Barry Beckham

Filip I fully understand what you are trying to do here, but I have to say my first thought when I read your query was that you probably need that gap don't you. I think you need a minute or two between each show for it to flow better. Sitting through twelve shows without the ability to turn and make comment to other club members in between them, doesn't do it for me. I would appreciate just a short break. What do others think?

John I think that is pretty typical of us all to miss the opportunities in our own back yard, with the grass always greener on the other side. There are some great images a couple of miles from where I live, but we rarely go there. Too familiar, perhaps. It's always nicer to go to Scotland, the Lakes, Wales etc to get a top up of inspiration, but the dramatic weather helped us in Scotland, even if it was cold. There actually is a low volume raindrops sound playing before and during the first bagpipes sound, perhaps I have it a little too low in volume. I understand what you are saying about images being on screen longer, but what you suggest cannot be easily done. The music style, it's key changes and rythmns is what largely controls a slide change in many of the circumstances. To hold the slide longer I would have to move away from the point at which everything is telling me to change the image. Then I may have to wait too long for the next logical place in the music to change that image. I also believe that it's better to leave an image while the image is still being enjoyed, rather than the other way round. Can you listen to the start again, it may be that I have that rain sound effect set too low. I use headphones to put the show together, so I am isolated and can hear things easier. Soundtracks always sound a little different in halls and club rooms or I suppose through some PC speaker systems. LumenLux Thanks for your comments, I think I actually put my slide shows together differently to most people and that allows me to work out the third image and transitions much easier. I am also aware that some landscapes, no matter how nice the individual pictures are, they just don't go together well. For my own work I start the process one picture at a time, working them through Photoshop and seeing how slide two appears alongside slide one in PTE5. That way it's easier to spot a mismatch of horizons and that can be put right using Photoshop's layers. If you have slide one and two prepared and the transition between the two doesn't look that good, you can take them both into Photoshop to put it right. I use slide one at the resolution for the slide show (1200*798 in this case), but I then drag slide two into a layered stack at full high resolution. I don't then use the resized one I first viewed. Now, using the Transform tool the larger of the two can be re-sized to perfectly match slide one. Save the new slide two over the top of the original and then I can move on. The third image is much the same, but for every third image transition that works, 3 don't, so it takes a little time to get what I am happy with. My third image effect is created with an actual third image, what appears to be two slides changing with a nice third image, is actually three images. The middle of the three is a blend of the two either side. Layer blend modes and layer masks help to do the rest. I have often thought of putting some video tutorials together on this way of working, but I am not sure it would have much appeal as its a lot of work. In my view it is the absolute best, but the most demanding and time consuming, but then what else do I have to do.

John It seems I won't be dropping in for a beer that often then, we expect to settle around Brisbane, probably Noosa or somewhere near there. Should have the visa in July. All we have to do now is sell the house, but what a time we have picked

Spent a week in the highlands in March and the weather was cold, wet and dramatic. This slide show is best viewed on screen resolutions of 1280*1024 and it was made with PTE5 Beta 5. It doesn't end correctly as when I finished the show, PTE showed I had 800+ minutes of music?? Don't wory, it's not that long. Just hit the escape key after the end credits The slide show is the top one on the page below. Its the first public draft so to speak. I want to watch it and live with it a while to decide if that is it, or it needs some changes. I can't make up my mind whether the inclusion of some low volume bagpipes helps with the mood or not. http://www.beckhamdigital.co.uk/freestuffdigslidesw3.htm

Peter Yeah, I don't disagree with you and I need those technical buff's from time to time myself. However, "You can't make a silk purse out of a sows ear you say." Well...............perhaps you can these days. Well, as long as the image has something going for it and is not a complete sop. Just depends how long you want to spend doing it I recently put a challenge up on my web site for those who had an image that they felt was nearly there, but they couldn't quite gain the improvements they wanted. I then did a tutorial on the image and did what I thought it required. I tried to ensure I explained why I was doing what I was doing and then how. The idea worked very well and it gvies me subjects for tutorial DVD's. Anyone want to take advantage of the offer, read below http://www.beckhamforum.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1471

Xaver Yes, of course your right and perhaps I have been dancing around trying not to offend anyone. BUT If we just spent a little more time on the basics, many of the shows would be so much better, more watchable and more appreciated by all who view them. Its a human thing I suppose when we are faced with the marvellous software at our disposal to dip in far ahead of where you need to be. Generally speaking of course. I always find it amusing that those who are the most technical rarely produce any work. They are expert at all sorts of mind blowing stuff, but all that expertise takes so much time to learn, that it leaves no time to produce something worth while. This was the case in the darkroom and now with digital photography and AV. Of course there must be some exceptions to this observation, but they are as rare as hens teeth.

John What a great way of putting it You never did say what part of Australia your from?

It popped up twice, once on install and automatic launch, when I closed the panel, PTE closed too, I opened it again and did the same, and have not seen the message since. It only happened with Beta 5 and I have not seen this with 5.1 or any other Beta

No typo, I didn't want to be rude

I still think the point I am trying to make is being missed. Image quality is important, but a show will not be destroyed by one out of focus image, unless the author uses that image as the opening one and then the appeal of the show is reduced considerably. First impressions etc !! The appeal of many of the slide shows I see can be improved tremendously, with just a little thought and a small amount of work. Nothing too complicated or outside the abilities of a beginner. Forget all the claims of elitism, it is just plain common sense. You don't need to be an expert photographer, have a fancy camera or anything else. What I keep saying is just take care of the basics and your show will improve enormously. I believe in the KIS principle and so do most of the people I come into contact with.

Xaver By all means, whatever you said I agree

Lin Summed up perfectly

Shame the videos have to be so small though.

Xaver Not sure I understand your point, can you clarify?

If we are not careful we can make a simple part of slide show creation over complicated for the newer user of PTE5. For example, if someone asks the question what size images do I need for a slide show, it seems pretty obvious from the question that the person is a newer user of PTE. Under those circumstances isn't it better to just give a basic answer to a basic question. We can forget all about frames and retaining format. They can find all that out a little later, once they have a show or two made. Isn't is best to just say, use your image editor (whatever they are using) to make your images the same size as your monitor and leave it at that. Even getting into unsharp mask at this stage may be too much for some, but if we do, we should give some step by step advice on how to do that and what level of unsharp mask is required.

I also notice that while working on the time line, if you highlight a transition point and hit the delete key instead of the cut transition button, the slide is not only removed from the time line, but also the slide list. I have done this a number of times and accept that it is probably because I am not familiar yet with the new layout, but I wonder if the delete key can be used as a cut transition while we are in the time line and not remove the slide from the slide list. It is the most natural thing to do, to highlight a transition point and hit the delete key. Bunching Transition points When I am 20 images into a sequence and copy some more images into the show, then drag them into the slide list. Why do they all have to appear on the timeline bunched up. I constantly have to keep hitting, cut transition before I can continue adding transition points. Do images selected for use in the slide list, but not yet added on the timeline, have to appear anywhere in the timeline at all? It's not natural for them to appear there because we havn't hit the new transition button yet. File Panel Often I want to get rid of an image completely from my show, I have decided it has no place in the sequence, but if I highlight the thumbnail, hitting the delete key does nothing, can it be made to completely remove the image to the recycle bin?

I am using Windows Vista and just got the attached message when I installed Beta 5

Igor I have a current project on the go and have been using Beta 4, not downloaded beta 5 yet. I added some images and got the slide show started, but then created some more images in photoshop and then selected them in beta 4. When I go into the time line, I cannot seem to click and drag to highlight those new images to remove them from the time line. After dragging over 7 images that used to be selected, now only one of them highlights. I had to remove each one, one at a time. What I want to do is carry on the programming from that point after adding some images. In addition, if I try to select an image from the slide list to remove it, often the slide next to it becomes selected and the one I click on refuses to select. It will select in the light box screen. Hope that makes sense

For those interested I was asked to produce some videos for the Ephotozine.tv web site and the second one I did was PTE5 http://www.ephotozine.tv/video/Creating-sl...rry-Beckham-628

John Nice one, you have captured the atmosphere and the mood.

Jeff I have experienced something like this and was guided by Igor to another way to create a DVD. Sometimes we can spend half our life trying to find out why our PC will not do what others seem to do with ease. Often a work around is quicker and less stressful and this way worked every time for me. Details below http://www.beckhamdigital.co.uk/audiovisual/dvd/dvdprobs.htm

As images are downsampled they also often loose sharpness as pixels are removed. Lanczos, Pyramid, Various iterations of Bicubic, Genuine Fractals, Spline, etc., are all unique in certain ways. Really good interpolation is akin more to a "black art" than to science because there are so many variables it's nearly impossible to know what will work best in every case. For example - I use variously Canon, Nikon, Olympus, Sigma, Pentax, Sony, Fuji, Panasonic and a number of other digital camera systems. When I'm enlarging for prints I use nearly all the above interpolation algorithms plus a half-dozen others depending on the nature of the files, number of artifacts, presence or absence of an AA filter, etc. There simply is no one single "right" way to do it. Glad I didn't read that when I started Digital Photography. I might have given up before I started. There was me thinking that all I needed was Photoshop or Elements to resize images and to keep things simple. Probably the best advice to get sharper images, is to hold the camera steady!!

Igor Just got back from a few days away and tried beta 4 and it looks pretty good to me. It works fine and it's now great to see the animation and any frames used to when adding points on the fly. Great work. I think an extra start and stop button between the New Transition button and the Cut Transition button would be a nice inclusion. There is quite a distance between the start and stop buttons if your not aware of the space bar shortcut. Barry

Stonewall The answer to question 1 is, that's up to you. A title can help set the scene and give the audience a clue as to what is coming, but it is not essential. You could have the title come up after 4-5 images if you wish. Competition rules may ask for a title, but that may be one you give the show for identification or physically at the start of the show. Question 2. The answer is yes, you can have a book turning technique. There are a couple of demos at the link below if the effect you may want. http://www.beckhamdigital.co.uk/freestuffdigslidesw2.htm Question 3. Yes, you can give the impression, but this will be a personal thing. One may choose to have the images gradually blur out, or fade to white. There are a few ideas that come to mind. Sound effects can be obtained from sound effects disks, via dedicated sites on the Internet, or even recorded live as some members do to good effect. These are generally mixed together using a sound editing software and one that appears to be used by many AV enthusiasts is Audacity. This is completely free, reasonably easy to use and will meet all of your AV sound needs http://www.beckhamdigital.co.uk/editingsou...oundediting.htm

Well, with the examples you sent, the Infranview one is marginally sharper. Thanks for the test, see, well worth doing