curves of the non-linear motion becomes important. The reason for the suggestion to apply these changes to pan zoom and rotate even when perhaps there is only one of these three actually being used is for safety only and to avoid unintended results. Often, especially when using the click and drag to achieve the desired motion effect at a particular point, one inadvertently makes changes to more than one of the three possibilities of pan, zoom or rotate. For example, assume you only want to zoom but you do it by dragging the green bounding rectangle. If you accidentally move the frame only a fraction horizontally from the zero, zero point, then subsequently change from a linear to non-linear motion, if you do not separate keyframes on pan as well as zoom you will not get the expected results. Likewise for rotate. If the frame is even rotated by a degree and non-linear motion is set for pan or zoom the results will be strange if the keframes for rotate are not separated, etc. Since there is no "penalty" for separating keframes for all three possible motions when it's done for one, the suggestion to do it for all three is simply insurance against possible unintended results. Best regards, Lin

Hi Picsel, I believe that what accounts for the difference in what one would "expect" to see in relation to keyframes, non-linear slopes, etc., and the observed reality is the lack of an "anchor" point keyframe at zero time on the timeline for "all" objects. To fully understand how the keyframes are designed to work, the expectation is that each object will have a full timeline beginning with zero time for the individual slide. So to keep things working as expected, do not move or delete the initial keyframe for an object. When you click on any object in the object's list there "should" be a keyframe at the "start" position which is automatically inserted. Though it may be possible to get the desired result without this, it makes it difficult to understand "why" it works or does not work as expected and also upsets the logic. Try doing the sequence again but leaving the default keyframe for all objects at the start of the timeline. I believe this will solve the mystery. Best regards, Lin

Hi Isabel, In the past people have had issues with some anti-virus software such as AVG and I believe one iteration of Kaspersky reporting false positives on PTE executables. In both cases this was reported to the developers and corrected. In the case of AVG it again cropped up and again was solved. It also has happened with AVG with other software so by chance are you using AVG? Best regards, Lin

Hi Daniel, After a quick look - I believe your problem is caused because there needs to be a keyframe at zero time for "each" object. I will investigate further and get back to you later today. Best regards, Lin

Hi Geoff, Laptops are sometimes problematical because anything in the sound circuit chain including drivers and components could affect the proper action. Outside of downloading the latest drivers and testing to see if that helps, the only other logical approach would be to change the sound card. Since sound cards are generally an integral part of a laptop and therefore not replaceable, the next best approach would be to use an external sound card. A while back, Brian suggested people having issues with sound might look into using this: http://www.griffintechnology.com/products/imic This device serves as a USB sound card plus microphone input and has received nothing but rave reviews from users. This "might" be worth purchasing if you don't find another solution... Best regards, Lin

Hi Picsel, If you could create a quick sample and use the "File" "create backup in zip" feature and post the zip file perhaps we can help you with the proper way to set up the non-linear feature which you wish to achieve. In general, you choose smooth, accelerate, etc., then go to "custom" and separate the keyframes which are "glued" by default. This applies the non-linear function to the entire movement for that particular slide. You should do this in practice for each of Pan, Zoom and Rotate because there are often interactions even if not intended. It is possible to separate only certain keyframes in the entire sequence thus applying the non-linear feature to only a portion of the total movement of the object but this can be deceiving and with unintended results until you fully understand how to achieve this. A sample and explanation of what you wish to achieve will help greatly with an explanation. This really has noting to do with "frames" Frames are invisible but real dimensions (like a rectangle with opacity set to zero) the primary use of which is as a "parent" device to control child objects in terms of size, movement, position, etc. By moving or sizing a frame, each child object will mirror this movement or size "unless" you set independent movement or size for the child object. In such case the child will still be affected by the parent frame's motion, size, etc., but also move according to the independent motion you program via keyframe for the child. As an example please look at my AVOI demonstration on Esoteric (advanced) Rotation here: http://www.picturestoexe.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=7901 This will give you an idea of how a parent and child relationship work using rotation in this example. The frame could easily replace the child object and the result would be identical in this example. So a "Frame" is simply a convenience to let you take advantage of parent/child relationships in your animations. It can be used in many different ways as you can imagine. Best regards, Lin