Lin Evans

Hi Tom, I bit the bullet last year and bought an ASUS G10AC also with an i7 4770 3.4 ghz GPU with 32 Gig RAM presently running Win 8.1. I have an nVidia GTX760 presently running 2 ghz RAM and pushing a 30" 2560x1600 display. That said, I still much prefer working on my old Dell Inspiron 530 core 2 duo. (2.33 Ghz) Intel. I have the maximum usable system RAM (which I upgraded with a 750 watt power supply and an nVidia GTX 750 Ti video card with 2 Gb video RAM. I just don't care for the new operating system. I absolutely "hate" the search feature on my new 8.1 system which often fails to cache files so doesn't find them. I have only one TB internal hard drives on eacfh system (no SSD) but literally dozens of external usb hard drives in capacities from 250 gig to 2 tb which I switch frequently and use primarily for backup storage. Best regards, Lin

Hi Barry, I'm sure that some forum members are using Photoshop CC but probably are not reading this thread. It's sometimes difficult to get much participation except just after an announcement of a beta release. Best regards, Lin

Hi Barry, Maybe nobody in the discussion so far uses Photoshop Creative Cloud? Manuel uses CS6, I use CS6 Extended and CS5. I also use Lightworks Pro by EditShare but I seriously doubt if anyone else on the forum uses it and Manuel asked for "non professional" recommendations so I didn't include it in my recommendations. I did mention Photoshop for "obvious reasons," Best regards, Lin

Eric, Stop beating a dead horse, please! Lin

Hi Eric, PTE isn't a video editor - I'm not sure why you have a burr under your saddle, but no one is "putting you down." The fact that you use PTE for "video editing" is totally immaterial to the facts. If you want to argue about whether PTE is a video editor or not, please start your own thread because I have no interest in discussing it. I was asked what my program of choice was for video editing and I answered that question. You then said "what about PTE" and I answered that the question was about video editors which PTE is not. Anyone who is serious about video editing is going to use a product designed for that purpose. The very few video editing features in PTE are for convenience and if that's all you need then that's great, but some people don't consider adjusting contrast, brightness, hue, saturation and levels "something complicated" and these are elementary requirements for video editing. Best regards, Lin

Hi Eric, The question was actually about video editors and PTE really isn't a video editor. Though you have the ability to trim a video and adjust the speed, there really isn't any control over elementary things such as contrast, brightness, frame-in, frame-out, or the myriad things that even the most elementary of actual video editors do. It wasn't intended to be an editor even though you can do some rudimentary editing tasks. Best regards, Lin

Hi Manuel, I use two - the freeware version of Video Pad Video Editor and Avidemux 2.5. They are both more intuitive for me than Adobe Premiere Elements which I also have. There are lots of free plug-ins for Video Pad Video Editor. Best regards, Lin

Hi Judy, Unfortunately I only have an antiquated HP scanner so no experience with current software.... Best regards, Lin

We all have our own work-flow and many of us use different types of software to manage our images. These are my favorites and why I find them to be superb for image manipulation or other purposes. I have placed links to each for those who wish to possibly download trial versions or look into the specifics. 1. PicturesToExe (obvious reasons). 2. Focus Magic: Focus Magic is essentially a deconvolution program which uses sophisticated algorithms to actually move pixels to effect sharpening and/or motion blur. It works both as a stand-alone program and as a plug-in with Photoshop. By using it with Photoshop, for example, it's possible to selectively sharpen areas of your image or correct motion blur in the entire image or only on selected areas. Let's say, for example, that you were doing wildlife photography and your subject was an elk. Perhaps the majority of the image is in perfect focus but the elk moved one ear which introduced motion blur. You can simply use the Magnetic Lasso Tool in Photoshop to carefully select the motion blurred ear, then use the motion blur correction tool in Focus Magic to make up to a 20 pixel correction to remove the motion blur and create a perfect image. Deconvolution sharpening works differently than Unsharp Mask. Unsharp mask is a local contrast enhancement tool which unless used very carefully can and will introduce sharpening halos - those pesky white or black outlines which surround edge detail. Deconvolution actually moves pixels and achieves ultimate focus rather than edge contrast enhancement. Focus Magic can be seen here: http://www.focusmagic.com/ 3. Qimage Ultimate: In my opinion, Qimage Ultimate represents the pinnacle of image printing software. I use it for printing, but printing is only a small part of what it is useful for. For one thing, it has what is in my opinion, the finest sharpening algorithm available anywhere at any price. The Qimage Deep Focus Sharpening is something which has to be seen to be believed. It can sharpen an image to the Nth degree with absolutely zero sharpening halos. It's like magic indeed. Mike Chaney, the author of Qimage has created an incredible tool which is an indispensable part of my toolkit. You can download a 14 day trial here: http://www.ddisoftware.com/qimage-u/index.html 4. DXO Viewpoint 2: DXO, the makers of DXO Optics Pro, one of the finest RAW converters and image manipulation software made also make Viewpoint 2 which is far and away the finest perspective correction tool available anywhere. For example, when you photograph using a wide angle lens, objects in the horizontal periphery tend to lean from vertical inward toward the center of an image. Often there is pincushion or barrel distortion or the horizon in an image is not level. Sometimes an otherwise good image has all these issues in the same frame! Viewpoint 2 is the ultimate solution in my experience. I wouldn't be without it: See and download here: http://www.dxo.com/us/photography/photo-software/dxo-viewpoint 5. Photoshop: (obvious reasons) 6. Photoscape: Photoscape is a great utility. If you want to create slices for use in PTE animations, add fancy borders to your image, or do many neat things, this freeware tool is really nice: Get it here: http://help.photoscape.org/help.php?id=intro 7. Sqirlz Water Reflections: Many of my water reflections are made with the help of this wonderful freeware program. see it here: http://www.xiberpix.net/SqirlzReflect.html 8. Fastone Capture: I use this inexpensive but very powerful screen capture sofware for all my tutorials these days. Highly recommended... See and download here: http://www.faststone.org/FSCaptureDetail.htm Qimage's Deep Focus Sharpening WMV Video Example: http://www.lin-evans.org/tutorial/deepfocussharpening.zip (about 17 meg download Zipped Video) Best regards, Lin

Thanks Judy! Same to you and yours! Happy Thanksgiving. It will just be me and my old 17year old pup Honey, but we'll split a turkey sandwich and watch a football game or two!! LOL Best regards, Lin

Hi Folks, In response to several private messages I've made a quick tutorial to demonstrate my method for removing and minimizing sharpening halos on your images using Photoshop. Linked also in PTE Made Easy Tutorial set: #51 http://www.lin-evans.org/tutorial/haloremovewithphotoshop.zip (zipped wmv video - about 23 meg download) Best regards, Lin

Hi Brian, It's just the compression difference - MOV's are also compressed. The PTE file will show you how to use a parent controlling frame to house the mask and video and other files in the PTE. Help yourself to the video and other files in the example. Best regards, Lin

Brian - either use the "Task Manager" to unload PTE or just reboot your system to clear memory then before trying to open PTE, move the big gif file or better yet just delete it. Click the link below and download and extract the PTE file I just made for you which will show you how to program the zoom in using a rotating Earth video... http://www.lin-evans.org/pte/earthinspace.zip Best regards, Lin

Hi Brian, Sure you can do anything with the mask that you can do otherwise. I'll be glad to help you get that working. I saw second message. Move the gif file somewhere else so PTE can't find it then open PTE again. Best regards, Lin

Hi Brian, PTE can't handle an animated gif file of that size. The upcoming version 9 will have a different engine and should be able to deal with relatively huge animated gif files. Since PTE attempts to load the last show used, the easiest way to handle this in my opinion is to move the files to another folder so PTE can't find them and then open PTE again and make a quick single slide show or open a different file so the program won't try to load the big gif file. To do what you want - use the mov and let PTE convert it, then use a circular mask to put the video of the rotating Earth in. It will serve the same purpose as if it had a transparent background. Best regards, Lin

Barry, I can't say what "many authors" are interested in - I wouldn't presume to know another's mind. Perhaps some do want praise more than critique, perhaps not. However, the little "stars" are meaningless except to indicate whether the reviewer liked or disliked the presentation and without comments to clarify the decision IMHO it's about as useful as a thumbs up or thumbs down. Best regards, Lin

Mini-Rant: LOL - like most "reviews" - they must be taken with a grain of salt. Essentially the comments are far more useful in my opinion than the "stars." The stars simply reflect how well the person doing the rating "liked or disliked" the presentation and offer nothing of substance to the author about why. As an example - some users are steeped in tradition and an AV which doesn't tell a story or offer some educational content is virtually useless. If the images don't appear and change on a musical "beat" then this reviewer will assign only a few or no "stars" because the presentation didn't meet their expectations which reflect their own personal subjective bias. Some AV's are only designed to demonstrate the potential of the product in terms of effects and/or animation and may not have any semblance of artistic or traditional AV value. A person who comes from the traditional AV mind set "may" have absolutely no interest in this and thus give the presentation a very low rating. Slideshowclub has divided the presentations into "demo" and "slideshow" sections, but this doesn't stop those who dislike the demonstration type show from giving it very few stars. People who use the number of stars as a quick means of deciding whether or not to download the presentation are sometimes being deceived by this. My personal opinion is that it should be mandatory for anyone who uses the "stars" to comment verbally on why they liked or didn't like the presentation. That is, if you choose a number of "stars" then you must explain why. Otherwise this has zero significance. In my opinion if one chooses to rate by stars and there is no comment their "star" rating should not be accepted by the software. Lin

Hi Dave, Congrats on the new D7200 - Great camera in my experience - hard to say on the crop but there is sufficient resolution to do the equivalent of some pretty good digital zoom... Best regards, Lin

Yes - that's one of the things which might have made image quality a little better, but truthfully, on my Canon SX50 HS which has RAW support I rarely if ever use it because I just don't see much difference in the IQ. On my Nikon APS C dSLR's (D7000, D5300, D7200) there is a substantial difference but on these tiny sensor cameras in my experience the improvement is marginal. The overall capability for the P900 though is outstanding. My main reason for getting it was that I seem to never have the right combination of lens and camera body with me when opportunistic moments for those special shots happen. As I get older, carrying my Sigma 300-800 and huge tripod has become a real task in the high country. I've considered getting a Sigma 150-600 OS which would be much lighter but the little (relatively) all-in-one P900 sure has its advantages. You're right though - adding those few extra feature for a next iteration might be the way to continue to draw new users but Nikon was sure not ready for the demand for this camera. They still haven't gotten production ramped to meed the demand. As a manufacturer, they are probably quite happy with the response to the P900... Best regards, Lin

Hi Mike, Nikon has really set the bar for long zoom with this one. With optical zoom to 2000mm and very useable digital zoom to 4,000mm and even able to digitally zoom to 8,000mm it's got some pretty amazing flexibility. Of course the image quality isn't as good as a serious dSLR with expensive glass, but it's good enough for getting shots otherwise impossible in a practical way. I'm having lots of fun with it... Best regards, Lin

Just a recent demo of what really long zoom does - these five images taken at variously aproximately 33, 70, 200, 450, 1200 and 2400 mm focal lengths. All hand held so not intended as examples of good photography but rather just to demonstrate the huge zoom potential of the P900...

Dawn, The quickest way to test is to directly access one of the videos without going through your website. For example - Use your FTP software to determine the folder on your server where one of the videos reside. An example below from one of my own. My website is accessed as follows: "http://www.lin-evans.org" I have a video called "demo.mp4" in a folder called "dawn" So to access it directly, I simply type the following: http://www.lin-evans.org/dawn/demo.mp4 If you click on the above, a little video I have just uploaded consisting of two slides and a third blank with "End" should play on your computer with your default player. So to test your own videos, you just need to do the same substituting your own website URL and the folder and name of one of your videos. If it plays that way, then probably your website host has made some changes and you need to contact them and explain that your videos will no longer play and they can help you resolve the problem. It appears that your mp4 video has been converted to either Flash or SWF Flash by your player and this format isn't compatible with web browsers. If you try the above procedure and are able to see your videos that way, then you need to change the format on your website to something compatible with everything such as mp4. This issue of Flash being converted to HTML5 whether by your web host or by your software is apparently causing issues. MP4 is much slower to load and has a larger "footprint" but is compatible with virtually all systems and browsers. Let's take it one step at a time and we can get it resolved. Lin

Hi Dawn, In checking with different browsers, it appears that the browsers can't find a video with "supported format." Where are the videos for your website actually hosted? Were they placed on YouTube or Vimeo, etc., then embedded in your website or were they uploaded to the website server? Do you know the original format (mp4, Flash, AVI, etc.)? There have been changes and not all good ones IMHO at YouTube where the defaults are for HTML5 and unless the viewer's browser is set to ignore HTML5 and use Flash instead some videos may not be visible. To chase down the issue, the first thing needed is to determine where these videos were hosted. Once that is determined then it's possible to proceed and see if they have been removed or what the problem is. Best regards, Lin

Hi Denis, Yes - I see that it is indeed date modified, but wasn't the OP asking about "time?" Maybe he meant date instead. I'm not certain why Igor and the development team have not given us access to the original date in addition to the date modified. It seems as if it would make sense to allow a much larger selection of Exif information. It's been something we have discussed for a number of years. I think we need changes for the next version. Best regards, Lin

Hi Mick, There is a way, (not in the Windows list - but in the Slide List) although it's a manual sorting. If you select all slides in the slide view then click on "Comments" and choose "Insert Text Template" (upper left in blue) then choose "Exif Info" then "JPG Exif Date" or "JPG Exif Time" all slides will be labeled with the date or time respectively taken. Sort them by dragging as desired then simply select all, repeat the process to delete the visual tag. Best regards, Lin