Barry Beckham

That was one of the best Audio Visual sequences I have seen posted on this site. You must be pleased with that and rightly so. There are broadly two styles of still image AV. Story based and Image based. This is story based and when you get that right it stands out from the crowd. You got it right.

Igor Its OK, just a suggestion. Its a small price to pay for the rest that PTE gives me. I am not really into making Videos of my slide shows, I like the exe quality. The appeal of AV for me is that still images are streets ahead of any video in quality and for me that is the appeal.

I recall some years ago having a telephone conversation with a guy who did not know that when the thumbnail appeared on his TV, he had to click it to start the DVD. This isn't that is it?

Igor I wonder if this is something you could consider for the future. I like to use the option to add blanks to my slide shows, but I find computer generated colour, (other than back and white) unnatural to the eye, it's too smooth. I would like the ability to add Gaussian Monochrome noise to blanks or Rectangle shapes in the O&A, maybe even textures if that is possible. Ideally, I would like the same opportunity to do that to the colour behind the slides and also the colour outside the slide area. If I am not pushing my luck too far, I would also like to be able to affect the colour/Noise outside the slide area in the Customised slide option too.

Igor Not sure if there is anything you could do about this, but if you don't ask, you don't get they say. Since using a large flat screen monitor, I notice that when fading up from black on the first image, you often see a disturbance in the screen. Not sure how else to describe it, but I am guessing you know what I mean. I do find it annoying and it does cause a distraction just when your trying to start off a slide show with a good first impression. Is there anything that can be done about it from PTE's point of view.

When you create a link via a button in PTE to a slide show, the link may be something like this (D being a secondary drive perhaps) D:/photos/PTE_shows/My Slide Shows/A Summers day.exe The important part is the last part A Summers day.exe When you put these slide shows on a disk, you have to adjust the address in the Objects and Animations Common Tab because Your CD will look on the D drive and while it may find the slide shows on your PC, it won't when you put the disk in another PC. The other PC may not even have a D drive ! What you need to see in the address section is this "A Summers Day.exe" (Including the "") so remove all the rest and things will work OK, but make sure that on the CD the files are all on the root of the CD, in other words don't put anything in folders and you wll find your way there.

Jill I raised that issue as well some time ago. I cannot see the point on putting buttons you use all the time at the bottom right of the screen. The F6 toggle is OK, but I still keep going for the project options too and I miss the F6 key at times and hit F5 and get a preview I didn't want. There is lots of blank space at the bottom left of the screen for the Time Line/Slide List toggle button and also the full screen File list and full screen Slide list buttons too.

Igor I have not been following this thread, far too much to read and digest. However, for what its worth I have probably put together more demos in the past few weeks than most and I find the software is working OK for my style of work

Igor I notice that when I select a video (Canon 5D Mk2) PTE give me the optimize screen, but when I click OK, it always opens the optimization screen behind the PTE main screen. Until you know what is going on, nothing seems to be happening. It does it on both my PC's and It did the same on a friends PC when I was showing him how it worked. Its not supposed to do that is it?

Peter Yes it does and why did I expect to see a hyperlink. So used to others programs that have the text highlighted in blue that I never tried. Well your never too old to learn, thank you B PS

Igor While creating a number of demos I found myself wishing I had a reset option alongside the animation values in the O&A as per the attached.

Gary Lin has explained what the issue was, its the price we have to pay for our virus protection. If we have a guy fit 5 padlocks on our door and he gives us 4 right keys and one wrong one, we can't get in. Its just an error, but nothing we can do will open that last padlock. The Virus software programs in their efforts to protect us sometime make a mistake with the list that drives the virus programs. They all have at one time or another so there is little point in changing virus programs when this happens. You just keep your head down, don't panic, but just be aware of the issue, but usually the virus definitions will be updated daily. The part that caused the false positive is put right and the problem ceases on its own.

The hardware to create slides shows and project them cost us about £1200 in 1980. Now, we can do the very same thing, better, for a few dollars with PicturesToExe. In fact we can now achieve much more than we ever could using film, and with a greater flexibility too. There are few better ways to view digital images, than on a large screen in a darkened room, or a large modern Computer screen. Others must think so too, because our tutorials video disks for PicturesToExe are our best sellers and have been for some years now. The reason PicturesToExe is so good, is that it appeals to all photographers, from the causal snapper, to the serious amateur and professional. All have a need to present images and there is no better way than with PicturesToExe. You can stay traditional in your slide shows with still images, add animation and/or use video if you wish. Create a simple soundtrack, or one worthy of the BBC, it's all possible with PicturesToExe software. Digital Audio Visual via PicturesToExe is a great partner for our general digital photography, giving us a way to use and present the images we shoot. All the serious AV workers we know, use PicturesToExe. Why? Photographers gravitate towards it for the same reason they do with Photoshop, because its the best. Barry Beckham UK/Australia

Brian But that is not the issue. It has a problem that needs to be fixed, the sand box and setting it up doesn't change a thing. Its obviously an error, because you should get a message asking you if you want to open the file normally or in the snadbox. You don't get that here and it won't allow you to create an exe file. In fact it then locks up PTE and a re-boot is required, hardly normal AV activity

Geoff Thanks for that, but It will clear in a day or so when the penny drops that something is amis. This is the first time I have experienced virus software stopping an exe being created from within PTE though.

Conflow You will notice I didn't say there was anything wrong with Avast and I have no wish to move away from it. The post was to ensure Igor knew, so he could get it sorted quickly. However, some will believe its a PTE issue and when the word virus is mentioned they panic. Sooner or later, it seems to occur to most virus programs, certainly 4-5 come to mind that have all had their moments. Most put right the problem in a day or so and many people may never become aware of it.

I am aware of sandbox and even with the auto option selected it is picking up the exe files and removing them to the vault. In fact I have just discovered on another machine that its worse than that.Its also preventing an exe file even being created in PTE7

Igor and the wnsoft team Avast Virus Software This morning I went to run a short demo I made yesterday in pte7 and it was intercepted by Avast virus software and removed without giving me any option to stop it. I had to retrieve the file from the virus vault, but if I run it, Avast intercepts it again. I have informed Avast via a feedback system they have within their software, but perhaps the wnsoft team would carry more weight. This needs to be fixed and quick

Igor A couple of thoughts that came to me while using PTE today. 1. I would love to be able to click and drag the grey transition bars inside the Objects and Animation screen to alter the in and out transitions 2. To be able to see the effect of the transitions when the Play button is clicked in the Objects and Animation screen 3. To be able to turn off objects, again in the Objects and Animation screen, so they are temporarily invisible and not selectable. (until turned on again) 4. To be able to highlight more than one keypoint to move them along together in the O&A 5. I have raised this before, but seeing as I am talking exclusively about the O&A I'll repeat it here. To have the objects section looking like photoshop, with a thumbnail of the objects and the facility to drag and drop up and down the stacking order. Please, no replies about work arounds, these are just ideas for Igor to consider.

I think you will find Peter is right and that Hold Time points will do what you want, but it depends how you do it. You can drag and drop images from within the Slide list and the positions are held. You can remove an image from the slide list and bring a new one down and the time point is held. But if you delete 3 and try to introduce 3 new slides, the times seem to be lost. So if it is just a re-order then Hold Time Points seems OK, if you want to introduce new slides on an existing time point, do them one at a time, but then you may as well use change image file, as Peter said

Mark For what its worth I agree, insert template doesn't give the feeling that it includes a file name. It could be better worded in my view

I would love to see the results, but not really interested in a snap of the author, is there somewhere the winning squences can be viewed? I am sure a lot of members here would love to see them.

Igor I have a couple of suggestions that you might want to give some thought to for any future improvements. 1. Automatically create an end flag for animation as PTE does with the start flag, so when we go into the O&A, its there waiting? 2. Could a more visual way be found to show the difference between used and unused images in the file list.

Igor In the project Options More tab, I notice an "e" missing from the word image.

I am sure that we all work very differently in PTE Either that or I am daft, but I can't see any issues with the slide timing and it doesn't effect what I am doing in the slightest. I didn't care too much when Igor moved the Time Line/Slide List buttons to the bottom right, but I have now got used to it.