Preparing Your Images...

Please post your tutorials here for ProShow Producer only. Provide a lnk if you have a file that can be downloaded by others. This is not a discussion section, but rather a source for sharing tutorials.
Robert Barnett

Re: Preparing Your Images...

Postby Robert Barnett » Thu Jan 07, 2010 9:34 pm

I don't do as you suggest because if you have a large number of images and you have a high resolution digital camera (mine is 12.1MP and 24.6MP) they just take up too much space. If you have a lot of images in your slide show that can consume a lot of memory and can make ProShow unstable to boot, at least until they come out with a 64-bit version that can use more than 2GB of RAM.

Also, the full resolution images to archive with your other slide show materials will very quickly eat up the space on a 4.7GB DVD which is what I like to back my slide show projects up to. I don't like having to deal with multiple discs. I used to not care about that but if something happens to one in the set that you are toast.

All of this was disguised in the video and as I have said this is just how I prefer to work. I feel by cropping to 16:9 and 6MP or the 3200px by 1800 px it is giving me more control (especially since nearly every image I want to use needs some post process work before I would use it in a slide show anyways) as well as making them more manageable in a program that has a 2GB ram limit. Once Photodex has a 64-bit version and can make use of my Windows 7 64-bit and 12GB of RAM this would become less of an issue, though still an issue for archiving.

Robert

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Re: Preparing Your Images...

Postby im42n8 » Fri Jan 08, 2010 7:36 am

To save space on my larger shows, when I need to, I convert the images to JPG. Then, if I need to further conserve space, I run them in a batch process through Advanced JPEG Compressor (you set up a template to adjust all the necessary parameters related to image quality). This way, I keep the resolution to an acceptable level and the color is maintained and the artifacts kept to an absolute minimum. So, I've then brought my images to an acceptable format for the show, specifically for the show in these cases, and I can still use them non-destructively in my shows. The images can also be in the multi-MBs or smaller. You can do this with 24MB images or 6MB images or whatever.
My camera takes images in the 10 to 14MB file size range.

I've used many large images (over 10MB, TIFF) in my shows (they were panoramics) w/o problems (but the shows were not 20 minute shows either).

Everyone has their own process. If it works for you then that's great. But, the process of cropping most if not all of your images seems to me to be an awful lot of work for little gain. Especially since most images, unless it comes from an HD video clip, are not formatted to 16:9. Probably more like 4:3 or 3:2 or something similar for most images today.

I'm sure there are a number of folk who'll benefit from your video tutorial nonetheless.

Dale
What's New: Tools for ProShow: v11.42a Access ProShow capabilities Photodex doesn't provide (For PSG & PSP).
FPVP Blog "Making the Difficult Easier," FPVP News

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Re: Preparing Your Images...

Postby trulytango » Fri Jan 08, 2010 7:53 am

Hi there

I haven't had time to watch your tutorials as they are quite lenghy, but I watched a bit of both and cottoned onto what I assumed to be the gist of this one via this thread. I must say my immediate thoughts echo those of Dale with regards to cropping in an outside editor, prior to commencing a show! I really do not want to sound negative but I really cannot see the need for it at all, given that it is possible to display all or just specific parts of an image in your slides, once you are familiar with Producer's own features and capabilities.

I do agree however, that the more pixels you have in your image, the better your options in displaying, zooming etc. It is really not nice to have an image zoom to such an extent that it becomes pixelated.

Regards
Iris
Windows 7 HP 64-bit, Intel i5 2500K Quad Core, 8GB RAM, 1.0GB Ge-Force NVIDIA GTX 560i, Adobe Photoshop CS5, Producer 6 (GPU Benchmark was 336, now 324), a big old Canon 20D and a funky Canon Powershot G15

Robert Barnett

Re: Preparing Your Images...

Postby Robert Barnett » Fri Jan 08, 2010 8:14 am

And you are both able and welcome to do it any way you want. I choose to do it my way I have found it to work better for me.

I also have to say that compressing your images over and over is just a really bad idea. JPEG is very destructive no matter what setting you use. I prefer to have top quality images and so only save as JPEG once and when I know I am done with the image.

There is another reason I prefer to do my cropping in Photoshop instead of PSP and that is I don't want to have to worry about setting the zoom of each layer and slide so that I don't get the black bars on either side because digital camera images are 4:3 and most slide shows are going to 16:9 that is just a big waste of time in my book and unfortunately PSP doesn't make it easy to do this when you have lots of images. The copy settings option just isn't very user friendly in my book.

What all of this comes down to is how you want to work. Your workflow. PSP is not an image editor and I am not going to use as such. There for I do all of my image editing before going in to PSP. That is my choice and the way I recommend. If you don't like it then don't do it.

Robert

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Re: Preparing Your Images...

Postby im42n8 » Fri Jan 08, 2010 9:27 am

As Iris said, it comes down to knowing how to effectively use the capabilities of PSP to best effect.

Any decent quality image can be used in PSP, which is NOT an image editor as you say.

However, effectively using the features of PSP can avoid poor presentation of your images. If all you want is a static image in PSP then you're probably not using PSP its best effect. That's one of the reasons for the various styles and templates out there: to best show off your image(s) the best... and to make the show more interesting and engaging. Gently zooming an image in or out can add character and depth to the image. And, depending on how you've presented the image you NEVER have to worry about the black bars on either side of an image. It depends on the background/backdrop used, how many images you've used in the foreground, how you've presented the image, etc.

Knowing how to use PSP and its features to present your images effectively takes time and practice. Until that happens, many time consuming workflows will work until you get more efficient at it. In time, you'll even find more efficient ways of doing the same thing.

In the meantime, if it works for you now, go for it! The more you use PSP tho, I bet you'll find yourself doing less time consuming work because you found more efficient and just as effective ways of doing it in PSP. If you look at any number of us who've presented shows here, you'll find that the shows of those who're effectively using PSP are not experience those "black bars" around an image. However, on the newbies or people who're still learning the program, you'll see the black background much more often. . .

Enjoy!

Dale
What's New: Tools for ProShow: v11.42a Access ProShow capabilities Photodex doesn't provide (For PSG & PSP).
FPVP Blog "Making the Difficult Easier," FPVP News

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Re: Preparing Your Images...

Postby rdurga » Fri Jan 08, 2010 11:56 am

This is my take on using the proper resolution for making slideshows for HDTV’s

Resolution is the main reason why HDTV looks so much better than standard television.

You can compare HDTV resolution to other formats:
NTSC TV 270 x 480 px
VHS 240 x 480 px
DVD 720 x 480 px
HDTV 1080 1920 x 1080 px

No matter the resolution of the source material, whether VHS, DVD, or HDTV, a fixed-pixel display will always convert, or scale, it to fit its native resolution.

If the incoming source has more pixels than the display's native resolution, you will lose some visible detail and sharpness, though often what you're left with still looks great. If the incoming source has fewer pixels than the native resolution, you're not getting any extra sharpness from the television's pixels.

If the incoming signal matches the native resolution of the display exactly such as when a 1080 HDTV displays a 1080 HDTV channel or a 1080 signal from a Blu-ray player, no scaling occurs as long as the TV is set to the proper aspect ratio mode, typically called "dot-by-dot," "native," or "1:1." Ideally, you always want to match the source resolution to the display's native resolution, to minimize picture anomalies that can be caused by scaling.

If you read those three axioms closely, you'll see that source is everything with HDTV.

When you look into computer monitors, many 23, 24 and 27-inch widescreen LCD monitors use 1920×1200 px as their native resolution, 30 inch displays can display beyond 1080 at up to 2560x1600 px. Apple's 27" iMac has a native resolution of 2560×1440 px.

When you are moving from old 4:3 formatted CRT televisions to HDTV’s, you should use 1920 x 1080 px resolution to take advantage of the modern technology presently available. If you are planning to crop or zoom, you need more resolution for that particular photo.

For photoshop/elements users:

Since I am not using these photos for printing, I have set up my image size in Photoshop editing limited to 1920 x 1080 at 72 px/in to keep the file size minimum. Actually, this is the default setting by Photoshop for HDTV.

This info is a summary of my understanding from the articles I have collected regarding resolution. Most of the info can be viewed in detail at the following links:

http://www.cnet.com/hdtv-resolution/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1080p

ram

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Re: Preparing Your Images...

Postby dnealious » Sat Oct 01, 2011 7:16 pm

Glad I found this thread. The 720p fixed my Blu-ray rendering issue. Thanks also for the links explaining the differences. Best I've read to this point.

So ANY DVD rendering will look soft on a 1080 screen, is that right? Is there any way to get it at least a little better, with the $1000 pieces of software?
Don Nealious

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