Barry Beckham

Mike The trick is the make your final slide show greater than the sum of the two parts (music and images) and to try an create a little mood if possible. There are a lot of ways to do this, but with a pictorial slide show like yours its the images and the quality of those images that are driving the creative process. Your goal should be to create a smooth flow between images and to do nothing that will interrupt that flow. That's why many have already raised the logo on your images because they do just that, spoil the flow. Some of the most common ways to try and achieve this is to keep all your images the same size and aspect ratio and 16:9 seems to be the standard these days. With landscapes, try where possible to line up horizons and don't mix and match landscape and portrait format images. As Dave says above investigate the third image, it has the potential to lift the appeal when done right and on a more personal note, use the standard fade 99% of the time Music is the real key, because if the images come first you have to find some music with that special something, but it has to be able to work in harmony with your images. A brass band and beautiful landscapes are not likely to combine well enough to create a show greater than the sum of the two parts. This is easier said than done, but try to avoid obvious and common music choices. Some delicate sound effects can often help with a mood, but its a very fine line between something great and something awful The rest is just putting your heart and sole into it over many days. Watch your own show twice a day and see how many days pass before you start tearing it apart. When you stop tearing it apart, then its time to show the world Welcome to AV

Its now doubled up in the suggestions section Ken

+1

Ken I have one thought, but it might not even be an option for your project, because what I will suggest does take away a lot of your flexibility. However, I use multiple voice files every month for an ongoing club project and I find it easier to use software like Camtasia to stitch all the sound comments together quickly and easily and add them as one For the project I do it works a treat and I don't need that flexibility for the style of presentation I am putting together. However, if I make a mistake and have to slot a voice comment in, it can be a pain. A right click to a selected image, as you suggest from the file list may encourage me to work from individual voice recordings in the future and retain the flexibility.

Mark When you select a Mac version from the Publish menu, there is an option to create the Mac show in zip. Its right there next to where you put the file name.

Barry Making a small slide show to get your head around the software is an excellent idea and its a shame others don't always follow your logic. The PicturesToExe project file on its own in isolation from the images and sound is useless to you. All the project file does is to tell the software what images/sound was used in the show, where they are located on the computer, what transitions were used, for how long and what changes may have been made to the sound. I know that making assumptions is dangerous, but I will do so anyway and assume that your motives to saving the project file off the computer to an external drive is for safety reasons. To give you access to that slide show any time in the future? There are a number of ways you can come at this, but one that I have used for some time is to create a Bakup in zip, which can be found via File > Create Bakup in Zip. Do this once your happy that your slide show is complete.What this command does is to take all of the images and sound you actually used in your slide show. All the settings, transitions, absolutely everything including the important project file and wraps all these essential files into one zipped folder. That zipped folder can be saved to any location on or off your computer. From this bakup in zip you can always open your slide show and find it just as you left it. Ready for recreation, editing, anything you like. One vital thing is that when you make a slide show, keep everything you want to use in one folder. The windows operating system your using is not relevant to making a backup in zip I made a video tutorial on this subject quite some time ago, but its still relative to what we do now. Just ignore the fact that I was working from 3 folders with my slide show. Stay with one as its probably safer. Download HERE The video also includes the making of a template too.

I think your main issue is asking others their opinion? What do they know that you don't?. Have you seen some of the slide shows made by those who may give you the advice? With regard to music I try to avoid the obvious. Take Enya for example. Beautiful music, lovely to listen to, but so many slide show creators reach for Enya because its easy and convenient. However, they pay a price for that easy option choice. Its a choice I avoid. Why do images shot in China have to have Chinese music, why do Thailand images need Thai music and so on. Break the mold and use something completely different and to hell with those who tell you it must be Thai. music. By all means use a little of it to set the scene, but go with what works and not what is expected by the masses. Music is personal. Making an AV in the style you do is a creative experience like an artist painting a picture. The artist doesn't have a crowd around them offering advice. They create something they like and they accept that they will not produce a masterpiece every time. Perhaps you are trying too hard to win the competition and you need to step back and enjoy the process more.

One of the most difficult areas is to find an angle and music to show images that may not have a story entwined within them. The more you force it, the worse the creativity seems to be. I have lots of folders with slide show titles that only got so far and petered out. I have to wait for inspiration and some times it comes and sometimes it doesn't Maybe an idea is to leave your show for a month or two and come back to it later. Sometimes I find that shakes loose the creative ideas, but not always

Mark I don't think the lack of response to your request has anything to do with a holiday season at all and the lack of comment is already sending you a loud and clear message. I think members are not too happy to make comments where they may have to be less than fully complimentary. One reason is that some don't feel qualified to give an opinion, but others are held back because they don't want to say what they know they would have to say, if they gave honest feedback. There may also be a politically correct element creeping in where members don't want to say anything that is out of step with the main stream. They are scared they will be ganged up on by those who don't share their view. We have seen it before where one member will comment on another persons comment and then that will be jumped on by others. Its bullying basically by those who don't have the courage to stand alone and make a constructive comment. Sadly the result ends up with no one saying anything of consequence at all. I watched your show as 45 others did and I formed a view of it. Those other 45 would also have done too, but I kept my thoughts to myself as they have. Until now. I don't think you can create work of art by committee and asking others what direction you should take is not a good idea in my view. It gives the impression that you are more intent on winning the competition than producing a piece of work that you like and you are proud of. Create it for yourself and if its good enough for a competition, then you have a bonus. The loud and clear message your being sent is that the show is not rated highly. If it was, you would have had more response. In comparison to your recent Iceland sequence this isn't in the same league. Sorry to say this, but its a bit ordinary and certainly not likely to do really well in the same type of competition. The images look like those most of us take when we go on a family holiday. A few of them stand out as above average, but most do not and they are a bit ordinary, both in content and manipulation. The music sounds great, but the images are not joining with the music to make the sum of the two parts greater. The sequence seems to lack a purpose and direction with the fades not fitting hardly at all with the music. It just wanders, which then results in making the sequence too long. The hands image for example seems to have little purpose where its placed. It would make a better image at the start or end perhaps. I am not sure your choice of subject or the approach is going win you that competition. I think you probably already know that and perhaps you posted the sequence to get a second opinion, but none came forward. Its a competent slide show, but a competition one? probably not, unless the standard your up against is low, then where is the merit in winning? It comes across as a good family record of a great holiday and its certainly worth posting on SSC, but I think the familiarity of the subject matter leaves few avenues to improve it for competition with the title Photo Harmony.

Resolved

I have noticed that the forum icons down the left side of all forum headings are missing in my Google Chrome and Windows Explorer browsers. These icons are designed to grey out when there are no new posts, but show up stronger when a post has been made to indicate that fact. However, they do appear to display correctly when the forum is viewed on an iPad. I had the same issue recently with icons not displaying correctly and it was an issue with the Cache. Something for the Administrators to put right

Igor Just a personal view regarding Slide Styles. When I create a slide style the most important thing to me is to decide what category I should place it in to help keep order, yet the top option when you go to create a style is the style itself. Every time I use this option I think it should be the other way around. I feel the top option should be the category, then the style name. Also, I often make a style and create it. Then spot an error or I change my mind a little and want to make a change and over-write the previous one, but whereas in the category selection we can see what categories we have made, we can't with the style. You have to remember the name you used. Miss a space or a dash and you have two styles and one that needs deleting. It would be nice to select the Slide Style category first and have all the styles in that category open up to view

Thanks Igor I have already replied and suggested he upgrade video card drivers, but even that may not help in this situation. Thank you I will pass this along.

Igor In my experience these hosting companies treat us like they are doing us a favour supplying the space. They seem to forget we are the customer who is paying THEM money. Trying to get a response from them and then some action is like finding hens teeth. They need a healthy dose of Customer Care

Can I have your ideas on the cause of this please:- Someone who downloads a slide show using Windows XP and it plays sound only. Can't say I have ever experienced that The person has downloaded it again to side step any download glitch and I have downloaded and tested the slide show myself and it plays fine He is unable to try it on another machine where I expect it would work and confirm whatever the issue is, its on his machine. I haven't asked what resolution he is running, that thought just came to me as I was typing this. Any ideas gratefully recieved

OK, thanks

I notice that slide show club has not been available to me over two days, but no-one seems to have mentioned it. Has it not been noticed or something odd my end. Would someone else like to try and open Slide Show Club

I think you all need to take a deep breath, step back and pause awhile.............................. Because this isn't about Adobe or whether there is something better than Photoshop. My note just corrected some false statements and beliefs about Creative Cloud and your still missing the point. Perhaps you are all part of the problem being too quick to jump on a bandwagon and beat your chest and turn this into a debate about which software can do something better than Photoshop when that's not the issue at all. There is almost a foolish hysteria built up around Adobe CC and if you feel that is a silly statement, just look at the post above. "I don't like this subject, so it should be locked" My point made nicely I think.

Your missing the point Lin and forgive me but you do state the obvious at times.We could actually take Adobe's name out of this discussion and replace it was Acme. It's really not incumbent for someone else to "direct you to a website" to convince you that there are better options for HDR, panoramas, noise reduction and super sharp images than Photoshop is able to produce. Yes it is for me. If you want to tell me that you have discovered something wonderful that the rest of us haven't yet found, then show me some evidence of it. My experience is that those who talk loudest in general seem to produce very little, but it's not even about that. Its about making sure when you talk to others in print that you have the facts right. We can all be allowed an error or two, but don't tell me you haven't noticed that some information given on forums is way off beam. Its why many people believe that those of us who visit and contribute to these forums and discussions have not been taking our medication. I am beginning to sound a bit like that myself now, but lets hope if I can be aware and ask the question, all is not lost

I think the essence of this is that "different strokes for different folks" may be the operant phrase. Obviously many, many people are quite happy with Adobe's subscription paradigm and the quite low price for Photoshop and Lightroom compared to the original purchase license prices. I agree with you, but that isn't the point originally made and with respect to Urma, he is part of the problem I highlighted. He has given the impression that he is very knowledgeable on Photoshop and how do I know if he is or isn't? He says he has been using it for almost 9 years, since CS-3. He gives lectures and workshops about photography and image editing, He tells us he is beyond telling people what slider to move but goes deeper than that. He says he explains the principles behind the workflow and as a nature photographer he doesn't need the bells and whistles. He gives the impression he writes books on the subject and is a user of the latest Canon 50MP camera. So, it's not unreasonable to form a view from the post that here is someone who knows what they are talking about. On the other hand he wasn't aware of the basics of how many installations Photoshop allows, but is still willing to go into print and state it as fact that you can only have it on one computer at a time. Call me old fashioned, but if you have been with the software for almost 9 years and are telling everyone you're an expert, that is a pretty important point to miss. To make his point we have a list of software being compared, but as a CS-6 users Urma is already two and a half years out of date which was one of my main points. Modern software is too complex, there is a lot of it out there and it's upgraded and improved quickly. I have not met anyone yet who can keep up up all areas, yet many will go into print and give the impression they can and do. No mention has been made of the latest upgrades to Photoshop where HDR and Panoramas can be done solely in Camera Raw. I can only assume that this point has been missed when the comparisons were made. Maybe because of the 30 months of development that has gone by. I am not against choice, I am against information put out by those who give the impression of knowledge, but really are just on their hobby horse. Something like 5 different software packages are mentioned before we even consider Adobe. So, if we add the three adobe products we have 8 and we seem to be told that we need these if we are to be proficient at our photography because they are so much better. Nah, don't buy it. I have no interest in test pictures that I have had no hand in creating let alone seeing the original image to ensure it was exposed correctly in the first place. Direct me to a website, where I can see great examples of the HDR, Panoramas, the noise reduction the super sharp images. Stop me in my tracks with the quality of the photography being created now, not a dozen images amassed over 10 years. Show me the wow value your getting and you will have me sitting up and taking notice. Just telling me it's so isn't enough

I rest my case and throw the towel in for the second time

While these security breaches are regrettable and we wish they could be avoided, it's probably reasonable to assume that Adobe's site is now stronger than it was previously. It always amazes me when a company is the victim of cyber crime that the blame never falls on those who are stealing the information, but always on the company itself. The company usually referred to as "They" by the know it all's, somehow has to be super human and do something the best programmers in the world cannot achieve. Total unbreakable security. Human's being humans then queue up to chest beat and say things like "the abysmal record Adobe has over the last few years" I was one of those affected, but it was only a password change. My money wasn't on the point of being stolen. When those who shout the loudest have their home burgled and trashed, remind me to blame them for not having adequate security on their home to keep the thieves out. Life is full of risks, but too many people are willing to jump on the bandwagon and often loaded down with only gossip will bang the drum and scare the life out of those who are nervous.

After organising a major AV comp in Queensland in 2014 and now assisting another Brisbane club to do the same in 2016. I wrote these guidance notes that may be useful.Not being a lover of restrictive rules that can cramp authors creative freedoms I prefer guidelines. Open the Pdf HERE

I notice that if I go into the Account settings of my own forum. (same as this one) As an administrator I seem to have an option to change a username, but not as a standard member. I don't believe moderators can change the name either, so you might try sweet talking the administrators Mur Worse things in life than being in a circle. Isn't that what a forum is, a circle of like minded people. Of course if you believe that you will believe anything