Lin Evans

I've always found it necessary to have both lines. I don't know the inside information on why of this, but I think best to leave the icon line even if you don't have an icon. What works well for me is: (by the way it's a zero after the comma) open=menu.exe icon=menu.exe,0 for running an executable without an icon. Best regards, Lin

You need a menu which comes up with the autorun and which has links to run each slideshow which the user chooses by clicking on one of the buttons. You "can" easily do this with PicturesToExe by creating or using an image you already have then creating buttons from the Object menu and assigning each to run a particular executable. You save the menu as an executable, call the menu with autorun.inf just like you would a slideshow. An easier and perhaps quicker way if you are desperate and in a hurry is to download Granot's MultiShow Player which automates this process. Go to his site (Link Below) and download the MultiPlayer program. Here's the Link: http://www.thailandphotoalbum.com/ Lin

Hi Dennis, No, that's not a feature with PicturesToExe. You can do that with some of the Windows Freeware distributed programs such as Photo Story 3 by Microsoft - but you have no control over substantive issues with the program. None of the really decent professional grade slideshow programs with Ken Burns Effects have auto pan, zoom, etc. Best regards, Lin

Hi Harvey, I don't think there is really a practical limit with the program but more a limit with the video card and amount of RAM on the card the show is being played on. I'm testing some really large files with a Radeon 9800 Pro which is a decent video card with plenty of memory. I'll get back with the results soon. Best regards, Lin

Hey Ron, Let's start with the zoom. To zoom the opposite way you need to begin by being zoomed in. I know, this sounds strange but bear with me. Let's work with only a single image. Open a new project and go to the "Objects and Animations" immediately. Next click on the "Percentage" tab up at the top next to the right of "Paste" (delete, undo, right arrow, copy, paste, etc). Set a very low percentage so you can see what's going on with the whole image then set the cursor over one of the little "handles" on the green rectangle surrounding the image, hold down the left mouse key and drag the rectangle (make it - the rectangle larger) which zooms in on the picture. The portion of the picture which is grayed out won't be seen on your screen when you "play" the show. When you have it zoomed as much as you wish then click inside the rectangle and hold the left mouse button down and drag the rectangle left, right, up, down and watch the image. when you have the image positioned as you want to start your frame (zoomed in and centered on your subject) then go back to the timeline and click and set a keypoint somewhere right of the "zero" keypoint. With the new keypoint actuated (blue instead of grey) again click and hold one of the "handles" on the green rectangle and drag the box to the degree and position you want your zoom out to be. This is the "quick" way to get in the rough position you want in the "zoom" out rather than "zoom in" Change the time for the slide in seconds for as long as you want that particular slide to remain on the screen then click on the "flag" of the keypoint you just created (not the zero keypoint) and drag the keypoint right or left to the number of seconds or portions of seconds you wish. The larger the time between the zero keypoint and the one you created, the slower the "action" of zooming. This same situation applies to your second question which is actually a derivative of the first in that you "begin" by dragging your pano with the box to the end you wish to begin the "action" of scrolling BEFORE you create your first keypoint. Think of the zero keypoint as the start of "time" and any successive keypoints you create to the right of this default as something later than the beginning. The further to the right you drag the keypoints the "later" things happen (I know this is really fundamental, but once this is embedded in our thinking things become much easier). Now if you should drag the default or "zero" keypoint to the right then think of the space you leave behind as "before the beginning of time" - think of it in the biblical sense - LOL - before time began there was "darkness," etc. So if you have more than one slide and you drag the zero default to the right of zero time, you will insert "darkness" before the next slide in the progression. Should you drag the zero keypoint flag to the right of the second one, you "reverse" the effect and you are back to zooming in. So the reasoning is that where you set a zoom or a pan "BEFORE" you create a keypoint yourself (remember, this zero keypoint is created by default) is where your slide "begins" in terms of appearance. If you do nothing it will begin with the entire slide zoomed to the a default complete with black borders, etc. (assuming it's not a perfect fit to the aspect ratio of your screen). Any position you set by dragging or moving the frame with the little handles or by changing numbers in the animation tabs before you create "YOUR" first keypoint will reflect the starting position of your frame in the slide. Now let's look at the "title," etc. To make a title or whatever independent of the image itself, it must be a separate file. You must not use the old way of creating text for this but create a transparent PNG file (check my previous thread about how to do this). Once you have your text (title.png) file created, you right right click your mouse, choose "add" then "image, browse to find the png file you have created and click on it then "open". This will bring your "title" image on the screen. Treat it just like a separate file with it's own timeline. When it is "selected" (it is selected by default when you "open" it) then size it and move it to the position you wish it to occupy when your slide opens. This is where it will be "when time begins" Next create a Keypoint and move and size and set transparency to suit the way you want it to respond. If transparency is set to zero at the start (the zero keypoint) you won't be able to see the text (so start with 100% until you get the title positioned then change the transparency to fade it in, etc.). If you want it to fade out then create a new keypoint at the time you want this "action" to occur and assign the percentage of opacity (transparency) at that point. Depending on the number of keypoints you create and the amounts of opacity you set for this slide at any given keypoint (time) you can make it fade in, fade out, scroll up, down, sideways diagonally, spin (rotate), etc. How many degrees you set on rotation (this can be any degree) is reflected in how the title text "behaves". If you set 360 degrees of rotation it will rotate clockwise 360 degrees. If you set minus 360 (-360) it will rotate counterclockwise 360 degrees. If you set 720 degrees it will rotate twice. You can set any number of degrees to make it rotate numerous times left or right. You can change the size (zoom) between keypoints and while it rotates it also gets larger or smaller. You can change the position, etc. If you set the keypoints between the zero start position and the keypoint you create closer together, it will naturally rotate faster since you have constrained the action within a shorter time period. If you set the keypoints (time) further apart it will rotate slower, etc. Let me know if you get stuck with an issue. The most important thing you can do is simply experiment. Remember to "preview" as well as "play" the single slide because with preview you will "see the darkness" LOL - "Dotage??" Dude, you're not getting older, you're getting better!! In my years teaching in the university, I began to realize that we are not all "wired" exactly the same way. I had some students who would grasp a particular concept immediately while others struggled. The same stuggling students would immediately apprehend a different concept while those who understood the former would, in turn, struggle. I suspect it has to do with right/left brain thinking. But no matter, if you simply "Play" with a single slide suddenly the "light" comes on and you begin thinking in different ways. Remember what I said in my original post about "everything happens between the keypoints". Sometimes it doesn't work like you "think" is should. Then you begin to carefully think through what is happening and again you have an "Ah HA!" moment - May the Force be With You......... Best regards, Lin

Ah, my friend it doesn't quite work like that. Part of the power of Beta 5 is the ability to use special images and text, not just any image. If all you want is zoom, pan, rotate and scroll then any old image will do, but then there is no "secret" to making these effects. On the other hand if you want 3D effects, scrolling, spinning text, etc., it takes PNG transparencies some of which take a good bit of time to prepare and not just "any" will do because placement. size, shape and timing are all important. In short it would be more work to try and avoid distributing the original images than it took to create them in the first place. That's why I suggested a private, password protected section of the forum where we can freely exchange links to the entire process and avoid making them available to the general public. As I said, I have no reservations about giving away my images, special PNG creations and explanations to anyone who purchases P2E and want them but I'm not willing to put out links to my files for public distribution. I did that in the past with some images which had rather universal appeal and I had to shut down my site because the costs of going over my 50 gigabyte per month transfer allocations were tremendous. It wouldn't take a great deal to set up a password protected section of the forum where the downloads would be limited to forum members and out of reach of those with no connection to PicturesToExe or who purposely detract from this product on other forums. Believe it or not there are a sizeable number of these (I'm not paronoid - I've been down that road). Best regards, Lin

One problem with doing that is that this is a "public" forum and though I have no problems with either distributing the images I use in my demos to P2E forum members or making detailed instructions on how to achieve similar or same effects, I'm quite unwilling to give them to the public. There are perhaps two solutions. First we could email them (in some cases - depending on size of files) to those who ask, but better yet would be if Igor (when he returns - I "HOPE" he's enjoying the two day holiday) would create a private forum for P2E owners only and make it accessible only by password. As a professional photographer, I don't want my full resolution images available to anyone who stops by the forum and picks up a download link from my site. Also some of the file sizes when the images are included as separate from the executable code put a strain on the old pocketbook when one's file transfer limits are exceeded on my hosting site. Having these available to the public at large is inviting financial disaster; it's happened to me in the past so I'm a bit sensitive to it. I think a private forum with password access granted by Igor and distributed to the mailing list via email once a month or so might be the solution. Then we can actually provide detailed instructions on how to do this and all P2E owners would benefit without giving "free lessons" to the world at large - LOL Best regards, Lin

Excellent, Ian! Doesn't NASA wish that the Roman's had Clydesdales? LOL Best reards, Lin

For those who have downloaded and looked at my little demo "hidebehind.exe" - if you want to see some interesting changes to achieve 3D effect, download and run it again. about 12 megabytes... http://www.lin-evans.net/p2e/hidebehind.zip Best regards, Lin

Wow Ken! That's quite a collection! I had a new broadband system installed today and am back on line. I added sound effects to the little show and some background music & additional text effects. Best regards, Lin

I'll tell you two ways I do it with PhotoShop. There "may" be easier or better ways, but this works for me. Method 1: (I prefer this way myself) Open the file you want to make a portion of transparent and use PhotoShop's "Image" "Image Size" to check the actual file dimensions. For this example assume you have a file size of 1600 x 1200 (2 megapixel). Click on "File" then "New" set the size in pixels to match your image (in this case that would be 1600x1200) and set the background to "transparent" The image you see on your screen should be a "checkerboard" of small diagonal appearing grey and off white rectangles. If you see a solid color then go back and be certain you have the background set to "transparent" Next click on "Select" then on "All" and you will see the "marching ants" selection around the entire image. Next click on "Edit" then on "Copy" This puts your transparent background on the clipboard ready to use in the following step. Now close this file because we are through with it. Next click on "Edit" and then "Paste". Your original file will be now on a layer below the transparency. Finally, select the "History Brush" and set the opacity to 100% and begin to paint and reveal your underlying image. Go beyond the borders a bit on the areas you want to be opaque then when you have revealed all the important detail use the clone tool to clone the "checkerboard" up close to your boundaries. Remember you are actually "painting" the transparency when you clone the checkerboard areas. Save as a PNG file. Method 2: Use one of the select tools to cut out the subject or use a 3rd party masking tool. Copy the selection by using "Edit" "Copy" then use "Paste" to place it over the transparency rectangle you create with PhotoShop in the manner described above. Clone the transparency up against any edges which are not quite right and when you are finished crop away any unnecessary excessive file size (any areas you can get rid of which are only the checkerboard then save the file as a PNG. The problem with this way is that it's rare to get a really great selection unless you go wide and "rough" - in other words make a rough cutout with the selection tool and the clone the transparency up close. There is little difference - both methods require some manual labor to get it right but my personal preference is the former. Best regards, Lin

Hi Robert, I made a little sample of this for you (couple thread up here) and it worked fine. I didn't take out the background and use transparent PNG's just put a couple jpgs in to test the theory. Of course you're absolutely right about the over use of effects. They can be delightful with done with taste and garish when they take the place of the actual purpose of the show. I lost my broadband earlier today and had to quickly sign up on Earthlink for dial up (24 k) and I can't upload or download any data. I'm going to replace my wireless broadband provider tomorrow I hope, but for now I'm stuck at the relative speed of a tortoise - LOL. Best regards, Lin

Hey Ken, Looks good - I'm going to have a good look tomorrow. My broadband died tonight and I've spent the last three hours trying to get it back. I finally gave up and signed up with Earthlink on a dial-up so I could have an alternative but won't be able to transfer any data because I'm only connecting at about 26.6 - LOL. Tomorrow I've got to shop for a new broadband provider. I've been having nothing but problems with my current one for the last year and this is the last straw ......... Best regards, Lin

LOL - I've got to find some aircraft sounds and add them - Just messing around experimenting... Best, Lin

Zip with 10 meg executable..... Updated with sound effects, etc... http://www.lin-evans.net/p2e/hidebehind.zip Lin

Robert, I created a little sample of what I believe you were asking for. This sample is a two slide example with two additional smaller slides set to slightly different transparencies. The transparencies can be consistent or can change as you need over the progress of their motion. You only need to set additional keypoints should you want them to become opaque for a short period or even totally transparent as if they were passing "behind" some barrier. For example you might have a tree or a boulder or house or something and could make the moving slide completely transparent during the time it passed the obstacle which would have the effect of making it look like it passed "behind" the obstacle. In this example I have some mountain vegetation at 14,200 feet elevation and a couple small images of Rocky Mountain Goat Kids. One passes from left to right at the top of the screen and continues it's course on the following slide. I only used two slides, but it would be just as easy to continue this for any portion of the slide show. The second image of the goat kids passes from right to left at the bottom of the screen and continues the motion across the next slide. I think this was the effect you asked about. There really is very little you "can't" do with this program. It's a "nuts and bolts" approach which gives the user lots of low level control. Let me know if this was what you had in mind. Link below http://www.lin-evans.net/p2e/doublemovement.zip Best regards, Lin

Hey Ken, LOL - mine too - but I'm not sure how "valuable" my time is any more except for the first time in my 64 years I'm begining to worry about being on the "downhill" side... I've been trying to retire for the last couple years - tired of shooting product and art and would like to spend more time shooting wildlife and nature but my Wife was unemployed for the last 27 months and I had to go back to work - HA! Now she's found a nice new Director position with a high tech company but works "remote" so we now share an office. Maybe I can start thinking about retirement again and she can have the office to herself - LOL.. Best regards, Lin

Beautiful images and great aesthetics too! Too bad you are leaving such a beautiful area - where to? Best regards, Lin

Hi Igor, I ran it about 20 times alternating between 30 and 60 seconds - no memory leak or any other errors reported. Best regards, Lin

Thanks Ken - excellent way to do this with PSP for sure - I'll go back and explain the drop shadow, etc. with PhotoShop which does indeed add to the finished appearance. Best regards, Lin

Hi Robert, I think you might do this by loading the individual slide with it's animations on each successive frame. There is a copy/paste capability with p2E, also a Keypoint copy, and though I've not attempted to do what you describe maybe if I get some time tomorrow I'll give it a shot. The transparency is no problem because you can control the opacity of any object and change it across real time. I've not had time to totally digest the possibilities yet and there are a few "features" which have not yet been implemented. The only down side I see with having to do this on a "repeat" basis is that the position of the moving objects when the transitions happen would need to be synchronized so that the object moving across the plane of each slide appears to stay in the same relative position or the position it "would" have been in considering the trajectory and speed had the previous slide still been playing. ProShow and Producer have a feature which Igor may eventually want to implement where it's easy to match the position in terms of zoom, pan, etc., of a previous or "next" slide. What it essentially does is copy the "numbers" representing the percentage of zoom and the position of scroll, etc., from one slide to the next. Of course one could simply copy down the "numbers" from the display and match them manually, but it would be nice to just click on a choice and have that as an option. I would also like to see an optional grid so I can more easily match positions on subjects from one slide to another. One of my favorite techniques for wildlife shots is to zoom tight in on the eye of say a mountain goat mother and with a fade out followed by an overlapping fade on the following slide begin with an already zoomed in tight close up of the eye of her lamb which then zooms slowly out to the full frame. This is facilitated by having a grid with which to more easily match the precise positions. Of course it's possible to use the "center" dot on the green rectangle as a position marker with P2E beta 5, but then that forces me to have the eye in the very center of the frame which is not always the most pleasing aesthetic. As this product evolves, I'm sure Igor and his development team will make adjustment to make things work in the most efficient way. i'm just blown away at how good this beta is and the incredible power of the new graphical engine. Best regards, Lin

Hi Robert, You do have multiple images per page with separate time lines now. I think you don't yet understand how this works. When you add additional "objects" (images, text, etc.) and when you select the text or image the time line and all the keypoints you add or you see is unique to that image. You have total independent control over each image added on a single slide point. Go back and just work with two images to start with for a show. Place only one in the queue and "add" the other via the right mouse click and select from the drop down window. Now use the two small arrows at the bottom right just beside the time line to switch back and forth between the two images. Go up to the green rectangle surrounding the images. Set the percent to something less than auto like 50% so you can see both images and the green rectangle. With two images you need to click on each and notice that the green rectangle changes from one image to the other. Let's call these image A and image B. When image a is selected, the time line you see is specific to image A. When you select image B the timeline is specific to image B. This is the only sensible way to do this so you don't have to scroll through a long series with separate individual time lines displayed simultaneously so that you loose site of the image when trying to manipulate the kaypoints, etc. Put a couple keypoints on the timeline for the first image and then switch via the select of green rectangle to the second image (See My Tutorial Page Link) and you will see that each image has it's own timeline. Can you imagine how the Fractal.exe show could have been possibly built with twenty separate images all having individual motion and animation without individual control?? Click on my link below and download and play my zipped executable. Notice on the opening slide that there are actually four separate images of which three are doing separate things simultaneously. The main or "anchor" image of the coyote is stationary (though it doesn't have to be) while the smaller coyote image on the lower left is rotating counterclockwise and changing opacity slightly. The small coyote image in the upper right is rotating clockwise and the text scrolls up then down while simultanously changing zoom. The coyote on the left stops rotation while the one on the right reverses its rotation. Robert my friend you have "complete" control over all objects in their own separate simultaneous animations on a single slide! You can have dozens of these happening on each slide - not that you would necessarily want to - LOL. This is EXTREME power which no other software that I'm aware of can do and that includes ProShow Producer and Vegas Video, etc... Here's the link: http://www.lin-evans.net/p2e/coyote.zip Best regards, Lin

Absolutely! The degree of personal involvement and commitment by Igor is unparalleled in the slideshow software industry. That's a powerful advantage for PicturesToExe and an overwhelming reason why potential customers need to be informed about this very real and palpable advantage! Best regards, Lin

Yes, Jason has always been a bit of a "Fan Boy" when it comes to ProShow Gold (PSG). It's difficult to mention PicturesToExe (P2E/PTE/PXE) there without expecting an argument in favor of ProShow Gold or Producer from him. The other person (PhotoBob) was just uninformed, unreasonable and argumentative for whatever reason. I finally gave up trying to explain to him that PSG can neither render the high resolution images which P2E Beta 5 can nor can it produce multiple slides on the same screen each with independent animation and transparency. I've been a user of both PSG and P2E since their inception as beta products and PSG has always been a fine product but in general fraught with "bugs" which when "fixed" are replaced with yet more "bugs". Jerky movement, especially in pans, has been an issue with PSG as well as with Producer. We are fortunate to have seven different systems with different video cards, memory, processors, etc., to test the output of both P2E, PSG and Producer. The smoothness of pans, zooms, rotates, and scrolls with P2E 5.0 beta far exceeds anything we have ever seen with ANY other slideshow product. It's difficult to reason with blind brand loyalty and I'm afraid that's the issue with some at DP Review. A year or so ago PhotoDex, the authors and distributors of ProShow, ProShow Gold and ProShow Producer had a professional wedding photographer who used to appear in their booth at trade shows to demonstrate his slideshows made with PSG and Producer. He was quite talented and thoroughly understood the strengths and weaknesses of PSG and Producer and would always build his shows with very fancy effects playing to the strengths and avoiding at all costs doing things which revealed any weakness. His demonstrations sold lots of product for PhotoDex - nothing wrong with that. PSG and Producer are very powerful products, but lack the flexibility of low level functions which are and have always been possible with PicturesToExe. My research over the years has shown that more professional photographers outside the wedding photographer venue choose P2E for their presentations. For sales, etc., being able to display the file name along with the image (something PSG couldn't do until recently), have a manual show where one could go forward, backward, etc., (something PSG still can't do) and print from a slide (another thing neither PSG nor Producer can do), run executable code from within the slideshow (yet another which neither PhotoDex product can do), have a small "footprint" (tight code), etc., are all strengths of P2E which are unmatched with PSG and Producer. Being able to burn a DVD from within the program, having the ability to scroll text, the Ken Burns Effects and a built-in means of displaying one's show over the web were the primary advantages of the competition until now. The new Beta 5 PicturesToExe approach to text handling is far more powerful than what can be done with PSG. It's not nearly as "easy" to get a show on the web from a P2E output but it's possible by using Flash conversion of a P2E AVI output. Both approaches have strengths and weaknesses, but my personal preference is PicturesToExecute because in the final analysis, as a photographer image quality is the most important thing to me. PicturesToExe wins in this department big time!! Best regards, Lin

Hi Folks, It just occurred to me that there may be a number of people in the same boat with me when it comes to making really nice text to use with the Animation process of P2E Beta 5. I didn't understand PNG transparency until Igor explained it to me. I had been using IrfanView and saving my jpgs as transparent PNG files by clicking on a background color and saving as PNG. It didn't work - LOL. It's really simple to do with PhotoShop or the very excellent and very reasonable Pix Builder (how Igor does it). Maybe everyone already understands this but I was using transparent GIF's which are not "nearly" as nice and do not work as well as the PNG approach. So a very simple explanation here on a step by step approach. I'm going to use PhotoShop because I'm most familiar with it: 1. Open PhotoShop and click on File, New. 2. From the popup name your file and enter a size. You don't need lots of height unless you will have multiple lines of text. For a single line maybe start with 800 pixels wide by 200 pixels tall. Since the background will be invisible, you will not see the edges of the rectangle containing the text even when you scroll it clear across or up and down and off the screen area so don't waste a lot of unnecessary file height. 3. Make sure the "Background Content" says "transparent" 4. Click on O.K. and choose the text tool and set the upper or "foreground" color to your choice. 5. Choose a font and font size. A decent size is nice like 48 points - you can zoom in or out when you place it over your image and set the Animation for it so as long as what you have to say will fit in the parameters of the rectangle you have chosen make it a decent size. 6. When you have finished center the text on the rectangle and save the file as a PNG. That's all there is to it! I wish i had known how truly easy it was - duhhh Thanks Igor - this has greatly simplified my slideshow production!! One last caution: DO NOT FLATTEN the file - just save it with the checkerboard pattern which signifies a transparency. When you place the file over your image you won't see the background at all and everything will look super folks!! I just read Ken's post about doing this with Paint Shop Pro (PSP) and thought I would include a suggestion for those who want to dress up their PNG a bit with PhotoShop as well. Once you have the text created, you can add some "punch" in the following way: Open the Layers window and click down on the bottom left (little button icon) called "Add a Layer Style". Next click on Drop Shadow and make the opacity, distance, etc., so it looks to suit (experiment a bit) then try clicking a check beside "Set Outer Glow" and "Bevel and Emboss" then save as a PNG. This really dresses up the text and gives it a "finished" look. Best regards, Lin