Barry Beckham
-
Posts
4,486 -
Joined
-
Last visited
-
Days Won
68
Posts posted by Barry Beckham
-
-
This issue is an important one, but let me ask this question. How many times have you needed to find an image that you took a long while ago and how many times have you needed to do this?
I have been in this position a few times, but can usually zero into the image within a reasonably short time. If you store images chronologically you can usually put a CD in the drive and know the picture you want was taken before or after the ones on the CD and that is how I work.
If I spent a lot of time, even with good software cataloguing my images I could die in the process.
Next question. Subtract the time spent looking for those odd images from the time it would take to catelogue them all. If you end up with a minus figure then the work may be worthwhile, if not why bother.
Do you not think that this cateloging is almost an obsession with some people to the extent that it almost becomes more important than the images they shoot. I have one aquaintance who can lay his hand on any image within seconds, which is pretty impressive. He boasts about how he can find anything he wants, but:-
1. He never has the need for this speed being an amateur. (He is not running an image library)
2. This is a bit naughty, but...his images arn't worth the search!
Just wonder if this is all worth the worry?
BB
-
Barry (BJC)
Another BJC masterpiece, I almost miss IDIG
BarryB
-
What always occures to me when looking at many slide shows is, forget the transitions and spend some time on the image quality.
Many pictures that get used not once, but sometimes, three times (first in B&W then in green, then in blue) shouldn't be there in the first place. They are not up to it and should be edited out.
The success of any group of images either hard copies or via a slide show are more affected by what the author decides not to show, more than what they do.
BarryB
-
There are video tutorials at this location too
http://www.beckhamdigital.co.uk/digitalav/...ter/starter.htm
There is also a good example of how the time line can be used to match the music HERE
Barry B
-
I have just created a Movie tutorial DVD on this subject using PicturesToExe and Photoshop and you can find details HERE
Barry B
-
Boy am I glad I don't do technical or I would never produce a slide show at all.
Barry B
-
This is all far too complicated and boring, I will risk it
Barry B
-
Ron
Bit of a late reply, but no, I don't want to create buttons in Photoshop, I like the ability to add them quickly and easily in PTE.
Barry
-
-
bjc
Are you confusing all these good people with DPI and PPI? Now what did you say again?
I don't do technical
Barry
-
Geordie
Only just seen your message, but I do a series of movie tutorials for PTE as someone has already suggested, but here is the direct link.
http://www.beckhamdigital.co.uk/digaudvistut.htm
Barry
-
Granot
I have tried MMB, but cannot get my head around it and with all my committments can't spend the time needed to learn it. Would love a tutorial on this program
I would like to use it to create the navigation around my movie tutorial CD's.
Are the files proced by MMB compatible with Mac's?
Barry
-
I and others who I have spoken to have sucessfully created DVD's of our PTE slide shows via Ulead movie factory, but would like to see the resulting show better quality on our TV's.
While we accept the show will be viewed from 12 feet rather than 2 on the PC screen, we want the quality to be more comparable with the PC version.
Does anyone on this forum have experience of other software that does a better job or a technique that improves the DVD output quality. Experiments with image size perhaps, resolution.
In addition, modern widescreen TV's stretch the image so much that a flickering is often present in any slide where there is lots of detail. It is usually light and dark areas, a tree full of leaves, or the bricks in a side of a house.
I and one or two others would be interested in the forums thoughts.
Barry Beckham
-
Igor
I use object editor for my menu for tutorial CD's and downloaded the beta version. I then could not make a sucessful link via button properties to open another program.
The link just will not operate once the slide show is created. I returned to version 4.31 and its fine.
Can you check that out as something appears wrong there. The link string in the properties box appear withing quotes in the beta version.
Something like this "Videos\Creating Movement\Creating Movement.exe"
Barry Beckham
-
-
I have started using the PTE program for all my navigation buttons and links on my movie tutorial CD's and would like the following.
To first fix the objects in place irrespective of what resolution PC the show is played on.
Then perhaps the ability to create hotspots within object editor so that you could link to other pages, programs etc.
You can do this up to a point now, by making the buttons transparent, but the outline can stil be seen.
I think PTE is a simple and convenient way to create buttons and to navigate around a CD and any extras here would go down a storm with me.
bbdigital
www.beckhamdigital.co.uk
-
I have been busy recording some more video tutorials lately on a variety of subjects and recording them for both Photoshop and Elements users.
I have also included a couple demo slide shows that work a bit like an advert for the CD, but do contain the subject being dealt with.
Just for interest the links are here, just click the demo button
http://www.beckhamdigital.co.uk/photoshopc...car/red_car.htm
http://www.beckhamdigital.co.uk/photoshopc...age/montage.htm
My Main AV page of downloadable slide shows is here
http://www.beckhamdigital.co.uk/freestuffd...fdigslidesw.htm
bbdigital
-
Paula
Have you tried unistalling PTE, downloading the latest version and re-installing that. Perhaps some minor glitch is allowing the program to work, but messing up the Jpeg's
Never heard of any problems like that before
bbdigital
-
-
I have replaced my old AV starter CD with a new one that is fully video and brought right up to date with changes in software. It covers PicturesToExe, Photoshop, Photoshop Elements and includes AudioGrabber, WinZip and Audacity.
It is aimed at newer users of PTE and covers the whole process start to finish of how to create slide shows. It also covers the creation of a DVD and includes images for use in following the tutorials, plus a couple of my AV's for good measure. The videos are recorded at 1024 * 768 pixels , so on most PC screens the video will fill the monitor edge to edge.
Check out details HERE
Barry
-
Igor
I think this has already been covered, but I will add it anyway. I am using PTE as a menu navigation for my tutorial CD's and it is really working great.
The issue that is a problem is having to look at the menu in all resolutions to make sure the buttons don't overlap, so maintain the objects on a page despite the resolution it is viewed in is something I would like to see.
bbdigital
-
I have only just picked up this thread and would make a few comments. The first being that I am not a professional photographer. My work is operating buses in London, which is as far as you can get from photography.
However, in my view a professional is someone who carries out their photography for a living, it does not mean they are any good at it. Some are pretty lousy in my view, lacking vision and technical ability. That doesn't seem to stop them from earning a living for years though.
In the UK the word professional has been misused in my view to indicate something good, well made. Oh yeah, apply that to the building trade, plumbing, car repairs etc etc. Find me just one of those who is reliable and good, or professional come to that.
The amateur can often do a better job than the por for one good reason. They have interest, committment and apply tender loving car to what they do.
Shooting for AV you need some vision and as Keneth has said we need to consider other subjects, linked to the one we are shooting. At a steam railway we may shoot a picture or two of a pile of coal, which on it's own is not that inspiring. add AV techniques and a steam train fading up from within the black coal and you have a whole different thing.
We are shooting digitally now, so we can shoot loads of bits and pieces that can be used as Keneth suggests. A pile of logs, close up of the bark of a tree, the pile of coal or a flake of rust on the side of an old loco. In my view that is what makes a slide show interesting.
On the quality issue, there are no tricks or special techniques, but if you are aware that camera shake is an issue for you, then fix it by using a tripod. We don't get good quality without making an effort. I put in heaps of effort.
I also think that one of the most important parts of putting together an AV or a slide show is editing the images. I would hazzard a guess that many AV workers are struggling for slides when they put their shows together and the issue should be the reverse. We should be taking out good images to make our show, not squeezing in those that probably shouldn't be in there in the first place. If you run your own slide show a dozen times, you can soon spot the weak areas. They jump out and bite you.
Someone in a postal photographic club some years ago asked me how I got my images so sharp. Well, of course I didn't and I had my share of failures like everyone else. The difference between us was that I recognised my own failures and did not show them. The other guy wanted to show everything he did and the quality wasn't up to it.
Be very critical of your own work and even then that creative mist will still cloud your judgement at times. It does to us all in varying degrees
On the subject of AV/slide shows...........well. I have seen some great ideas that fall right into the AV ideal, but the picture quality and execution was awful and the resulting show lacked appeal.
The word slide show in AV circles seems to be used sometimes as a derogatory term meaning not as thoughtful or appealing as a true AV. I don't go along with that (generally speaking) and my view is that you can make an AV of almost anything, if you get it right.
Alan Lyons has a point, be we don't all want to get bogged down into AV competitions producing AV's with deap meanings. Well, I don't anyway, but if that is your thing, then great.
The ingrediants to getting it right is also obvious, The correct choice of soundtrack, quality images, well edited and sorted and with that variation in images that maintains the interest. We could have 50 perfect landscapes, but could we watch them all in a slide show? I doubt it, they need to be broken up a bit. It would be rather like reading a newspaper that has blocks and blocks of text and no images to break it all up.
Some of the obvious things I see in shows that I download are titles that stay on the screen far too long, we only need a second or two to read them so don't bore your audience right at the start of the show and have them willing the the next image to appear.
The same is true of images in general, where they stay on screen far too long. Better to have your audience regreting the fact that the last image is disappearing into the next rather than have them longing for the next image.
I don't agree that there is a great deal of difference between the film based AV and digital. I have done both and if someone can point out the techniques that are so different please do, perhaps my memory has let me down. I seem to recal employing the same techniques with 2 projectors and used to get asked back to clubs quicker than I could make the shows, so I figured we had something right.
I do think it is much easier to produce slide shows/av now than it was with film and I don't miss the wirr, clatter of the slide projector. I also recall the AV workers who spent the entire eveing trying to keep up with the focussing of their slides as they popped in an out throughout the entire sequence. I could not be having with any of that and carefully glass mounted every slide in the sequences Carol and I made.
At the end of the day, if a real beginner threw 30 images into an automatic slide show with a bit of music, even that would be an improvement in the presentation.
Does that lot make any sense?
I doubt it
Barry B
-
I have posted a few new slide shows here http://www.beckhamdigital.co.uk/freestuffd...fdigslidesw.htm
for anyone who is interested.
Regards
bbdigital
-
The wedding viodeo tutorials I am putting together is now complete and will be available on my site in a couple of days along with some more AV samples
Barry
www.beckhamdigital.co.uk
The time a show takes depends on the TLC you give it, but a commercial presentation should not take more than 2-3 hours once all the images are produced
An unknown forum member...
in Slideshows & AV Shows
Posted
Is the address right as it is not working for me?
Barry