Preparing Your Images...

[Robert Barnett]

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[ChrissyC Profile Private message]

Hi Robert..oh boy I can't wait to watch your new tutorial...I really enjoy your stuff......thank you so much for your time, I have watched your zoo tut 2 times already!
take care, Chrissy

[Robert Barnett]

Thanks I am glad you find them useful. Just keep in mind that what I present isn't set in stone and that they are present for food for your creative imagination.

Robert

[pd Profile Private message]

Altough the tutorial is long, it was worth watching.
It provided several examples of photo adjustment and the repetition of the basic moves will become etched in your memory. Well worth viewing.

I have a question which is probably answered in the initial part of the tut and probably missed. Why do you want to trim the photos to 16:9?

The original photo format is different to 16:9 and it is time consuming to adjust a show of say 100 pics.
Of course the photos were adjusted so that you use the full frame (16:9) of current TV / monitors. I think that sometimes this is not always wise. It seemed a pity that the beautiful zebra photo had to be trimmed so much. I think that the rule of thirds can often be safely broken as a slide show is not static.
I have not seen the Zoo Proshow yet and will when I can find some spare time. IMHO, I think that when you trim photos, you will loose some flexibility. You loose a lot when you want to zoom in or rotate, even slightly. If the black background (trim)bothers you, you can select a suitable background, manipulate it so that it blends/compliments the show.

Robert you have done a great photoshop tutorial and look forward to your next one.

pd

[Robert Barnett]

Unless you have a 20 year old TV or a 5 year old monitor most all display devices including handhelds are wide screen. While cropping is bit time consuming I feel it is well worth the time. As for your concern about the zooming and such that is not a problem since after cropping you end up with a 6MP image or one with pixel dimensions of 3200 px wide and 1800 px tall which is nearly twice the pixel resolution of HD.

I absolutely hate having little bits of black or a background showing around my images. I think it is tacky and very unpressional, it says that I didn't take the time to prepare my images properly for my show. My way of thinking is up you are going to have a background that you show lots of it which means you have 50% size images up and possibly several of them so that it looks like that is what you intended instead of little slivers showing as they pan and zoom and rotate which looks sloppy and unprofessional.

As for the cropping there are a lot of times that images have junk that are exactly that junk, it takes away from the image, clutters up the image, etc. The Zebra I liked cropped because it got you closer to the animal, far closer than you could in person and it made the subject of the image... the important part of image front and center and minimized the totally unimportant junk around it.

While having all of the zebra in the image would have been ok, it was in my opinion far less important than doing away with the little slivers of background that would have been in the image had I not cropped the way I did.

This of course is all my opinion and can be used any way you wish. I suggest that you look around on the net at documentaries done by professionals including and most importantly Ken Burns. You will never see small bits of black background on his and you will never see them on mine.

As for rule of thirds that is a very helpful thing to keep in mind, but it is not set in stone and there are a number of times when it just isn't possible or needed. Even if an image is going to move around with the Ken Burn's effect I still try to heed the rule of third from the start to the end of the images display again it comes down to looking good, and looking professional.

When you watch my first tutorial you will see how and when I use backgrounds. I hope this helps. And, remember it is your images and your slide show do what you like. My tutorials cover what I do and how I like to do it. If you don't agree that is fine I hope you still come away with some ideas or at the very least it makes you think about what your doing to make sure that what you are doing is really what you want to do.

Robert

[texan Profile Private message]

Robert:

First of all Happy New Year and Thank you for your comprehensive contributions to the site.

I have only been through the first hour of your latest PSP tut.........but I will forever, from this day forward move up to 6 Mega-pixels (From 3) and I will now do all future shows in 16x9..........

Your explanations on how and why you do things are very informative and you deliver in a clear and concise
manner. Let's face it, you're a pro

Keep them coming........

[Robert Barnett]

Thanks. But pro no. Just someone with a lot of spare time on his hands that can just sit and play.

Robert

[pd Profile Private message]

Hi Robert,

Thank for the comprehensive reply. It is appreciated. Got to find some time to see your other show.

BTW. The tutorial is impressive as it appears to have been done at one go. Quite a feat.

Regards
pd

[debngar Profile Private message]

Hello all and Happy 2010,

I wanted to let everyone know that I have a new ProShow video tutorial up.-snip-


Lastly, I created a new topic for this latest tutorial announcement. Is this what you all think I should do or do you think I should keep all tutorial announcements to one thread and let you all hunt for them? Myself I like the new thread way as I think it will make it easier, but I am open to suggestions on this.

Thanks,

Robert

Thanks for your contribution to the content of the forum.

Regardless of how you decide to handle your tutorial announcements, it's very difficult to find a particular thread in the countless pages of the forum without spending hours going through the archives page by page if the thread title is generic since the search engine is often not that effective.

No one can tell what's in a thread with a non-descriptive title such as:

First Tutorial
New Tutorial
Another Tutorial
Tutorial
Free Tutorial



If a thread has a descriptive title, people can find it easier. A sample of such titles might be:

Preparing images for your slide show
Fitting images to music
Layering

I would encourage you to change your tutorial thread titles to something more descriptive so we can find them again when we have time to watch them. You can edit your threads and posts in the upper right corner, using the "edit" button, make the change, then click the submit button as usual.

Thanks again for your generosity and welcome to the forum.

[Robert Barnett]

debngar, brilliant I never thought of that. So I will start a new thread for each new tutorial and make sure and use a better name of it. I will also put "New Tutorial" in the title as well so you can just search for that and pull them all up.

Robert

[lahazard]

Another wonderful tutorial, Robert.

I look forward to future offerings.

Louis

[Funtolearn Profile Private message]

That was fantastic....I learned so many things!!! Thanks so much!

[debngar Profile Private message]

debngar, brilliant I never thought of that. So I will start a new thread for each new tutorial and make sure and use a better name of it. I will also put "New Tutorial" in the title as well so you can just search for that and pull them all up.

Robert

Keep it simple. If it's in the "tutorial" section, you don't need that word in the title, neither do you need the word "new". To anyone viewing it the first time, it will be new. After that, it will be old to them.

Just stick to the pertinent description and keep it short. You don't have that much room in that subject box.

Now, go edit your first post in this thread and change the title of it to something more descriptive.

[Robert Barnett]

Done!

Thanks,

Robert

[im42n8 Profile Private messageWebsite]

Instead of cropping the image, why aren't you just masking it and using what you want or need from that? It's non-destructive and you can move the image around under the mask to get just the area you want or need (which includes zooming in closer . . . even if it means adjusting the size of the mask too).

Physically cropping the image is also extra work. Cropping using the cropping feature in PSP or using masks effectively accomplishes the same thing as actually physically cropping the image! Using masks too means you can zoom in w/o having to worry about your image getting bigger than your screen or a smaller area (portion) of the screen to show the segment of your image you want to show. It also means you can pan the image under that mask to show just the portion you want (either in full screen or a small portion of it). All without the extra work required by physically changing the effective dimensions of the image.

Physically cropping the image can entertain lots of problems, if you're not careful or don't really know what you're doing. Any issues related to borders around the image and/or shadows is easily addressed using layers, blurs, etc. (or, if you're trying to remove them, non-destructive cropping in PSP or masks).

That said tho, this issue about "image" size has cropped up repeatedly. For some reason, people think they have to "prepare" their images to the 16:9 or 4:3 (or whatever) screen ratio . . . well, ain't true! Desired in some cases maybe but not required!

Masks. Less work, Just as Effective!

Dale