Barry Beckham

Igor I am sure I am not the only one to have noticed this, but on flat screen monitors a fade up from black can display some odd things on screen. I am not sure what to call the effect, but its not very attractive. I think its on par with the moire effect. It seems to be worse fading up onto a monochrome image. Is there anything that can be done about that. I have tried moving away from black to a dark charcoal colour and adding noise, but I would rather stay with black.

Regarding the white background. I felt sort of forced to use that because with the coming of flat screens I am not happy with the fade up from black anymore. Its hit and miss and on the first image in this sequence it was awful. I almost posted a query for Igor to ask if there is anything that could be done about that in the programming of the software. On the old CRT screens the fade up would have been perfect. Tried a charcoal colour, tried adding noise, but I didn't like any of them. I think your right about the white on this occasion and I have now changed it, but I am not totally happy with the slow fade up of the first mono image. Judy Its very hard to sell photographs these days no matter how good they are. Many photographers have had to close shops in the perfect location. Why? I can only guess that everyone sees themselves as an expert and tell themselves that if they really wanted a picture like that, they could take it themselves. A good friend of mine is in this position and has had to start teaching photography as well, or his shop would have to close. Generally speaking, Mr and Mrs Average don't see any value in photographs. How many times have you been told. That's a lovely picture, you must have a good camera !!!

Version 7.02 Anthony I don't disagreeand as I use PTE on my tutorial disks I am not too happy for AVG to be classing them as Viruses, but its been going on for a long while. If there was an easy answer, I guess Igor would have discovered it.

Colin. You say that as though I should be doing something about it? Dump AVG and use something else that you can have some confidence in.Seems to me that AVG has become worse than useless to PTE users, so why tolerate it? Beats me

http://www.beckhamdigital.co.uk/slideshows_3.html

As some of you may know, we do have a number of albums of Music on our web site that is offered to photographers for their digital projects. The muscians have recognised the issues amateur photographers have with copyright and have allowed their music to be used for low level comercial use. Low level use means those who may want to use the music on a commercial venture and a good example may be a wedding photographer who wishes to use music and sell a commercial product. The numbers of products will not be high and therefore the license covers that use. One of the muscians Richard Goldsworthy has just sent us his latest work called Lifted. His music is soft, gentle solo piano. You will find the album and samples of the 15 tracks at the top of the page HERE

I think DavyC is entitled to his opinion, but some may notice that I have not responded to him for some time now. I decided that was the way to deal with those whose comments are designed to be confrontational. I think most members can deduce reasonable comment from spitefulness and those that can't,well,enough said. I would not normally ever post a PM,but perhaps this is a time when it would be permissible to do so. Some time ago DavyC downloaded one of my slide shows, grabbed all the pictures from it, then remade that show, posting it back on this forum via Mediafire. I think I had some reason to be a little annoyed at that, but I just sent this personal message to him. (Copied exactly from the forum messages) Davy Its not really the done thing to take someone elses work, change it and then repost it. I would like to ask you to reconsider if it was right and reasonable to do that. Barry Beckham He replied with: Hi Barry, I have the greatest respect for you and your work. I do in fact recommend new members to our local camera club to your site. It was not my intention to cause you any grief. Ihave deleted the post, and deleted the Mediafire show aswell. Happy to post a public apology. Regards, Davy My response was the following and as far as I was concerned the issue was over and no apology was necessary. None Necessary, thanks for understanding. Barry It appears his apology was not as sincere as I first thought, as ever since then his comments on anything I post is confrontational. He has obviously taken a huge dislike to me and responds accordingly. Anyone who thinks it entirely OK to take someone else's work, remake it and then repost it, shouldn't expect their comments to be taken very seriously. I don't because I am aware what the motivation is and I ignore them. So, please do not concern yourselves, allow DavyC to make all the comments he wishes, I am a big boy and the more ridiculous his comments, the less credible they become. Its only a slide show.

I recently needed to replace an old monitor and as I like the Dell 16:10 I thought I would get another, but try as I might, 16:9 was the only format I could get and I found the same with the laptop too.

Eric I do not have any expeprience of this, only the playing of slide shows made with a larger resolution than the projectorsize. In that case they all play fine, but I would expect the following will happen the other way around. Your 1280*1024 slide shows will be restricted to the 800 pixel height of the projector and I would expect the width to remain in proportion. Meaning you would see your 1280*1024 shows OK on that projector, but with black bars left and right. That is not a big issue I don't think, because they are probably less noticeable on projectors than a monitor, because the projected images does not have a plastic edge. Your 1024*768 pixel images will be expanded slightly if you never ticked the fixed size of slide box, but from 768-800 pixels, I think you would find the result OK. Once again you would have bars either side, but not a problem on projectors. IMHO The two mock ups are in proportion and what I would expect to see

Its called Rock Guitar

Greg Thanks, well it was a bit of fun really, an excuse to show some images.

Just some of the images I have completed in 2011 Its fast and furious. Top of the page here called http://www.beckhamdigital.co.uk/slideshows_3.html

Igor Many thanks, I think your right to deal with the sound editing next Barry

Lin If you don't mind me saying so Lin, your stating the obvious mate. I have said before that it is essential that PTE introduces Video to stay competitive and I agree about us old codgers, but I can't force myself to like it all that much. I am dying to see a sill image AV incorperating video that makes me sit up, take notice and say wow, and I am talking about something the everyday user can create. However, I don't have any enthusiasm to debate the pros and cons of video, too many defensive people here I just want to know what's next?

Lin Well I doubt any software is ever finished, but what your referring to would only be used by a tiny percentage of enthusiasts and if you want that, perhaps Adobe Premire would be more capable. You only have to look on this forum to see little of interest has been created using video. I understood that sound editing was to be improved to look more like audacity, but It's Igors baby so he takes it where we wishes. I just asked for a heads up, so I can pass that info on when asked.

Igor Are you able to give us an idea of where you are going next with PTE. What is your next project now that Video is complete? B

Whether this is the right place to mention this or not, but why do we have to tick a box to stop a sound comment being abruptly stopped when the next slide appears? It makes no sense at all. Can anyone think of one single reason why you would want your commentary/sound effect to be cut off so badly. The default should be the other way reound or that box removed completely.....IMHO

Noel How your slide show is received will depend largely on who you aimed it at. This will give you the best idea on how it's likely to be received. All of us have a visual IQ in our photography. Its what makes one picture great for one person and not so great for another. The same goes for AV. You have entered a competition and now your work is being judged far more harshly than it ever will here. In Audio Visual competition the judges are looking for originality, a flow from image to image, good appropriate music and a story. I can sort of understand why the judges made that comment. A title for a slide show will be read by the audience in less than a second, but in your show it is on screen far too long and with the greatest respect to the Dom, its hard to read, because letters leave the screen and don't build upinto a word. Then, at the end of the handwriting, you give us the title again. Its 1 minute before we see the first image in your showand in my view that's too long. I think you will find that the judges felt that you concentrated more on the presentation techniques than the content. If your going to enter competitions, then whether you agree with it or not, you need to keep things simple and find a story or an implied story. The Photo hierarchy are slow to change and judges can be even slower. Below is what your up against incompetition when you use techniques that are a little different to what they are used to. This relates to including video in slideshows, but its much the same thing. Motion for an AV rule Full motion video capture (above 10 frames/sec) should not be included unchanged from video cameras, however simulated motion by manually sequencing asuccession of still captures may be used in short sections foreffect. As soon as something new appears in photography, the first reaction of the great and the good is to ban it, or create more hoops for us all to jump through. Why 10fps is quoted is beyond me.

Not if the slide show has substance as well as the effects. You cannot create an interesting slide show with technical wizardry alone, but sadly many people seem to believe you can. By substance I am referring to a show that has a story or at least some theme and contains good quality images. Moving images about the screen or using technical tricks does not do it alone. Those techniques have the ability to grab your audiences attention, but they will not sustain you through a full slide show sequence. You have to do that with good photography and and a good idea. On top of all that, quite often the judges will write off an entry because they see it as not the authors creative work. I don't fully subcribe to that but I know it happens and when you see some work submitted you can't help but ask the question. How much of this was the authors work.. Why not put your mini sequence up on www.mediafire.com and let us have a link to view it ourselves

Fair enough, but you are now sounding a bit defensive and can only point to one example, hardly a landslide is it? Surely its reasonable to assume that the vast majority of people like to see their Images, Slide shows, video seen by a wider audience. I offer this site and Beechbrook as evidence of that. I am sure there is a PSG one and others too. Many of the contributors here make their shows for others to see, some for camera clubs and some not. I think that many people on this site, me included are not really sure what to do with our new video capabilities. We don't want to right it off, ban it or make some silly stand saying "I will never use it" just in case we are just not seeing the light yet. I have to be careful in what I say because I am also turned off by many TV programs because they try to use ginmmicks and fast moving video to make up for lack of interest. Images flashing into negative, jumping across the screen with weird sound effects, then back to the normal video. No video take lasting more than 2 seconds. So perhaps its just me. But if it was, we would surely see some great examples posted here. Have I missed them.

Dave I expect you are right that people in general are reluctant to accept change, but if the comment was aimed at me, you couldn't be further from the truth. I am about to go into battle with some here who want to ban video from AV competitions. Although Video doesn't inspire me, the last thing that should be done is to ban it. However, that is the first reaction of the "photo establishment" who feel they must make rules for the rest of us to jump through, whenever anything new comes along. While I don't personally care for video being mixed with stills much myself I am very careful, not to say "never" I am willing to be converted, to see something that makes me take stock and think again I might be wrong, but so far I havn't seen that from anyone.

Peter. Yes, I think I agree with you here. With the greatest respect to Igor and his team, video is not for me. I have done a little video to create tutorials, but at this present time, I doubt I will use video myself. What appealed to me about AV and always has, is the quality of the images we can use. Video, just doesn't cut it, even HD. As for inserting poor quality video taken from the internet, well, what is the point. There is enormous discussion about video, but is there anything really wow, that is worth seeing. If so lead me to it please.

For those interested we have a newsletter available below. http://www.beckhamdigital.co.uk/newsletter/Nov_2011.pdf

Please don't mention that 4 letter word. I don't do work anymore. We went into Caloundra yesterday, for the sunset, that fizzled out, so we had dinner right on the Pumicstone Passage while watching a dolphin swim just off the shore. Next time you come up, let me know

Where in Australia are you? Anywhere near the Sunshine Coast?