Lin Evans

Hi Bart, You don't want to install "all" the codecs from ACE, only selected ones (this is one of the install options). You can install the Microsoft MPEG 4 and a few others but certainly don't need (or want to install) all of them. The quality of the AVI created will depend on several factors including compression. For a high quality output you really don't want a great deal of compression and you can create the high quality AVI with PTE then import this and mix with your video in Vegas. Best regards, Lin

Hi Peter, That's great that it worked out the way you wanted. Best regards, Lin

Hi Martin, You can use an audio recorder software (inexpensive or free) which picks up the sound signal from the audio card and saves it as a wav then converts to mp3. This is the one I use: http://www.mp3-recorder.biz/ There may be a free one available - check around the web. Unfortunately the Windows recorder (the one which comes with Windows) is limited to about 30 seconds..... Lin

Hi Peter, Link to Sample: Yes, you can do this. I've provided a sample: Essentially, you need to remember that when you rotate something in one direction, you need to "unwind" if you want to rotate the same object in the opposite direction. So if you rotated counterclockwise to the left top and wanted to rotate clockwise to the bottom right you would go from a negative through zero to a positive. Let's say you rotated -1440 for four revolutions of your text to the top left and now you want to rotate to the bottom right four times. So you set your first keypoint (when the text was in the center) to zero rotation. The second keypoint to -1440 and the third keypoint to zero. This "unwinds" from -1440 in a clockwise direction to zero again. If you wanted fewer rotations in the clockwise direction then you would use less than zero or a less negative number but still a negative number. If you wanted greater than four rotations you would use a positive number. So if you wanted five clockwise rotations you would use 360. Play with it a bit and it will become clear. For the text sweeping like a second hand you must move the center from the default point (center of the bounding rectangle as if you were to draw diaginal lines from opposite corners - where they intersect) to the edge where you want the rotation. For example, if you want the text block to go clockwise and rotate on the left edge, click on the green "dot" at the center of the bounding rectangle, hold down the keyboard shift key and drag the dot to the center of the left vertical bounding rectangle border. Do this at the start "AND" at the ending keypoint and set the second keypoint to 360 to sweep the text in a clockwise direction once, etc. Let me know if you need more help: Lin

Hi Isabel, That was a great tribute to a beautiful and obviously "very" intelligent little girl! It's a shame that her life was cut short but her candle burned oh so brightly... Great selection on the music as well. Best regards, Lin

Hi John, Here's a tiny sample of a flag waving. A 12 imag GIF animation was broken down into it's component files then made into small png files and played in PTE at 100ms per image: http://www.lin-evans.net/p2e/flag.zip Lin

Hi Neil, In all probability what you saw in Proshow was an AVI movie clip of a real flag blowing in the breeze. It's possible to use a movie clip with Proshow but PTE doesn't support drop-in movie clips. You could use an inexpensive decompiler to break down a movie clip of a flag blowing in the breeze into individual jpg's and play them sequentially for the same effect. There is no good way to simulate this by altering an entire image but it could easily be done by repeating a simple clip by creating a PNG file where the actual flag portion changed sequentially. Best regards, Lin

Hi B. Trosclair, You not longer have the same feature because of the animation possibility, but it is quite possible to create a manual show either with or without animation and transitions. First you need to use the Navigation bar which can be set to appear with mouse movement or to "hide" after a determined number of seconds, etc. Let's start with a slide show completely manual with no transitions between slides and with no animations. You simply click on the "Pause" button from the Navigation Bar then when it changes from the parallel lines to the arrow you use the forward and/or backward arrow to move completely manually without transitions between slides and without animations between slides. This is a completely manual slideshow much like you would have if using IrfanView, etc. The second way is to set a relatively long time period for the display of each slide. Set something like five minutes (300 seconds, etc.) and simply use the Navigation Bar to move between slides and to move forward or backward. As long as you don't exceed the time you choose while "resting" on a slide, this will essentially work just as with the older method. With this method you have full pan, zoom and rotate ability as well as any transitions you choose between slides. If five minutes as a default isn't enough time choose the equivalent in seconds to 10 minutes or 20, etc. You can also use the spacebar or even a PowerPoint unit designed to advance slides which simulates a PgUp, PgDn, etc., to change your slides if you wish. Just set the appropriate "allow keyboard" commands in the Project Options. Download and read the User Guide from either the Help File in PTE or from the PTE webside on the Tutorials link. Best regards, Lin

Only by using a screen capture tool. There are a number of these available or you can use Shift PrtScr with older Windows versions or PrtScr with newer ones. Best regards, Lin

Hi Michael, IPTC data isn't supported but "some" EXIF data is. Unfortunately I have not been able to get EXIF "Comments" to work. Date and image name work as well at path, etc., but EXIF "comments" doesn't work for me. Perhaps Igor may shed more light on this. Best regards, Lin

Hi Lorie, It's very easy to create an AVI file for use on Youtube. To do this you need to click on Video then on Create AVI file. Next you need to check "create a custom AVI file" then choose an appropriate Codec. Codecs are compress/decompress algorithms which vary on different computers because they are not something which actually "comes with" your operating system but are installed by varios programs which you may have installed. The one most commonly used and which works very well is Microsoft Video Codec 4 which you may or may not have resident on your computer. If you don't have it, you can download free codec "packs" which let you selectively install different codecs. The on I suggest is ACE Mega Codec pack which you can easily find by doing a Google search. You download it, then install the software then it lets you choose the codecs you want to install. You certainly don't need or want to install all of them but just choose the Microsoft Video codec 4 and install it. Once its installed it will show up on the list of codecs you see when you right click on the arrow beside the Video Codecs. Just choose this and remember that for Youtube you don't want the size to be too large because it just takes additional resources and time for them to compress. As Ken suggested, you may want to let them have access to the full sized executable slideshow but remember that if they use a Mac they "may" not have software allowing them to see it. On the other hand the quality would be much better than a small AVI on Youtube. Best regards, Lin

Hi Dave, I don't think Elements has guides - that's the problem. Best regards, Lin

Unfortunately I don't have Elements (maybe someone who uses Elements can help here) but I did check on this with a friend who uses it. Apparently there is no easy way to get an exact position but it probably isn't really all that important. In Photoshop you can quickly create a temporary reference guide line either vertical or horizontal with pixel precision thus making it relatively easy to get precise positioning, but it doesn't appear that Elements has this feature. Normally, extreme precision for this type thing isn't necessary because you can easily move the images to visually approximate what you want. But if you want to get it exact here's how you can proceed. Tape a couple pieces of string diagonally across your monitor from the corners of the image to find dead center. Next draw your rectangle with the Rectangular Marquee (you can move it about on the screen) and find dead center on it. Use a similar technique to find center of the rectangle and move them to coincide. I think you can click on Edit, then Preferences, then Units and Rulers also Grid and set these to pixels so you can also probably find the centers that way by simply using the Info Window and dragging. So divide 1024 by two and 768 by two then find the junction of 512 horizontal and 382 vertical. Truthfully, if you just eyball it you will probably do about as well. Best regards, Lin

As Al demonstrates, there are numerous ways to approach this. If you are in a hurry you can use multiple rectangles to mask areas of the screen and if you want to take some time you can make up dozens or even hundreds of PNG masks and save them for future use. Remember, if you use Photoshop you are not limited to just a rectangle or a square but can set brushes to nearly any custom shape and use that shape to "cut" out your transparent area with the eraser tool. Here's a 15 second quickie cut out using a star brush from a blue overlay on a transparency. Just a sample of how you could get creative with this. Also you can have less that 100% opacity on your masks by varying the opacity of the eraser so you can achieve etherial effects if desired.... http://www.lin-evans.net/p2e/smallmaskdemo.zip Best regards, Lin

Hi Peter, Of course you can do this. Actually it's not difficult. What you need is called "masking". A "mask" is a file you create using any photo editor which can create a transparency. I'll use Photoshop as an example but you could use any of a number of different programs including the very inexpensive PixBuilder Studio available right here at Wnsoft. In Photoshop, you click on "File, New" and open a file with the attribute "transparent". You want to the size to be sufficient to cover the entire screen so whatever the resolution of your display in pixels would be sufficient. For example, if you are displaying at 1024x768 then make this file that size, etc. Next paint this transparency with black using the Photoshop paint bucket. Next use the Rectangular Marquee tool to select a rectangular area on this black image the size and shape you want your photo to animate within then press the "Del" (delete) key or use the Eraser tool to remove this portion of the black revealing the transparency layer beneath. What you will now see is a black screen with a "cross-hatch" pattern representing the transparent portion in the shape you have chosen. Save this file as a PNG file. Use a name such as "mask1.png". Open PTE and place this mask as the top layer object in the O&A object list with the photo you want to animate on the layer just beneath. The photo will show through the transparent "window" and you may enlarge, zoom, pan, whatever you photo and the areas which fall outside the "window" will be "masked" or hidden from view. The end result is that you can do exactly what you are trying to achieve with this simple mask. It's possible to use several masks on different layers to achieve different effects thus simultaneously have several photos doing different animations simultaneously each showing through a mask. Also you may want to surround the transparent "window" with a white border to dress up your mask. You may want to look at some masks theDom has on his site which you may download and use. Here is a quick sample mask I made for you to play with: http://www.lin-evans.net/p2e/masksample.png Best regards, Lin

Hi Howard, I can't say either whether older Minolta lenses will or won't work with the Sony. Your best bet would be to ask on a forum like dPReview: http://www.dpreview.com As for lenses - for best results a fast 2.8 as suggested would be great and a range such as 70-200 along with a 1.4x tele converter might be ideal but no doubt expensive. Because Minolta lenses are very expensive, if price is a major consideration I would have a long look at perhaps the Sigma 70-300 F3.5-5.6 APO which is not an expensive lens but works "very" well according to all reports with the Sony Alpha 700. While a stabilized lens is wonderful for shooting subjects which are still or relatively still, for fast sports, etc., it's not such an advantage as a faster lens, but because of the excellent high ISO capabilities of the cameras I think you can depend on decent shots even with a 5.6. Because of the 1.5x crop your field of view at full 300mm will be as a 450mm with full sampling resolution so other than depth of field and other optical characteristics of a true 300mm optical focal length, you will essentially get the effective magnification of a 450mm lens on a full 35mm platform sensor. If you find that the Minolta lenses which you have won't work with the Sony Alpha, then also look at the Canon 40D which is a wonderful 10 megapixel camera. It doesn't have the stabilized body, but there is a large assortment of stabilized lenses available for it and it has perhaps even better high ISO performance than the Sony. Of course the real cat's meow, will be the Nikon D300 coming in November which with a battery pack/vertical grip added will shoot at 9 frames per second at 12 megapixels. It's a dandy with incredible autofocus and such. Of course it will cost about $1800 U.S. dollars for the body but there are now a pretty good assortment of VR (vibration reduction - Nikon's name for stabilized lenses) lense for it. The high ISO performance on it "should" be even better than either Sony or Canon. Going completely wild would be the new Nikon full frame D3 which will have incredible high ISO (up to ISO 25,600 but this body due out in November is $5000 but worth every penny. My suggestion for the Sony was predicated on the potential for using your Minolta lenses, but if you can't use them (ask on dPReview Sony dSLR forum) then there are certainly more choices even to include the Olympus e510 which is by all reports a dandy little dSLR. Best regards, Lin

Absolutely! The new Sony Alpha 700 will work with Minolta lenses, has 12 megapixel resolution, incredible high ISO performance and is within your price budget. The Alpha 700 is presently available only through Sony stores but will be at all stores in November. It's a dynamite dSLR, perhaps one of the very best available - I'm buying one myself and I have over 30 digital cameras including Nikon (D2Xs), Canon (D30, 10D, 1D, 1DS, 1D Mark II), Kodak (DCS-760), and Sigma (SD10, SD14) dSLR's. This new Sony is a winner in every way and will be an excellent camera for your grandchildren's sports and for low light photography. Best regards, Lin

The important thing is knowing that it works properly in the executable file. If it's working properly there and you are certain, then the issue is one of proper rendering by the codec. Rather than try different codecs, use the Microsoft Video 4 codec and begin by testing with a rewritable DVD so you don't waste media. Break the show down to test into not large than 200 image increments. Try the first 200 and see if any frames are dropped. Try the second 200, etc. and see if there is a particular place where the problem is happening. Lin

Are they all displayed in the executable file? It may be that your hardware can't keep up with the fast display speed at the size image you are using? Lin

Two things: first, it would be better for conservation of resources to convert the wav to mp3 so go ahead and download and install the free Audacity program. Simply open the file in Audacity and export as an MP3. In PTE, you need to go to the timeline (you can do this before you convert to mp3 to test it) from the main screen. Simply check "synchronize music and slides" AND "auto spread slides along music". That's all there is to it. Also - download and read the users guide from the Tutorials section.... Best regards, Lin