brian65photo

Barry, Another first class AV sequence. Appreciated more because I have taken most of those scenes myself and I now see how I should have done it. Please continue providing these examples of quality slideshows. I also would be interested if you should produce the tutorials you mention. Best wishes Brian

Barry, Please excuse my inadequate use of English grammar. This wasn't meant as a criticism of the length of image displays - the show is a perfect combination of images and music - and your consistent high quality is the standard to which I hope to aspire. No- what I meant to convey was that after watching and appreciating the show I want to see how you had composed and edited each image in order to emulate and improve my own photography. But it seems that whilst it sounds OK "in my head" as I type the stuff it doesn't always come out right as the written word when you read it a day later. It's the lack of inflection in the written word I'm afraid. I realise now that I can simply log on to your website and look through your galleries. I have just watched your latest version of Solitude and it plays OK on my monitor now, full screen with a little black background showing down each side. Regards, Brian

Jean-Pierre, Looks like you were working hard whislt I was writing my reply to Barry. I have just downloaded and tried your 'background' solution and it works perfectly. I need to try it on a widescreen background Regards, Brian

Hello Barry, Another superb show with beautiful images and very complimentary music. The music 'sits' quietly in the background, adds the emotional content and lets me concentrate on the imagery. Just as it should. The only thing I wished, as an improving photoghrapher, was that the images were on screen for longer so I could visualise where you stood to compose the picture and how you have edited them to produce such images with such impact. Never mind - I'll just have to keep watching it over and over! I have a 1600x1200 monitor and with respect to the appearance of the slideshow your first version shows as a window in the centre of my desktop as per the screen grabs mentioned above, and which seems to distract. However, the 'menu' version plays nicely in the middle of a grey surrounding background which is probably what you intended and is very acceptable. Perhaps we can all benefit from using this method if you will let us in on the secret. Now the strange thing is that the following shows sit nicely on my monitor in either a black or white surrounding background also :- Ireland 2007 Fountains Abbey Howarth - so why is it now different? Is there adifference between PTE 4.49 and 5.0? ( NB, as a newcomer I have not experienced 4.49). Your quote in a reply to Bernard - No, it's not a stupid question and the way you see my show with a resolution of 1600*1200 is I agree less than perfect. However, at the present time (as I was informed on this forum only a short while ago) 1024*768 appears to be the standard resolution. Having said that among digital photographers it is already probably 1280*1024 I cannot see how 1024x768 is a "standard" resolution for shows. Monitors have gradually been improved and PC's become more powerful and and we march relentlessly towards bigger screens and better resolutions. I'm sure there aren't many 640x480 screens left but I'll bet some still have 800x600 monitors. At the other extreme I expect many members have high resolution widescreen monitors. I also have two 1280x1024 (5x4) monitors for my stereo slideshows. So what's the standard screen ratio? 4x3 as original, or 5x4 as some are, or 16x9 widescreen. And what about my HD widescreen Tv - 1280x720 - for which I hope to burn some slideshows to Dvd? The other thing that confounds the issue is our original image ratio from our cameras. I have a Dslr which is 3x2 ratio. I also use a new 12 Mp compact camera which takes 4x3: 3x2: 16x9: and 1x1! So what's the "standard" image ratio? Obviously, nothing can be "standard" and we will just have to make the best of it. At the moment it seems that PTE 5.0 outputs shows at 4x3, 5x4 or widescreen ratios, so if we choose one that suits ourselves, it won't suit everyone. So, as I asked above, is output from ver 5.0 different from ver 4.49 and if so how? and will it solve the resolution problem if we ask for the output to return to as in vers 4.49? We have a similar problem at our local photographic club. For years we have been projecting slides (3x2) and have recently acquired a new digital projector for our digital images which defaults to 1400x1050 (4x3). As most of us use Dslr's and compose our pics at around 3x2 we simply crop them to the ratio that suits the image, size them to 1400 wide or 1050 high max and place them on a black canvas of size 1400x1050. They are always project perfectly. So I have decided to make my shows to an image ratio that I prefer and to place them on a 1600x1200 black or coloured background so that they will view perfectly on my (or anyone elses) 4x3 monitor. What I need one of you kind gentlemen out there to tell me is how I then "pick-up" all of the images and "drop" them onto a 2130x1200 background so that I can then output them from PTE as a widescreen Dvd show for my HD Tv. Regards, Brian

LumenLux Thanks. I have watched “Congratulations” and enjoyed it as well and I called my wife to watch it too. Afterwards I showed her “Valentine”, and whilst we both felt that the first sequence of “Valentine” was still the most relaxing viewing , we appreciate the differences that your chosen music has to each of the sections, especially the song to the couple celebrating their anniversary in “Congratulations”. We felt that in the first sequence in “Valentine” the music stayed in the background and we paid most attention to the images, whereas in “Congratulations” we felt that we were mainly listening to the song, which obviously would have been most pleasing to the anniversary couple. So we have concluded that it is not the fact of hearing the first piece of music first but that that particular piece suits the images the best. Perhaps this isn’t the same for everyone. As a newcomer to AV I have watched many of the slideshows in this forum and others and am beginning to conclude that, for me at least, landscape sequences seem most enjoyable when accompanied by tranquil music, because landscape images are generally tranquil themselves. However, there is one slideshow that stands out as having had the most emotional impact upon me so far and that was “The Purton Hulks” by Morturn, which I am sure you will have seen also. I watched that one just after my wife and I had visited the site with a Narrowboat Club in which we are members and the memory of the hulks was still fresh in our minds. The plaintive tune and the superb images worked very well and had me feeling emotionally full. But this may have been because we had an emotional link with the subject. So perhaps that is an important factor also. Brian

I enjoyed the show very much and agree with you entirely how important the choice of music is. The first section made the most impact on me and on replaying the whole show a few times I realised that the music accompanying the first section was the most in keeping with the subject of the photos and promoted the most relaxed viewing. Whilst I noticed that the music was playing, it seemed almost "invisible" in the background and enabled me to concentrate on the images and yet it was a very important part of the "whole" in setting the atmosphere for the sequence. Thanks to you and all of the other helpful PTE'rs out there I am beginning to learn what makes a successful slideshow. Brian PS - What was the music you used in the first section?

Barry, Another superb slideshow. I have seen most of your slideshows from your website and I thank you and Carol for inspiring my wife and I to go out and take better photos and produce slideshows of our own. Enigma is very good but we just love Haworth. The combination of image and music is magical. We are new to PTE but have been 'photographers' for a while but have decided that we shall have to try and put our tripods in holes made by yours. Please keep them coming. Brian

Lin Thanks for a super tutorial and for showing us how easy it is once someone shows you the way. Brian

For cataloging my photos I have, for many years, been using ThumbsPlus:- http://www.cerious.com/ and for editing photos I have been using Helicon Filter:- http://www.heliconsoft.com/ Both of these programmes are constantly supported by their authors and have free upgrades for life once purchased. Trial downloads are available from their websites. Thoroughly recommended. Brian

Peter, A tutorial on Audacity would be most welcome. As a newcomer to PTE 5.0 I am really grateful to all of those unselfish folks out there who have produced tutorials and free stuff to help the likes of me to get to grips with this software without my having to "re-invent the wheel" all the time. Thank you all. I look forward to your help with Audacity. Brian

Al, Many thanks for your tutorial pdf. I have found it very useful. Brian