Lin Evans

PTE and the vast majority of displays and systems use sRGB colorspace. When you adjust photos in some editing software such as Photoshop, you have a choice of saving to different colorspaces which have a different gamut. The way to find out is to take one of your images into Photoshop if you have it and save it but look carefully and see if it's being saved to an ICC Profile followed by sRGB. If it's being saved to other such as CMYK or to Adobe RGB, etc., it won't look right in PTE. The chances are that the problem may be in the default setup of your display. Since it's a custom system, it might be best to contact the person who built it and ask about the colorspace. Which version of Windows are you using? Are you using the same display as on your old system? That could be where the problem is. If you could save a quick small show with a couple slides and link it so I can have a look I'll see if the colors look correct on my displays. If you go to your "control panel" in Windows then to Display, Settings, Advanced, you will see a tab which says "Color Management" - that's where you would check to see if the display and video card are set to something other than sRGB.. Unless you are using your new system for your presentation, my guess is that your show will look just fine on a different system. It's just going to be a matter of correcting the colorspace issue and you should be fine... Best regards, Lin

Hi, Do you have the deluxe or essential version of PTE? Just to be certain we are on the same page here.... If the colors don't look right, it's more likely that you have not saved them in sRGB colorspace. That's the first thing to look at. You said you have a new computer and it's possible that it's set up so you are seeing other than sRGB color. If you could let us know the brand and operating system and type of video card it would help a great deal. The icon which Gary showed is found by clicking on Timeline at the bottom right of your screen when you are in the slide view screen. The timeline button by default in on the bottom right of the display. You can also get there by clicking on "Settings" at the top of your opening screen then choose "Timeline" from the menu or press the keyboard F6 key at any time. Could you possibly do a screen capture and show where you found the "fit all slides to soundtrack"? Best regards, Lin

Hi Eric, Ahhh - now I understand.... Learning to play a banjo takes a little time but the learning curve can be greatly shortened if you would take some lessons from a good picker. It's amazing how much you can learn quickly with just a little help. I was able to pay most of my college and university tuitions by playing bluegrass. I had the privilege of being lucky enough to play with some of the great bluegrass musicians of past years and learned a lot quickly. I never reached anywhere near the proficiency level of the greats but a friend and I promoted bluegrass festivals in southern California and by doing so were able to hire the best bluegrass bands and talent available and learned a lot just by observing. Don't give it up - get a good teacher if only for a few lessons... Best regards, Lin

Nice one Eric! Shouldn't it be "Duel" though? Best regards, Lin

Hi Ken, Thanks! Yes that's not hard to do, but this one was done for the friend who owns the ranch and is essentially what she saw when the actual tornado swept west to east across her view. Maybe in a future version I will make one which approaches the viewer and engulfs the entire screen at the end.... Best regards, Lin

I took an image from a friend's balcony on her ranch in rural southern Colorado about 12 miles from Calhan and about 10 miles from Ramah, Colorado. Shortly after I shot the image (a few days) a tornado swept through the rural ranching community and it prompted me to make this little sixty second animated show for my friend. https://youtu.be/Do57eJUbO20 (Youtube Link) http://www.lin-evans.org/demo/Ramahstorm.zip (Windows exe - about 56 meg) Lin

Hi Dave, You're right, there's more than one way to "skin a cat." Each way of a work-around has it's strengths and weaknesses. The strength of converting a single animated slide to video is that it's easy to change any parameter at any time or place such as color, opacity, blur, zoom or pan etc., with minimal effort because you're working on only a single entity. The down side as you discussed is primarily size. I don't think "quality" is greatly affected if this is being used as a backdrop across multiple slides but using a master video does indeed greatly increase size of an executable show. On the other hand, it actually adds nothing to the size of a video conversion because each frame including individual slides and backdrop still constitute only a single frame. The up side of doing it via the style is quality, but the down side is flexibility. In order to effect any changes in opacity, color, size, etc., it must be done on a per slide basis which is more time consuming. Also changing the duration of individual slides becomes problematic. Best regards, Lin

Hi Eric, Why not add it to the suggestions for next version? L

Hi Jt, The easiest workaround is to simply convert the still slide with animation to a video and use it as a mastervideo with duplicated linked copies on subsequent slides... Best regards, Lin

Hi Eric, No, you can't do that... Best regards, Lin

Here's a quick sample: http://www.lin-evans.org/igor/zoomrotatesides.zip Lin

Hi Igor, Yes, I have done this. I'll see if I can find an example for you and post it. Essentially, the mask rectangle must have the same pan Z properties as the sides of the cube and one must be careful to not zoom smaller than 100% or pan beyond the edges of the frame of the image on the side of the cube but it works very well. Give me a few minutes and I'll try to find a sample for you... If not I'll make one quickly... Best regards, Lin

Eric, could you define "Make them all disappear"? Are you trying to set opacity to zero or remove these files from your show? Best regards, Lin

Did a tiny bit of perhaps "improvement" by using a slightly different carousel so no color splash... link below: http://www.lin-evans.org/demo/haley2.zip (Zipped Windows Exe) Lin

Hi John, Yes, that approach would work fine as long as the image sizes and orientation were the same. Of course you could make several such templates and you would have then a number of possibilities. Best regards, Lin

LOL Dave, John, Here is a quick sample - obviously not even pretending to be good - just a very quick sample to give you an idea of some possibilities... No pretense at anything you would want to use for a serious presentation but using some of my suggestions.... This done with some simple use of blur, keyframing, a couple sample styles, etc. coupled with some quick screen snaps of your images in Animoto and the same sound track. I didn't size the images for the carousel so the colors you see wouldn't normally be there - just images. Just a quick jumble of possibilities. I manipulated a single still image for the backdrop then quickly converted it to a video all in PTE then used it as the master track with linked tracks. Buy using masks many more great effects could be made but I wanted to keep it quick and simple.... http://www.lin-evans.org/demo/haleyzip.zip (zipped windows exe sample) Best regards, Lin

Hi John, Thanks! That makes it so much easier to answer your questions. Yes, you can create these effects with PicturesToExe but the difference is that with PTE it's a nuts and bolts approach where you have total control over the each element while with Animoto you have very few choices. It is, on the other hand, MUCH easier to create this type show with Animoto because Animoto has a multitude of pre-programmed effects which are automatically applied. With PTE there are numerous transitions and styles which you can use but the true power is that you can create your own styles and transitions then pick and choose from among them and you have total creative control. If you are a working photographer who is producing shows for many clients, your time is extremely valuable and you most likely make your income from your photography and supplement it a bit with slideshow presentations. To that end where you can simply drop in a few images and very quickly pop out a professional looking presentation with automatic matching of music beat to slide, Animoto is superb. PTE really doesn't work that way. PTE takes more time to use to create the specialized effects which once created can be saved as styles or transitions and used over and again in any order or way you desire. The up side with PTE is creativity and control. The up side with Animoto is speed of production. Conversely, the down side of PTE is time of creation and the down side of Animoto is nearly a total loss of creative control. The answer to your original question based on the brief show you linked is yes, you can do this with PTE. The question you must ask youself is whether you are willing to spend the time necessary to create some styles which work the way you want to get the desired results. PTE can do amazing things with your images. You can take a color slide, change it to monochrome, sepia or anything in between in real time and at the speed and intensity you choose. You can take an image, blur it completely, use it as a backdrop for the same image and animate each independently. You can take a still image and save that still image as a video (all without leaving PTE) then use that video as an animated backdrop by fading, changing it's color, rotate it, zoom it, size it, position it and have it persist between slide transitions. In short there is, in a practical sense, no real limits on creativity with PTE. The trade-off is time. The result is total creative control and quality of the end product. If you give me a bit of time - perhaps a day or so, I will take some of the images demonstrated in the Animoto presentation and create a little sample for you to give you some ideas.... Best regards, Lin

Hi John, Perhaps the best way to help answer your question would be to actually see a sample of what you would like to achieve. If you could link us to one of your Animoto shows which demonstrates what you wish to achieve, then maybe we could all be on the same page. The bottom line is that the possibilities are pretty much limitless with PTE but the "methods" and approach might be different than with other products. The old adage "more than one way to skin a cat" comes to mind as well as "a picture is worth a thousand words." The two samples I demonstrated were just designed to show the some of the extremes possible and are not in any way representative of what constitutes a good slideshow. The PTE Demo sample project Barry created and linked is probably much more meaingful when it comes to ordinary use of PTE. Words sometimes fail when we try to explain what we are trying to achieve. If you could show us a quick sample - one or more here on the forum will be happy to help suss out how it can be done with PTE. Best regards, Lin

Of course - it's possible to animate any number of layers with PicturesToExe (PTE). You have multiple choices. It's possible to run a video or animated gif in the background with other animation running in the foreground. If you wish, you can have a video running continually, that is it never quits in the background while stll images and/or videos are sequenced in the foreground. There are multiple ways to do this with PTE. You can prepare PNG files with transparency in other software such as Photoshop or various freeware and animate any number of them. Here is a sample for you to see of some of the amount of animation possible with PTE. In this sample I have a zooming, rotating 3D icosahedron (20 sided geometrical construct) with three thousand six hundred twenty individual video displays in simultaneous operation with the moon and a rotating starfield is in the background and the rotating Earth moving behind the moon while a flaming asteroid flies across the screen between the icosahedron and moon. You can download and view this here: http://www.slideshowclub.com/files/file/22-icosahedron-animation-example/ Try creating this with Animoto or any other presentation slideshow product..... Or here one of my Youtube videos made entirely with PTE - a 3D room with 646 simultaneous video displays while a rotating zooming cube changes from solid still images to different videos on all six sides..... Best regards, Lin

Little bunny hiding in my lawn this evening - snapped this 800mm frame out my car window as I was leaving for an appointment. I'm really liking this verastile camera.... Lin

Incredible low light capabilities on this new video and still camera from Sony... Suggest watching at 1080 unless you have a super system... It's only 12 megapixel, but has impressive - very impressive low light capabilities. Lin

JT, You don't have to uninstall, you can just download and install the beta and run the demo by clicking on "help." You can also load the project and see all the details. Lin

Hi Andrew, Not a problem - thank Peter for asking the initial question... It happens to all of us now and then.... Click the link below and look at the red arrow. Put your mouse cursor in this area, left click the mouse and hold down the left mouse button and drag upward to expand the area where the sound tracks are located without having to scroll with the scroll bar... http://www.lin-evans.org/andrew/show.jpg Best regards, Lin

Hi Andrew, I downloaded and extracted and in both Win XP and Win 8.1 in either Windowed or Full Screen mode I can select either track. It appears to be a Windows 10 situation. Before turning this over to Igor - let me be absolutely certain that I understand everything correctly. 1. When you are in Windowed mode do you see the scroll bar to the far right which lets you scroll down to the bottom track? 2. If you can see the scroll bar, does it let you scroll down to actually "see" the second track? 3. If the answer to #2 is "yes" - you click on it but it won't change color to indicate it's been selected? 4. If the answer to #2 is "No" - can you click, hold and drag as in my linked example to increase the viewing area for the sound tracks? 5. If the answer to #4 is "yes" - you click on the bottom track but it doesn't select... Once we get the precise situation clear - they we can turn this over to Igor. He will want to know the type display, type video card, screen resolution and such from your system as well. Best regards, Lin

Hi Andrew, Let me see if I understand this fully. When you are in Windowed mode you can't select the main sound track, but when you are in Fullscreen mode you can? Can you see the second track in Windowed mode? Which version of Windows are you running? I've tried the same under Win XP and under Win 8.1 and can select either the main sound track or a linked to slide track. It's a perplexing issue but must be somehow related to something unique in your system. If you could zip up your project and post a link to it I would like to try it on both my systems.... You can give yourself a bit more working room without having to use the scroll bar by doing what's shown in the image linked below: http://www.lin-evans.org/andrew/show.jpg Best regards, Lin