Layers on a slide

Discuss anything ProShow Producer related
Active Member
Posts: 21
Joined: Fri Mar 16, 2018 6:57 am
Location: Manchester NH

Layers on a slide

Postby dhknap » Tue Aug 28, 2018 5:12 pm

I am trying to do the following; showing declining fishing catch by showing 3 images a full boat, a half full boat and an empty boat. At first I made a slide with three layers thinking they would play one after the other, but I was completely wrong so I just used 3 slides with no transition times. Are layer in Proshow just like layers in photoshop where layers are blended. If that is so can I just blend the layers in photoshop and put in the multilayered slide? I would like to do as many things as possible in photoshop because of familiarity. My problem is; I just don't understand what layers in Proshow are for. Thank you for any help. I will look for a ProSow tutorial about layers.
Dale Knapschaefer

.
User avatar
Posts: 4553
Joined: Sat Jul 15, 2006 10:07 am
Location: Israel

Re: Layers on a slide

Postby cherub » Tue Aug 28, 2018 8:36 pm

For short (very short), layers in a slide are all the images that take part in that slide.
They can be several photos, several duplicates of the same photo used for artistic purposes, or full images, and/or parts of an image used for animation, they can be text layers for your captions, they can be adjustment layers, used for enriching the aspect of your slide, etc.
But most importantly, they can be MASK layers, which is definitely what's missing in the effect that you are after.

So, layers, in ProShow, don't have so much in common with the Photoshop layers (or any other graphic editor that uses layers, for that matter).
You may use Photoshop to create your masks and cutouts of your image, but that would be all you can do in Photoshop.

Layers in a slide can appear and disappear at different times, can move in different ways, all by means of keyframes, and this is also something that you need to learn about for the effect that you are creating.

Let me give you a classic example of a slide with layers, and perhaps this will explain better how they are used in ProShow.
Let's say that you want your photo to appear in a nice decorative frame that you created in Photoshop.
That would have to be created in 3 layers:
1st layer: the frame itself - created in Photoshop as a png file with transparency. The transparency is the "hole" of the frame through which you see your photo, and also any other background that your frame has.
2nd layer is the mask. This can also be created in Photoshop or in Producer. The mask covers just the hole of the frame, where you want your photo to appear. In Producer you will have to define this layer as functioning as a mask.
3rd layer is your actual photo.
Since you have a mask, the photo can be much larger than all the other layers or can be used as an independent animation in your frame. Only the part under the mask will be seen on the screen.

I would create the effect that you described, by exactly the same principle given above:
The boat will be your "frame".
The fish that fill in, need to appear on a separate layer, or 2 separate layers, and under a mask.
The mask should cover the bottom of the boat that fills in with the collected fish.
It's hard to give exact directions, without seeing your pictures, but that is roughtly how I would go about it.

Have a look in the Help file of the program (F1), for additional and more detailed explanations of layers and masks.

Hope this helps, just a bit. :D

Return to PSP - General Discussion

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 8 guests