Lin Evans

Hi Igor, That will be great. I have noticed that for really small images which are very sharp I've needed to tone them down with gaussian blur to prevent the 'sparkle'. MIP mapping will be an excellent aid. Best regards, Lin

Hi Ken, I like your method better for his application. The old moon was too sharp for the small zoom so I made some changes. I added a little gaussian blur to the first image so there was less flickering on the small image zoom, then left the transparent background alone with full resolution. That image was shot with my Canon D30 through my Meade ETX-90 as I remember. It makes a nice sharp large image, but for the small zoom it needed to be toned down a bit. Best regards, Lin

Here's a zipped example, but I think Al's way is actually better in many cases... Lin http://www.lin-evans.net/ptesamples/moonzoom.zip

Same solution. You have complete control over both your images. Just start by putting your first image (the black background) in then insert the second image. Now go to the block which says 100% (top of your screen in the Objects and Animation screen just to the right of copy and paste) and change the value to 10% so you can actually see what's going on. Click on the second object in the list then grab the green rectangle by one of the handles (the up and down ones may be easier) and push the image into the size you want it to begin. Next put in a keypoint for this object near the end of the time frame for this show and drag it to the approximate 80% level. Now preview your slide. The black background will not change, the 2nd object you inserted will begin at about 15% of the full size and slowly zoom (depending on how long you have the slide set to display) to about 80% at the end of the timeline. If you want it to zoom in other than a linear fashion you can set additional keypoint "between" the first and last and set them to intermediate sizes. Then move these keypoints closer together or further apart to change the time for these effects. Now for the second part of your project. Make the subject which you are zooming in on on a transparent background (png file) add the second image the third time as a transparent png and position it so that the subject covers the identical subject in the second image but set the zoom to a higher percentage. The net effect is that your second image zooms normally from about 15% to 80% but the main subject which you want to zoom in on is being zoomed at a different rate on the transparent png duplicate so that you achieve the zoom within a zoom. Lin Lin

Hi Glenys, For the beta, the "close show" is disabled and it will only loop. Just press "ESC" to get out. This will be changed so you can set the slideshow to end in the release or possibly in later beta's. Yes, with version 5 you will also be able to set the aspect ratio for wide screen - but for "most" computer display screens use 5:4 Lin

No, you don't need to do that - you're missing a very easy step which will solve your problem. Up on the top of your screen in the Objects and Animation page is a small window which is defaulted to 100%. Next to this is a small black down arrow in a small blue box. Click on the down arrow and change the view to 10% or some lower value which will allow you to see the entire screen. Now you will see the rectangle with handles and can use it to size the images as you wish to either fill the screen or become a "postage stamp." Lin

Beautiful example and tutorial of power of beta 5 Have a great holiday! Lin

I can give you a few differences now. P2E has the ability to have multiple objects on a single slide simultaneously. Each image, text object, etc., can have it's own motion, opacity, animation, etc. This can't be done with ProShow Gold (I use both programs and have had both since pre-release beta). P2E also allows high resolution executable file images which are rendered at the resolution you choose. ProShow Gold renders at 720x576 resolution and if you need an executable file at a greater screen resolution then the images must be interpolated up which results in an inevitable loss of image quality. ProShow Gold has an internal DVD burning engine while P2E does not. This internal engine has caused a good deal of difficulty for a number of users because of incompatibilities with present or past installations of incompatible DVD burning software. The developers of P2E elected to do it another way by providing the user two methods of creating an AVI file which can then easily be made into a DVD with 3rd party software such as Nero or Ulead Movie Factory, etc. P2E allows the user to create and use "objects." This very powerful feature greatly extends the flexibility of P2E and lets you do things like create a fully manual slideshow so you can move forward, backward, jump to the beginning or end, print an image, etc., all from a Navigation bar. You can "easily" display the file name of each image during the slideshow if you wish. You can call external programs (executable files) from within a P2E slideshow and return seamlessly to the show. This flexibility allows the user to easily create their own custom menus and so on. These things can't be done with ProShow Gold. Here is a link to a quick demo I created in about 15 minutes with PicturesToExe beta 1. You will see several things which simply can't be done with ProShow Gold and some other things which are easily done with PicturesToExe and others which "if" they could be done with ProShow, could be done only with much difficulty by an experienced ProShow Gold user. Notice first the small yellow airplane flying across the clouds. The airplane as it passes behind the clouds changes transparency as if clouds were obscuring the plane. It then becomes 100% opaque and the condition changes as it flies into and out of the clouds. Notice the small green biplane as it disappears into the clouds behind the marmot on the rock then reappears flying much faster racing the yellow plane as they both fly out of the frame. On the following frame, note that the text scrolling down from the top and the text scrolling up from the bottom cross one another with apparent 3D depth. Notice that the text passes behind the goat kid in front and in front of the Kid in the back in a 3D effect. Watch the spinning free-wheeling text spin toward to top of the frame, reverse it's direction of rotation then spin downward and "attach" itself to the tail of the front goat kid while continuing to spin. Notice that it then diminishes in size while continuing to spin and finally fades away to a tiny size then disappears. Note also that the first goat slowly "ghosts" away while the camera zooms in on the second goat. Finally a "the end" message begins in a transparent mode then finally becomes opaque and eventually scrolls up and off the screen while changing size. Try this with ProShow Gold and you will quickly see what PicturesToExe can do with ease which ProShow Gold simply can't do. If you want these features with a PhotoDex product you will need to buy ProShow Producer at $400 or more and have a "dongle" hanging off your port and pay as much as six copies of PicturesToexe for even upgrades. Remember PicturesToExe is free upgrades for life..... Link below to about a 12 megabyte zipped executable demo.... http://www.lin-evans.net/p2e/hidebehind.zip This will give you something to think about.... Best regards, Lin

snip Steve Did you read the original explanation? There will be two graphics engines in the release product. An older one to permit use of the same parameters as used on earlier versions of P2E and a new graphical engine to allow the user a choice of rendering resolutions rather than being fixed at 720x576 pixels. The only operating systems excluded of any consequence will be the Apple OS but Apple will be including the possiblity of running Windows applications in a dual operating environment using Intel processors. Hardly anyone will be running presentation slideshow software on Unix or Linux and I doubt that it's a big priority. The hardware requirements will be in line with what the future requires to run Windows Vista for high resolution output..... Best regards, Lin

Ran smooths as "silk" with no jerks or pauses and no issues with sound on my ATI Radeon 9800 Pro. Lin

No, the size of the object placed in the rectangle changes according to the size of the rectangle you have drawn. There is probably some relationship based on the original size so that if we could constrain the rectangle to a fixed size then the object placed in it would reflect its original size as well. Perhaps Igor can shed more light on this? All objects within the rectangle will change size proportionally so that if you size them once they are in the rectangle as individual elements then resize the rectangle, the objects within will also change size in unison. At present the "secret" then would be to place all your objects in the rectangle before without changing their individual sizes. They would then keep in proper proportion to one another and you can size them as a "group" to suit the zoom of the background picture. This would make it very eazy to achieve the effect of diminishing point (like looking down a railroad track) with your text as you did in your example. You change the size of each letter of the word inside the rectangle, then when you zoom the rectangle everything stays proportional but the entire "word" just gets larger or smaller. Best regards, Lin

I just tried it - works "PERFECTLY" THANK YOU, THAN YOU - For those who haven't tried this. IT's the little "Add Rectangle" at the top of the screen next to "add image". Just draw a ractangle on your screen over the base image. Assign the relationship when you "add" images you want to group under the "rectangle" - in other words click on the "rectangle" then add the files you wish inside. The rectangle will have a "blue color" on your screen. Set the transparency for the rectangle to "0" at the beginning (first keypoint) then anything you do with the rectangle will be reflected also in the objects within. If you zoom the rectangle or rotate it, etc., the objects within will maintain their respective distances and relationships but will react to the zoom by enlarging or shrinking in size. They will also react by rotation or other animation controls. You can also select the objects within the rectangle and change their individual relationships by assigning independent actions to each - very cool! Best regards, Lin

Ah, the new About window is very nice! Good information and good to recognize all those who worked very hard to help make this a success!! You are miles ahead of us! Thanks - that will be a great help - I'm going now to look at it. Yes, as per your earlier response - by all means the most important thing is to get version five debugged and launched. My suggestions are for thinking about in later release. Best regards, Lin

Hi JP, Let's say you wanted to move two letters of a word consisting of six separate png files. You can easily move all six as objects of one level, but when you want to separate them and only act on two or three, etc., without affecting the spacing or the others, if you could select only the two which you wanted to manipulate, then assign them as a "group" consisting of two elements, you could then manipulate them in any way without changing the relationship between the remaining four. In desktop publishing software, for example, you have the ability to "group" separate text blocks or image blocks and move them as a group then "lock" their position. Also you can select "all" as with P2E and manipulate the entire "page" - but being able to choose elements on the page and assign them to a "group" which can be manipulated independent of the others makes doing some manipulations much easier. Best regards, Lin

Excellent suggestion, Al! That would definitely be easier than chasing down each different show to retrieve effects. Best regards, Lin

Another suggestion which would greatly simplify doing tasks such as JP did with the falling text would be the ability to "group objects" so they could be manipulated as a group. Then one could space independent letters, etc., and select two or more (all) as a group and move or size them independently of the rest of the image. Like a select all except selective grouping. I notice I can hold the ctrl key and place a rectangle around any combination but they can't be moved or manipulated as a group. Lin

Igor - suggestion for when you could possibly do.... It takes lots of precision work to create some text effects such as dropping letters, etc., involving numerous transparent files and carefully timed sequences of keypoints, etc., It would be ever so nice if it were possible to actually save a a portion of the file to use on other images and shows so that the keypoints and file names and associated animations were included. For example, I duplicated the effects which JP did in his objects demo as a "The End" file. I "could" pull up a different slideshow then I suppose copy and paste the last portion of my duplication then replace the background image (I haven't tried this) but it would really be great to save the effects and files used to create the effects as a sort of "template" to apply to other shows. Is this feasible? ============= I just tried the copy/paste and I was able to transfer the effects to another slideshow - but would it be possible to save the effects as a file of some type then retrieve it and apply to a different show without actually loading and unloading the slideshow which used the effects each time? Best regards, Lin

Precise and beautiful text effects as well! Bravo, to not only Igor, Aleksey and Pavel but to you as well Jean Pierre, I know what it took to do this and I'm impressed!! Best regards, Lin

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