Lin Evans

You didn't really have a misunderstanding. Let me try to be more explicit. The amount of RAM used does indeed depend on the number of pixels. If you look at uncompressed tiff files, there is a direct proportional relationship between the number of pixels constituting the file and the size of the file in bytes. So cropping out the arch is by far the most important thing. With jpeg, the less "detail" in the image, the higher it will "compress" but as you correctly assume, the absolute file size determines the RAM requirements. For example, if you take two identical image captures of fairly detailed subject matter then apply noise reduction to one and not to the other, the jpg with noise reduction applied will have a smaller compressed file size than the one with the additional "detail" i.e., noise. But when they expand into memory, each will have identical RAM requirements. So making the area pure black around the cropped arch will only actually reduce the jpg compressed file size rather than actual load size. I was not clear at all when I posted that making the full sized image have a pure black would affect file size. What I meant is that the JPG file size would be smaller because pure black compressed easier than whatever latent detail may be in the non-pure black background. Making it pure black only facilitates the blend or "match" between the dark portion of the LCD or CRT and the image. Your original understanding is absolutely correct about the "true" file size after expansion into memory. Only the file size of the compressed jpg is different depending on the nature of the components of the image itself and only because of compressibility. Best regards, Lin

Hi Andrew, Looks great! I think that having essentially infinity focus (or at least identical DOF) is definitely key to getting this to work smoothly. That's why on my Kachina example the last three transitions were not detectable while the first five were obvious. By using Helicon Focus to create the large DOF macro and having no distracting visible DOF changes between the last three slides things work much better. That's a great example. Now if you could get a chance to use a Sigma 300-800m with a 2X teleconverter to go with that 400mm starter imagine how the additional focal length would add to the dynamics - LOL. Best regards, Lin

Hi Dave, Yes, it's an ongoing process. The Joint Photographic Experts Group committee meets a minimum of three times per year to discuss still image compression standards and establish protocol, etc. Just where they are at any given time is tough to say unless one is a member (I'm not) and stays current with what's happening. I'm not certain when the last iteration of "standards" were adopted, but perhaps Adobe wasn't following them at the time Photoshop 7 was introduced or even more likely there have been changes which would be reflected in the latest libraries such as used in PTE. Here's a link for more info: http://www.jpeg.org/jpeg/jpegls.html Best regards, Lin

Hi Dave, Since the original post didn't specify "how" the images were changed to B&W I only tried desaturate in Photoshop 7 which doesn't actually affect the RGB status. Choosing "mode" does affect RGB and that creates a file in PS7 not compatible with present jpg protocol standards. This is not surprising, but what is important is that it's an easy fix and also that it should be made a known caveat in case PTE users have Photoshop 7 as their image editor. Thanks for pointing out the issue. Best regards, Lin

Hi Al, Yes, that's why my original suggestion to make the black 000,000,000 to match the completely dark CRT or LCD without having the excess dimension. Best regards, Lin

Hi Al, It's relative, I suppose, but there will be a significant file size difference. Whether that difference is sufficient to help depends on the amount of overload. As an example, here is a photo of the moon, surrounded by a black sky - then a crop of the moon from the original. A pure "black" sky doesn't have much in the way of detail so compresses really well, but the actual dimensions of the expanded files in memory are still quite different. In the case of the arch, the savings wouldn't be as significant because the arch probably occupies about double the area of the moon in my sample, but in this case the moon surrounded by the black sky is 513K when virtually uncompressed with Photoshop level 12 while the cropped moon is 148 K. With that ratio I would assume that cropping the arch and removing all the extra black would result in at least a savings of half the file size. http://www.lin-evans.net/pte/moon.zip Best regards, Lin

Hi Gareth, One easy solution to greatly reduce the loading on the laptop video card would be to just crop out the arch into the minimal rectangle of black around it. This black would be identical to the "dark" LCD or CRT monitor so no need for the additional black and the "padding" on the sides. If you have a different shade of black, just change it in Photoshop or your choice of editor to 000,000,000 to match zero light on the monitor. Unless you are playing it with a different colored background on the PC, it should greatly reduce the size of the file so that you would be zooming into the larger image but saving a great deal of file size for the arch photo. Best regards, Lin

Hi Igor, I just repeated his process in Photoshop 7 without any problems. I suspect that the issue was with one of the files. My workflow was open a color image in photoshop 7, desaturate, adjust contrast and brightness on the desaturated image, save the desaturated image under a different filename, open filters, choose sketch, choose "photocopy" desaturate the photocopy which for whatever reason picked up color from the desaturated image, save the sketch. load sketch, desaturated then color image in PTE and apply fade to each. No problem. Perhaps he could load one file at a time and see if which one is a problem then possibly recreate the process using different file names. No problem with my Photoshop 7 and this. Lin

Hi Dave, I did mine with CS but I do have PS7 so I can try it and see if it makes a difference. Lin

Hi KG, There's something wrong with one of your files, it's not a bug. I just duplicated this procedure and it works perfectly. Try renaming the B&W file to bw (drop the ampersand) and loose the _ on the color_cropped.jpg and see if that helps. Here's a sample. http://www.lin-evans.net/pte/yotes.zip Best regards, Lin

Hi Al, Excellent tip! Just a clarification. The "text" must be a png or "rasterized to PNG" or you won't get the "mode" indication. That is if you just choose "add text" you can't see the "mode" choice when highlighting the child "text". Best regards, Lin

Project Options, Music Tab, uncheck "Repeat Music After Playing" then create executable once again. Lin

Hi Al, I should have looked first! LOL. I guess then there is no easy way around just manually adjusting each keypoint. I would guess that if he has used any non-linear animations that he would also have to switch them back to linear first, then make the keypoint changes and finally set the non-linar back by separating keypoints once again. Best regards, Lin

Hi Dave, My suggestion would be to first save the entire PTE under a different name so you have a duplicate to play with. Next download Al's spreadsheet and use that to make the necessary changes to the keypoints. Best regards, Lin

Hi Bob, The DVD has 4.7 gigabytes of space. The message you received sounds like you ran out of hard-disk room instead. Either your working hard disk space is extremely limited or perhaps something with space allotment. It's doubtful that you did anything "wrong'. Have you successfully burned DVD's in the past on this system? Best regards, Lin

Hi Paul, You can do it that way, or just type in the link in the text like this: http://www.lin-evans.net When I typed the above it was just "text" but the board recognizes it as a URL because of the http:// followed by the www.whatever. If you want an image to appear without the user clicking on the link, then you need some additional code. The easiest way is to click on the small icon in the line with the "bold" "italics" "underscore", etc., it's the little one between the email and insert link above. Then type the address in the block which pops up complete with the filename and extension. Best regards, Lin

Hi Albert, Thanks very much for testing this - I think this is the first time this one was tested on Vista as I recall. Best regards, Lin

Hi Andrew, Here is the PTE for the best I've been able to achieve using the aforementioned techniques. See my answer to Al for details. My new link Best regards. Lin

Hi Al, Indeed - an interesting one! The transition and timings seem to be key, but even with precise settings the effect is only "near" perfect. Something seems to be missing. Here is the best I could come up with. I used the same image here three times. The smoothness as in a continuous motion was best obtained by using a 1000 (1 second) transition but pulling the ending keypoint on the first slide back to the start of the transition. The second slide starting point was pushed into and slightly past the keypoint end on the timeline for slide one. The "curve" was altered on the non-linear transition smooth to give a six percent rise rather than the twenty percent default and "perspective correction" was set on. One way of achieving the imperceptible transition from slide to slide is to stop the zoom as with the transition between slides two and three. This is about as good as I've been able to achieve. One thing which will make doing this on a panorama quite different and "better" I think is that all areas of the pano will be in full depth of field focus. In my Kachina sample, the limited DOF on extreme macros makes the transitions from slide to slide much more obvious as the slides differ greatly depending on whether I was using a wide angle (great DOF) or macro lens. In fact to get "sufficient" DOF on the final slides I had to combine nine different photos into one with each photo having a different area of the Kachina in focus via Helicon Focus. So, the bottom line is that this technique, in so far as imperceptible changes from slide to slide, is better accomplished where there is infinite DOF. Of course for panoramas which were taken primarily at infinity focus this will present less of a problem. http://www.lin-evans.net/pte/infinite.zip Best regards, Lin

At the transition points, the way to avoid this is to use linear zoom and pull the slide two Pull the start point for slide two into the ending point for slide one and with linear the continuation is smooth but you have to also adjust the size for slide two to compensate for the shift point. This leaves only the starting and final slides where you need or might want to use smooth and you get around this issue by duplicating the starting and ending slide. Put duplicate slides for number one and set the smooth on the first and linear on the second so you are continuing your initial zoom into slide two. I won't be able to post a sample of this tonight but tomorrow I should have, hopefully, a working example. I have to test this with PTE but I've been doing this with PSG for years so I "think" it should be possible with P2E. Of course there is a slight differene in that PSG has transitions which allow this smooth continuation. That is they have a Fade in and a Fade out as separate transitions where PTE has a "Fade-in/Fade out. This "may" present a problem unless the manual adjustment of the smoothing line and timing can compensate. The issue is that we need a continuation in the zoom during the brief transition time between end of zoom and start of zoom for the respective slides. The only way I know to avoid this apparent "jerk" is to begin slide two while slide one is still zooming but to diminish slide one with possibly an opacity shift at the end of its zoom. More testing will be necessary. Best regards, Lin

Hi Al, Except there are no "objects" other than the slide itself. The thing I'm trying to line up are better described as a "subject" in photo 2 which is the same subject as in photo 1 but taken from either a different focal length or a different position and reduced in size at the start of the second photo by zooming out. This allows a greater zoom level on photo 2 than on photo 1. This progression then continues until the final slide. It's easy enough to copy slide two to slide one, set the opacities in such a way as to line them up then write down the pan and zoom numbers for the temporary "object" (slide two) then exit PTE without saving, open the PTE file back up, go to slide two, click on the first keypoint and insert the numbers from the ending keypoint of the temporary slide two which matches the perfect fit from slide one. It's easy, but very time consuming. Having a very precise, thin line grid with numeric references could greatly speed up the process. The reason for not using the subject matter as a PNG object is that where I'm going with this is for zooming in on panoramas such as the Cliff Palace example posted earlier. This means to perform a really tight zoom, I would create multiple photos of areas of interest using long focal lengths then seamlessly "patch" them in for tight zooms to see ultimate detail, then switch back seamlessly to the panorama when the zoom out reaches the point where the black monitor borders would appear should the zoom out go further. If you look into Zoomify, you see that what it does is take a giant file and break it down into file segments. This could be 20 or so for a rather small panorama or as many as 5,000 or more for something like the 13 gigapixel pano of Harlem. Then as the viewer zooms in or out, these smaller files are switched in and out to allow an infinite zoom (to the limits of the focal length of the original frames). With Zoomify there is an "out-of-focus" period (very short) where they hide the switch process. Microsoft has a beta version of a very similar process except it's very smooth without the obvious out-of-focus period. I'm not certain how they do this. Microsoft uses some 1.4 gigabyte examples, but have nothing nearly as impressive in terms of file size as the Harlem example done with Zoomify. I don't think this would be too difficult to do with PTE. It would take some time to do a really impressive example because of the necessity to match the zoom very carefully. But the nice thing about it is that for the panorama examples there wouldn't be the obvious changes as in my Kachina example because the number of frames used for the panorama would be masking the changes. That is one would already be zoomed in to the 100% point for the original before dropping in a "patch" frame for the increased detail capabilities. I wasn't able to do an example outside because we have had 100+ mph winds and I couldn't keep the tripod locked down - LOL. Perhaps next week I can get some real samples to work with. It's necessary to very carefully match photos for this so that the perspective doesn't shift which would make it difficult to do. With my kachina samples I had already done a detailed macro several months ago and just did some quick handheld tabletop photos of the same subject from "approximately" the same position to play with. Ultimately its not nearly as accurate as I would like. Best regards, Lin

Hi Andrew, Because they are on different slides and there is no way to display them simultaneously. The ending size for the object on slide one must precisely match the beginning size of the object on slide two. It can't be close but must be absolutely identical or there will be a percepitble "jerk" when the zoom begins on the second slide. A precision grid is absolutely essential to do this. If one were using the identical image on two slides then it would be easy to match the zoom and pan numbers, or if there were a way to visually do it as you suggest, but having both objects on the same slide defeats the purpose of conservation of video RAM and would be, for all practical purposes the same as just having one huge file. It's possible to copy slide two as an object on slide one, line them up visually with each set to limited opacity, write down the numbers from the objects and animations blocks for object two, delete object two and copy the numbers from the match into slide two but tha'ts a lot of extra steps and it would be much quicker to have a pop-up grid with very fine lines and reference numbers. Best regards, Lin

Hi Fred, Thanks! Actually, I would have loved to not have to use some fade transitions in the earlier slide transitions, but I just didn't have anything with sufficient precision to match up the tiny subjects from slide end to next slide beginning. But as I told Ken, I'm satisfied after the test that it's indeed 'possible" to do this type thing. There were a few completely undetectable transitions on some of the later slides which were large enough for me to "fudge" the subject into proper alignment. Al Robbins earlier produced a very nice grid, but for doing this correctly we need something resident in the program so we don't have to load and unload a PNG grid. I made one earlier as well, but it doesn't have nearly the precision needed. Best regards, Lin