Barry Beckham

A great record of your holiday, but I have to say the music was a bit heavy going for me, given the length of the sequence. I like the classic sounds of Australia, but perhaps a blend of that music and then soemthing more melodic mixed in would have worked better for me. I suspect you have seen our latest here http://www.beckhamdigital.co.uk/slideshow/Skyland.zip I did make another some years ago and that is not on general release, but maybe interesting for anyone who has a soft spot for Australia. http://www.beckhamdigital.co.uk/slideshow/australia1.zip

John and Chris You just need to be aware that those who view your show on higher resolution monitors see your images enlarged beyond what you intended and that affects the image quality. For a static show, diable the scaling of the main images in Project options > screen tab, then I and others will see what you created at the right size. I will look forward to the Aussie AV

John I enjoyed the slide show and you couldn't really go wrong with the music you chose, given the subject matter of course. I have been to Crich twice, but was never lucky enough to be around on a special event day. I agree and disagree with Keith to be honest. I do feel that all the images need to be the same size, unless your really making a feature of them not being so, if you get my drift. However, I think slide shows often do need something to edge them like a white line. Otherwise we often see dark areas of the image against the natural black background and then the images can look like there are bits missing. The same is true of lighter slides presented against a white background. Light areas can bleed off and look pretty poor in my view. So, the border is OK in my book. Although the images did vary a little in size, the snappy fades makes this far less intrusive than if it were a show that demanded slow transitions. Then the differences in those white border lines would be more annoying. I wonder what resolution you made your show, as it was stretched to fit my monitor running 1280*1024 and I thought I may have detected a slight loss in image quality in some images that may have been due to the stretching of the images. As it is a static show (no animation) and assuming you did make your images around 1024*768 you can restrict the stretching, but then the edge lines are even more important then, because those viewing at higher resolutions will see more of the black border around the outside of the images. I wasn't too concerned with the length of the transitions, I thought it all went along rather smoothly and you have the length of the show just about perfect in my view. Enough length to be interesting without us reaching the point where we wonder how much more is to come.

I think you should take lots of pictures on holiday and then use ProShow Gold to make a slide show on your return. Just to make sure you keep ahead of them...

Igor All these congratulations will go to your head. Now the important part................ What's Next ?

Ifa My point exactly probably put a little better. The one great positive about PTE is that it allows people to pitch into AV at any level, from putting a few holidays snaps together with music to the sequence that can bring a tear to the eye and what is wrong with that.

Tom I thought it was a great sequence, very enjoyable and the music and images went perfectly together. The sound track was well blended too, with all the changes in music appearing natural. Not sure the German soldiers fitted in as well as the British serviceman, but poetic license allows them to be used, I probably would have used them too, to be honest. They certainly added some variety. When we visited Howarth I couldn't believe the local authority would put double yellow bands down those lovely cobbled streets. They must be balmy doing that in such a delightful place. I wouldn't mind if they upheld the restrictions, but there was no sign of anyone doing anything about parking while we were there and cars and vans all over the place. Signs at the end of the street should be enough. I don't suppose I will get the chance to see Howarth again as we should be in Brisbane by August, but then I can look forward to your 2009 version next year. Its not real AV though , no death and destruction included Great sequemce Tom keep em coming

Peter No, you have missed my intentent and views by a mile, not surprising when trying to communicate in this way. I like all AV's but don't like it when people, usually in camera clubs try to shove it all down one path only. One path is real AV, one is not, they say. Well, they all are, arn't they! Usually the ones with the most to say couldn't produce one picture worth looking at let alone a sequence. I am not into competitions and the only reason The Black Country was enetered into one was due to Maureen's work really. While I was grateful to her for entering it, left to my own devices I probably wouldn't have bothered. AV may well degenerate into collections of images with music, but I do hope and pray that a few artists will persist in making what they themselves prefer to label art. By "art" I mean anything that allows communication with others through the emotions. Sometimes what I witness under the name of AV communicates very little to me. Your statement above appears to be taking the same views I objected too, writing off anything with music and images as degenerating into.......................... what? That would include 99% of what we see on this forum. Lets see some of these real AV's posted on this forum because we see precious little of them. (unless we are a part of the competition circuit)

Simon It has been claimed, by someone, but I will come back to you if he changes his mind Barry

Photoshop 6 has now been claimed, 2 copies of Elements 5 still available

The Laptop mentioned in my earlier post has arrived and I can confirm that animated slide shows are super smooth.

As some of you may know we are getting ready to leave these shores for Australia and we have some software that is now not required. There is no charge to whoever wants this software. I have a boxed copy of Adobe Photoshop 6 with Manual I have a boxed copy of Elements 5 All we require is the cost of the post and packing, which looks like being no more than £5. If you would like any of these, please use one of the contacts below to contact us. http://www.beckhamdigital.co.uk/contact.htm

Ken Yes, that first visit was a little while ago and I thought my first research may be a bit out of date so we did it again, this time with a USB rather than a CD/DVD. At least I now have the confidence that when the laptop comes, next Monday it will meet my needs.

Yaughtsman I have just purchased a laptop to run animated slide shows via PTE5 and demonstrations of Photoshop CS3. Before I bought it I made a number of visits to places where many laptops were on show and I tried them. I took a USB stick and some demanding animated slide shows and played them. My views? If you wish to run animated slide shows you MUST try before you buy, it's no good just buying by looking at the spec. Laptops that looked a great spec failed miserably when tested. We tried loads of laptops and one thing is certain, you need a dedicated graphics card, none of this shared graphics memory. However, even that does not guarantee the laptop will perform smoothly as many didn't. What was also surprising was that many of the more expensive high spec laptops that you would think could handle a little animation could not. We found one that met all my needs and ran our animated slide shows very smoothly. Sony VGN-CD31S/L Processor Type Intel Core 2 Duo 2.1GHz Memory Size 2 GB MB Memory Type DDR2 SDRAM Hard Drive Capacity 160 GB Optical Drives DVD+-RW/+-R DL/RAM Screen Size/Type 14.1 Graphics Card Type ATi Mobility Radeon X2300 Graphics Memory 831 MB Wireless Enabled YES No. of USB Connections 3 No. of Firewire Connections 1 Other Interfaces Express Card Slot 34mm Battery Type Lithium Ion Battery Weight 2.5 kg This is the weight of the appliance in KG Width 335 mm Depth 249 mm Colour Blue We then sourced this model on the net and got a price of £739.99. All those lower priced could not handle animated slide shows and we tried a load of them.

I get quite a lot of questions via email about image size and format and have adjusted the pages on my web site so I don't have to keep typing a lengthy mail. The question is nearly always the same and we have discussed it on the forum "what siezed images do I need for a slide show" For those who want to know go to the link below, for those who already know and who fancy reading it as a proof reader, please do. Comments suggestions welcome. At the top of the page is a jumping off point for beginners, otherwise we can baffle them with all the ins and outs of this subject too early. Once they have a show or two made then they can come back and take in some more. http://www.beckhamdigital.co.uk/audiovisua...e%20%20size.htm

Lin I agree with much of what you say, but this issue is probably not so much relavent for us who already know our way around and some of the pitfalls. To newer users of PTE image size and format is a nightmare. If there is a way to be able to accurately predict what the show will look like on many different resolutions and formats, it will benefit PTE because it will become even more user friendly.

This very close to the issue I raised in the other forum. http://www.picturestoexe.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=8329 Ron is not a beginner at creating slide shows and I suspect many others are confused about how their slide show may be seen by others. The truth is we don't really know and perhaps this test should contain the same image all through. So, no only could the lines tell us what is being lost in the image, but the picture would tell us what quality implications there were in each format. In theory the image should look best when the resolution of the image matches the monitor it's being played on. In effect that would become the control. So each of us woud have a different control slide in this test, depending on the resolution we are running.

I have added some more sizes, anyone have some more to add http://www.beckhamdigital.co.uk/size.zip

Well, that is what I would expect to see on your 1024 screen, but this idea may be more beneficial when we are creating wide screen AV's and we can see how they display on a different resolution/format monitors It really needs a slide for all popular resolutions. 800*600 1024*768 1280*1024 and so on

I was wondering today if something like I have produced here would be of use to us. Its just a two slide demo, use curser keys to move forward and back. First image is with the main image scaling disabled and the second one is at the stardard fit to slide. If we had a test show made to include all the popular sizes we would tell how size and format would look on all size and format screens. The lines are set in from the edge at 5%, 10% and 15% so we could tell how much of our image may be lost off screen Just a thought? http://www.beckhamdigital.co.uk/size.zip Only 300k in size

The borders will vary depending on whether you will you disable scaling of images. Here are how they look on my 1280*1024 monitor. If you create your images in Photoshop and set the ppi to 72, you will see the texture better than 96. When I looked at your image in PS @ 96, then selected the zoom and then print size (ie display size in PTE) The texture was too tight and looked bad. At 72, it reflects what I saw in PTE. Setting 72 has no affect on the image in pte at all, but it does allow us to easily see what we will get in PTE while still in the image editor. The canvas weave is also probably the worst option for that tiling effect you mentioned. There are others, and some buried in the photoshop install files that offer better control than the weave. (IMHO)

George Will this help http://www.beckhamdigital.co.uk/digitalav/...m?idCategory=84

KSF Your missing the point and that can't be helped in typed communications and I am not blaming your for that. I am a fairly thick skinned and a level headed person. The comment doesn't bother me personally. The slide shows being commented on can be found here http://www.beckhamdigital.co.uk/freestuffdigslidesw3.htm Most of them have been put up on this site at one time or another, but they are all recent creations especially to top few on this page. What comments like that can do is drive AV into a narrow channel of acceptability. I forces newcomers to conform and stifles creativity. I know exactly what the person was saying and why. Most of what is created by member of this forum would not be considered by this person as real AV, because it diesnt have some depressing morbid story line. My target audience is me, I like to think others will like it too, because what I like I find other generally do too, but if not, so what?

Peter I have done quite a few of these types of tests over the years and when your honest some of them are scarily accurate. With this one I seem to be 65% and 35% A foot in both camps

The main issue for me is when the establishment takes these views. I am too think skinned and ignorant to take any notice and I go my own way regardless. What the down side of these comments are, is when they are the backbone of the AV establishment. Then they make sure they steer everyone down the same track as was done in Camera clubs some years ago. You just could not stray from the established norm or your work was not treated seriously. That is thankfully now not the case, probably due to the digital revolution. I agree some great AV's can be produced with terrific story lines, but why do so many seem to be centered around attrocities and war. I am not sure I want to see too much of that for entertainment. We have those wall to wall on TV now. (and please no lectures from anyone about least we forget) Leave the boundaries loose and allow people the freedom to push them and experiment with AV. If you try to pigeon hole AV workers then newcomers can easily get pushed out. AV is one of the most exiting parts of the digital revelotion and I want it to have freedom.