bjc

Dom,, Very good !! ~~ I like the effect ~~ and of course adjustments can be made to the 'template' (if you intend making one) so that it runs slightly differently if needs be. Well done !! bjc

I’ve just downloaded and watched your tutorial. Well done Dom !! Proof (if indeed proof was needed) that an elaborate soundtrack with audio instructions is NOT a necessity for a video tutorial to be successful. This approach, using ‘mouse-clicks’ / arrows / and text, does the job just as well. Congratulations ~ you’ve done an excellent job. bjc

Thanks for that Jean-Claude, I wasn't aware that that option existed ~~ however ~~~ I think Ken has understood my intentions better,, I was thinking more alone the line of Pasting objects (text / images / graphics etc.) onto, or over, images in the Objects and Animation Window, thereby eliminating the need for the creation of PNG files (etc). bjc

The Windows Clipboard & P2E An achievable feature !? My apologies if this Topic has been covered before – I did a ‘search’ but found no reference to it. Would it be of value, or indeed, would it be at all possible, to integrate the Windows Clipboard into P2E !? It would appear that the current Copy-&-Paste capabilities of P2E are restricted to ‘in-house’ content only. As we all know, as a general rule, content from one application can be copied-to-the-Clipboard and then pasted into a document in another application (presupposing a data-type compatibility). I experimented yesterday with copy-pasting some text from a Word document into Photoshop (it ‘works’, but there is a font and document size issue). It then struck me that text ‘selected’ in Photoshop might be copy-pasted into P2E (that doesn’t work by the way !!). Extending that thought further, it occurred to me that maybe the ability to ‘Paste’ :- image selections / graphic shapes / text / backgrounds etc. etc. would be of great interest to P2E users. In programming terms, I have absolutely no idea whether this capability could be added to P2E. ~(that would be a matter for Igor and his team to ponder over and comment on)~ If it is at all possible, would this not be an immensely useful, future feature, for PicturesToExe 5.1 ?? bjc

Nettleton,, Sorry about the confusion,,, my fault !! ~ the opening of the PTE file was the one thing that I didn't show 'visually', but, if you listen carefully I did mention it ~ all you need to do, when PTE first opens, is click on FILE / OPEN and browse to the folder where you unzipped the Template, and select Dom's .pte file ~ THEN you will be at the stage where the visual tutorial starts ~~ hope that makes sense. bjc

Hi Dom,, Re: me doing a video tutorial for you ~ I'm sure we could sort something out ~ email me direct at bjc@bjc100.co.uk and we can discuss matters. Re: my Flipping Images Tutorial ~ of course you can host it on your sight, if you wish. bjc

Hi Ron,, (and anyone else that's interested) I was going to send you my two ‘Actions’, as you requested, but I thought that you’d be at a bit of a loss to know what to do with them without some form of instruction (they have very specific requirements in order to work) !? So I ended up creating a full P2E Tutorial ~ it’s all zipped up with the necessary bits and pieced you need in order to have a go at this yourself. The file (7MB) can be downloaded from this link:- http://www.bjc100.co.uk/PTE/flippingimages.zip The file called flippingimages.zip contains:- A folder called – Flipping Images – inside which you will find:- Flipping Images Tutorial.exe (play this to see what to do) Flipping Images.pte (set up to accept your own images) Flipping-Images.png (effect heading text) 3-Images-Page-Turn-2.atn (the Photoshop ‘Action’) Page-Turn-GIF.isa (the ImageReady ‘Action’) Download it ~ unzip it ~ watch the tutorial ~ and have a go. Good luck !! bjc

Ron,,, I could (!?) put a video tutorial together explaining how my version of this effect was created ~ however, the tutorial itself would be long and complex, despite the fact that the ready-prepared Photoshop and ImageReady ‘Actions’ undertake the vast majority of the work automatically (over 500 commands are executed by the Actions alone). A zip file containing the Tutorial, both the Actions, and a P2E template, would still require the recipient to undertake a fair amount of work themselves ~ however, if enough people are interested, I would consider recording the video. Lin,,, I can tell that you (more or less) fully understand how I created my version of the effect,, the only difference being that my technique requires no manipulation of the XY axis in P2E, as Photoshop has already prepared the necessary sequential images. For this reason my version is more ‘jerky’ than the (excellent) effect that you have achieved working directly in P2E. My version consists of 63 separate ‘slides’ ~ with all transition effects disabled ~ and each slide set to show for a duration of 100ms (my graphics card couldn’t handle any faster) ~ it is therefore effectively running at 10fps, hence the jerkiness. bjc

Lin,,, Quick and dirty maybe ~ but very good. Did you do this in PTE only – or !? bjc

Jean-Pierre, Superb !! Was this done entirely using PTE ? bjc

Boogie,, Try double clicking on (running) the ‘PTE-VERSION5.html’ ~ this is how these Flash tutorials are supposed to be run ~ let me know how you get on. Dom,, Yes, Camtasia is somewhat expensive, but to the best of my knowledge it is the best at what it does (Photoshop CS2 isn’t cheap either). I guess PTE is just about the only piece of software, that excels at what it does, that isn’t over priced ~ for which we must all be truly grateful. bjc

Hi Lin, Yes you are correct - to a certain extent - however, whilst this works well with circles (such as your coin example) it doesn't work too well with squares (and the suchlike) as they need 'perspective' distortion as they rotate (the leading edge getting bigger, or smaller, as it rotates towards, or away from you) ,,, and it is also an advantage to be able to drag the image right through from the one side and out the other (as in flip). But then I know it's asking a lot to have this included in PTE, therefore I ain't askin', I's just showing !? bjc

http://www.bjc100.co.uk/PTE/flip_image.zip Sorry about this folks ~ I haven't a clue why my previous links didn't work ~ maybe this one will !? I've renamed the file and tested the link ~ and it worked for me ~ fingers crossed that it works for you too now !? bjc

Replaced link (hope this works !?) - FLIPPING IMAGES Here is a small (2MB) animated PTE file demonstrating an option that I had considered asking Igor to include in PTE Version 5 ~ but I think he’s got enough on his plate as it is, without me (us) asking for MORE !? As things stand at the moment it is not possible to create (just using PTE) what you see in this demo file, as it requires an image-transform option that currently doesn’t exist. The images used to produce this file (63 of them in all) were first generated in Photoshop, using an automated ‘Action’ that I created a few years ago ,,,, the resultant ‘Layered’ image was then transferred over into ImageReady, where yet another ready-made ‘Action’ put together the animation sequence (previously designed to generate animated GIF’s. Options that now exist in ImageReady have enabled me to save-off these sequence images as individual JPG’s, therefore enabling the production of a PTE ‘.exe’ file to replicate what I previously did with the ANIGIF files. The quality produced by PTE is vastly superior to that of the GIF files, in both smoothness-of-movement and image quality. One can only hope that, sometime in the future, Igor will be able to provide us with the image-transform options that will enable this sort of effect to be generated directly within PTE. I for one will be keeping my fingers crossed. bjc

“FLIPPING IMAGES.zip” Here is a small (2MB) animated PTE file demonstrating an option that I had considered asking Igor to include in PTE Version 5 ~ but I think he’s got enough on his plate as it is, without me (us) asking for MORE !? As things stand at the moment it is not possible to create (just using PTE) what you see in this demo file, as it requires an image-transform option that currently doesn’t exist. The images used to produce this file (63 of them in all) were first generated in Photoshop, using an automated ‘Action’ that I created a few years ago ,,,, the resultant ‘Layered’ image was then transferred over into ImageReady, where yet another ready-made ‘Action’ put together the animation sequence (previously designed to generate animated GIF’s. Options that now exist in ImageReady have enabled me to save-off these sequence images as individual JPG’s, therefore enabling the production of a PTE ‘.exe’ file to replicate what I previously did with the ANIGIF files. The quality produced by PTE is vastly superior to that of the GIF files, in both smoothness-of-movement and image quality. One can only hope that, sometime in the future, Igor will be able to provide us with the image-transform options that will enable this sort of effect to be generated directly within PTE. I for one will be keeping my fingers crossed. bjc

“FLIPPING IMAGES.zip” Here is a small (2MB) animated PTE file demonstrating an option that I had considered asking Igor to include in PTE Version 5 ~ but I think he’s got enough on his plate as it is, without me (us) asking for MORE !? As things stand at the moment it is not possible to create (just using PTE) what you see in this demo file, as it requires an image-transform option that currently doesn’t exist. The images used to produce this file (63 of them in all) were first generated in Photoshop, using an automated ‘Action’ that I created a few years ago ,,,, the resultant ‘Layered’ image was then transferred over into ImageReady, where yet another ready-made ‘Action’ put together the animation sequence (previously designed to generate animated GIF’s. Options that now exist in ImageReady have enabled me to save-off these sequence images as individual JPG’s, therefore enabling the production of a PTE ‘.exe’ file to replicate what I previously did with the ANIGIF files. The quality produced by PTE is vastly superior to that of the GIF files, in both smoothness-of-movement and image quality. One can only hope that, sometime in the future, Igor will be able to provide us with the image-transform options that will enable this sort of effect to be generated directly within PTE. I for one will be keeping my fingers crossed. bjc

Dom,, I use Camtasia Studio for the recording of Video Tutorials. I recently upgraded to the latest version (v.3) and the new video editing features are superb. It is also Camtasia Studio 3 that creates the Flash output for me, it offers a full set of user options (via a well thought-out ‘Wizard’), including JPG image compression and MP3 audio compression both of which play a big part in the economy of file-size that you have mentioned. The microphone I use is nothing fancy, just a very basic ‘headset’ microphone made by Plantronics (it doesn’t even have a model number stamped on it I’m afraid) – I purchased it from PC World a few years ago for something in the order of £20. bjc

Lin,, For what it's worth (?) - I use 3fps for Video Tutorial content - and MP3 compression for the audio (Mono) - both these measures provide for much lower file sizes, whilst still getting the message across - higher frame rates give much smoother animation, of course, but I don't feel this is necessary for tutorial content. (IMHO) bjc

Derek,, I’m rather puzzled by your message. I produced two tutorials under this Forum Topic heading – which were ‘CS2 Layer Comps’ and ‘PTE-Version-5’. ‘CS2 Layer Comps’ was a slideshow tutorial (made using PTE) – it therefore consisted of only ‘.exe’ files – one tutorial and one demo – this referenced the use of an automated feature of Photoshop CS2 to create JPG files from multiple ‘Layer States’ to aid slideshow production. ‘PTE-Version-5’ was a FLASH movie tutorial, referencing pan-and-zoom techniques in PTE5, this contained ‘.html’ and ‘.swf’ files etc. If you want to have another go at downloading either (or both) they are currently located at:- http://www.bjc100.co.uk/PTE/LAYERCOMPS.zip and http://www.bjc100.co.uk/PTE/PTE-VERSION-5.zip bjc

(IMHO) there is only one way to accurately isolate an (complex) object onto a separate layer. 1 – loosely select around the chosen object with (say) the Freehand Lasso Tool – this can be done quickly as you only need to roughly surround the object with the ‘selection’. 2 – click the right mouse button and choose Layer via Copy (this places a copy of the selected object onto a new Layer above the original) 3 – add a Layer Mask to that Layer by clicking on the Layer Mask icon ( the grey square with a white circle in the centre of it), at the bottom of the Layers Palette. 4 – switch off visibility to the Background image – or better still, introduce a new empty Layer filled with Black (or White) and place it below the new object Layer. 5 – with a suitably sized, medium soft brush, and the foreground (paint) colour set to Black, paint-out-visibility to all the pixels you DON’T want to see. (make sure that the Layer Mask is ‘active’ before applying paint to the Mask by left-clicking on the Layer Mask itself in the Layers palette – the Layer Mask is the white rectangle to the right of the Layer thumbnail) Correct for errors by painting-back-in-visibility to erroneously hidden pixels with WHITE paint. ((if you are using a Black or White underlay Layer to help you determine the accuracy of your ‘cut-out’, invert the underlay colour (press Ctrl+’i’ on your keyboard), before you finalise the process just to double-check for errors)) 6 – save a copy of your image in it’s current state (as a PSD). 6 – if you wish to save the results of your efforts as a transparency GIF or PNG, first crop away any unneeded image area (crop tool), then resize the image to the physical size you want it to be, switch off visibility to all Layers apart from your object Layer, click on File > Save for Web and select your chosen file format. The above may sound fairly complex at first – but it’s actually the quickest, most straightforward, and most precise method of making a perfect cut-out (of complex objects) of all the options available. However, for Circles, Rectangles and simple Graphics the Pen Tool and/or standard Selection Tools are by far the quickest option. bjc

Thank you Igor ~ as always, YOU ARE THE MAN THAT CAN !! BJC

Igor, “The Speed of Animated Objects” I don’t know how possible this would be (and I apologise if this has been suggested before) – but one way I can think of, to control the movement/speed of animated ‘objects’, would be to have a preset selection of movement options such as:- Constant Speed (as it is now) Slow to Fast Fast to Slow Slow to Fast to Slow (accelerate to the mid-point / decelerate to the end) these could perhaps be included in the ‘Tools’ options, and be selectable for each individual ‘object’. This might be easier to implement than ‘user’ adjustable speed options. bjc

Hi Barbara, See if this helps you in anyway. It is a 27 minute long FLASH-8 Video sequence (a 13MB download). Download the .zip file, preferably to a new empty folder ~ and un-zip it ~ double-click on the ‘PTE-VERSION-5.html’ file to start the ball rolling. Depending on your OS you might get Security Warnings coming up on-screen when you try to run the FLASH content (because of the Active-X content) ~ if this happens you will need to click OK to allow these tutorials to run. It’s the best I could do at this moment in time ~ and it only contains examples of what ‘I’ have discovered so far with regards to Version-5 Animation / Pan & Zoom options ~ I’m sure there are other things that I have yet to come across. http://www.bjc100.co.uk/PTE/PTE-VERSION-5.zip Regards, bjc

Barbara, Your project sounds very interesting indeed ~ however, from the wording of your last message it sounds to me like you are struggling with the production of a standard PTE slideshow sequence rather than the application of the new Version 5 Pan-&-Zoom and object animation functions. Please forgive me if I’m wrong. If you can create a basic PTE slideshow sequence, with music and synchronisation, then I think it’s fair to say that the new features of Version 5 are but an extension of that. Master the basics and the new skills required to add Version 5 animation are much less of a hurdle. I am prepared to produce a short FLASH Video Sequence outlining a few of the Version 5 Animation options, but this will only be of value to you if you are already conversant with the standard set of PTE functions. bjc

Barbara, Thank for your comments re: my ‘power to illustrate’ ~ I didn’t think my explanation was really all that good. I could, I suppose, ‘attempt’ to put together some form of explanation with regards to the workings of ‘5’ ~ disregarding the standard PTE features of course and focusing just on the new ‘Pan & Zoom’ (and objects) technology. To be fair, I wouldn’t consider myself as expert at these new techniques ~ the ball has only just started rolling so-to-speak ~ and no doubt many new and clever uses are destined to be discovered by those out there with the necessary imagination. For example: ‘thedom’ has posted a stunning demo using ‘rectangles’ (http://www.picturestoexe.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=4514 ) ~ well worth watching if you haven’t already seem it. I will see what I can do, and if anything results I will post it up on the forum. Regards, bjc