johnpe

That's great, Lin. Thank you so much Now I know the direction I want to head! John

Thank you so very much, Lin. Although I've used PTE quite a lot I obviously have much to learn! What you have created proves to me that PTE will do exactly what I need. It's very kind of you to give me so much of your time. Your long message was very interesting too. The Animoto I posted was made quickly from the results of a demonstration I gave at a local camera club. My portrait/wedding business model is based on small numbers of high value commissions, not quantity, so I think PTE can still work for me. As I said, Animoto looks good until you realise that it's very limiting. If there's one bit of a show you don't like you have to resubmit the files and take pot luck on what effects will be added this time. And I've had the tops of people's heads cropped off! I agree that PTE can involve a lot of effort, but now to a thought I've had ... How about if I were to invest some time in creating a show based on a set of files called, say, S1, S2, etc in a folder called BuildShow. I could then simply replace the contents of those files with the results of my latest photoshoot. I'd obviously need to do this for both foreground and background (or I could create a generic animated background). All my client shows would in one sense be identical, but because the foreground content (and maybe the background too) would be different they would appear totally different to the viewer. I love creating and using templates, and this is really just one more example. John

The first 10 images of this Animoto will give you a good idea of the sort of thing I'm after. Incidentally, I ditched Animoto because there is too little control available and it's too ready to crop my images. I use the slideshow as an interesting way to display the photographs, not as an art form in its own right, so my needs are fairly simple compared with Lin's.

Wow, Lin! I'm amazed by anybody who can even create the concept, let alone create the show! My requirement is trivial by comparison. I just want my "main" pictures to be shown in front of another picture (which will change, but will be one of the photographs in the "front" slideshow). Both layers to be animated. The rear layer will be monochrome and deliberately dimmed. I guess from what you say that I will have to create the entire background layer and convert it to video and separately create the foreground layer, making sure I keep them in sync? John

I have used Animoto to generate slideshows and have liked the fact that the image is often animated with another animated image in the background. Can this be achieved in Pictures To Exe?

Pure magic. Thank you John