Tutorial: Masks Exposed Vol. 1

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.
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Tutorial: Masks Exposed Vol. 1

Postby rkligman » Mon Oct 15, 2007 4:35 pm

The next tutorial is ready for viewing and deals with Masks. In this tutorial I've tried to reduce Masks to it's absolute core concept. If you understand the concept of how Proshow uses Masks, then you'll be able to take it to the next level.

I've chosen not to put it inside Proshow Presenter because the presenter is not optimal for viewing tutorials.
Because it's not in Presenter, you need to click here to view it on my MyCityPhotoGuide site.
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Postby srq102 » Tue Oct 16, 2007 4:00 am

Hi,

I appreciate your sharing the tutorials. I need all the help I can get. :D Based on the comments you are getting they must be wonderful tutorials.
Sorry to say I have been unable to view any of them yet. I have enabled java and downloaded the camtasia player but no luck yet. Can you advise me on what I am doing wrong?
Also Is there away to download the tutorials with out having them load from your web site?

Thanks,
Rick G

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Postby gpsmikey » Tue Oct 16, 2007 4:36 am

Java script must be enabled AND you need to have the latest Flash player installed
according to the note on the site. Do you have the Flash player also installed ??
what kind of error message are you getting when you try to play a tutorial ???

mikey
You can't have too many gadgets or too much disk space !!
mikey (PSP6, Photoshop CS6, Vegas Pro 14, Acid 7, BluffTitler, Nikon D300s, D810)
Lots of PIC and Arduino microprocessor stuff too !!

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Postby srq102 » Tue Oct 16, 2007 4:46 am

gpsmikey wrote:Java script must be enabled AND you need to have the latest Flash player installed
according to the note on the site. Do you have the Flash player also installed ??
what kind of error message are you getting when you try to play a tutorial ???

mikey


Hi Mikey,

Thanks for your reply, yes did all that. I'm not getting any error message. I have MCafee installed. I'm chercking that now to see if there is a disable/ enable option in the list

Thanks,
Rick G

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Postby gpsmikey » Tue Oct 16, 2007 5:12 am

Hmm -- what version of winders are you running ?
I assume you have been able to view the regular shows on the Photodex sharing
site ? This does have the flavor of a security setting issue. The way I usually
have my stuff set up is to go into the security settings for IE (I'm running IE6)
and set any that allow it to "prompt" - that still gives me control over what
runs, but it lets me know what is trying to run and I can decide from there
if I really want it to run (like the stupid things that are forever trying to pop-up
from a web page). On IE6, it is under Tools -> Internet Options -> Security.
There is also a "pop-up" blocker that may be an issue (it never seems to be the
same critter causing the problem each time). Sometimes it just takes some
fiddling with the security options to figure out which one is blocking you. Once
you do figure out what has to be enabled, tighten the rest of the security options
back down to where you are comfortable.

mikey
You can't have too many gadgets or too much disk space !!
mikey (PSP6, Photoshop CS6, Vegas Pro 14, Acid 7, BluffTitler, Nikon D300s, D810)
Lots of PIC and Arduino microprocessor stuff too !!

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Postby srq102 » Tue Oct 16, 2007 6:13 am

gpsmikey wrote:Hmm -- what version of winders are you running ?
I assume you have been able to view the regular shows on the Photodex sharing
site ? This does have the flavor of a security setting issue. The way I usually
have my stuff set up is to go into the security settings for IE (I'm running IE6)
and set any that allow it to "prompt" - that still gives me control over what
runs, but it lets me know what is trying to run and I can decide from there
if I really want it to run (like the stupid things that are forever trying to pop-up
from a web page). On IE6, it is under Tools -> Internet Options -> Security.
There is also a "pop-up" blocker that may be an issue (it never seems to be the
same critter causing the problem each time). Sometimes it just takes some
fiddling with the security options to figure out which one is blocking you. Once
you do figure out what has to be enabled, tighten the rest of the security options
back down to where you are comfortable.


mikey


I'm running windows xp sp2 with IE7 Yep, did all the above. I'm normally pretty good with this kind of thing. Oh well, I'll figure it out sooner or later but thanks again for tying to help.
I didn't check the photodex site maybe he has the tutorials in the sharing section.

See ya,

Rick

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Postby rkligman » Tue Oct 16, 2007 7:25 am

srq102 wrote:Hi,

I appreciate your sharing the tutorials. I need all the help I can get. :D Based on the comments you are getting they must be wonderful tutorials.
Sorry to say I have been unable to view any of them yet. I have enabled java and downloaded the camtasia player but no luck yet. Can you advise me on what I am doing wrong?
Also Is there away to download the tutorials with out having them load from your web site?

Thanks,
Rick G


Hmm. Mikey is on the right track. All you need is Flash 8 and so far you're the first to find a problem. I don't use IE7 yet. I'll have to boot up my test computer (that has IE7) and see if it complains. I don't have it posted anywhere else because it's not a Presenter file. If it were you couldn't pause and rewind which I feel is critical to a tutorial as you either don't quite hear something or need/want to see the action done again.
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Postby BarbaraC » Tue Oct 16, 2007 8:35 am

Rick, thank you from the bottom of my heart. The top too.

You're absolutely correct about the mask seeming to be a complete reverse of what many of us are used to in programs such as Photoshop. Additionally, I didn't have a clue about transparency and what part it played in the process. I kept trying to use black and white because that's all anyone seemed to mention, and no matter what I did, everything was topsy-turvy or simply wouldn't work at all.

Again, thank you.

I, too, wish I could save your tutorials on my hard drive only because I just know I'll need one of them when my ISP decides to do some kind of maintenance and then breaks stuff in the process.

Barbara

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Postby rkligman » Tue Oct 16, 2007 8:52 am

srq102 wrote:Hi,

I appreciate your sharing the tutorials. I need all the help I can get. :D Based on the comments you are getting they must be wonderful tutorials.
Sorry to say I have been unable to view any of them yet. I have enabled java and downloaded the camtasia player but no luck yet. Can you advise me on what I am doing wrong?
Also Is there away to download the tutorials with out having them load from your web site?

Thanks,
Rick G


I loaded up IE7 and I needed to download the Flash Player first of all since it's a test machine and all it had on it was IE7. Once I did that, not only did my front page Flash Slideshow play (different software) but so did the Tutorial. That's the good news. The bad news is that IE7 royally messes up the layout of the site and that may be your problem. All of the content is actually at the bottom of the page rather than near the top of the page. Scroll completely down any of the pages to see the content. I'm using CSS to format the site and I assumed what worked in IE6 would also in IE7 but guess not, arrgghhh.

Tell me that the scrolling was the problem and then all I need to fix is the formatting for IE7. If it's not at the bottom of the page, if you could PM me with a couple of screenshots of what your seeing then we'll see what the issue might be. All I have is a straight IE7 default install so nothing needed to be set which is good news also.
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Postby BarbaraC » Tue Oct 16, 2007 9:01 am

Rick, it's all at the rock bottom when using Firefox too. Additionally, the links for your other tutorials are overlaying something else, and I didn't even know the links were there until just a few minutes ago. It's bad enough having to deal with different browsers when building a page, but then to have problems within the same browser such as it seems is going on with IE is just plain ridiculous. Things such as this and much worse are why I downloaded Firefox. The last straw was when IE kept warning me that the pages I was building and that were on my own hard drive were suspect and it was, therefore, blocking any advanced capabilities. No matter how many things I told IE not to do in the preferences, it kept trying to block my own content. [End of rant]

Barbara

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Postby rkligman » Tue Oct 16, 2007 9:01 am

BarbaraC wrote:Rick, thank you from the bottom of my heart. The top too.

You're absolutely correct about the mask seeming to be a complete reverse of what many of us are used to in programs such as Photoshop. Additionally, I didn't have a clue about transparency and what part it played in the process. I kept trying to use black and white because that's all anyone seemed to mention, and no matter what I did, everything was topsy-turvy or simply wouldn't work at all.

Again, thank you.

I, too, wish I could save your tutorials on my hard drive only because I just know I'll need one of them when my ISP decides to do some kind of maintenance and then breaks stuff in the process.

Barbara


I think Black and White works under a different set of rules and I haven't explored that with my new found "rules". Now that I understand the concept, like the tutorial said, I'm able to take it to the next level. I did some things last night where I anticipated what the results would be and I wasn't disappointed. You can find a few Masks that use Alpha Transparency from Photodex in the Media Folder. Try one or more of them and if you follow the rules, the results should be predictable.

I think my next tutorial will show a use of the mask. Now that I understand the concept, the actual usefulness of Masks is way diminished. I think by and large that when you want to use a Frame, as you were questioning in your other Thread, that a Mask will not be what you want but instead you'll just want the Frame Layer to be normal.

As for getting hard copies of the tutorials, I have to think about how I'm going to distribute them. If you need them urgently then send me a PM. I think what I'd do is just cut a disk and quickly throw all of the source files on it without really ensuring the stuff works per se. I'd like to ultimately bundle them up and make sure things are right. Obviously that takes some time to dot the i's and cross the t's.
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Postby rkligman » Tue Oct 16, 2007 9:07 am

BarbaraC wrote:Rick, it's all at the rock bottom when using Firefox too. Additionally, the links for your other tutorials are overlaying something else, and I didn't even know the links were there until just a few minutes ago. It's bad enough having to deal with different browsers when building a page, but then to have problems within the same browser such as it seems is going on with IE is just plain ridiculous. Things such as this and much worse are why I downloaded Firefox. The last straw was when IE kept warning me that the pages I was building and that were on my own hard drive were suspect and it was, therefore, blocking any advanced capabilities. No matter how many things I told IE not to do in the preferences, it kept trying to block my own content. [End of rant]

Barbara


Great... I've never even seen Firefox. Looks like I have some work to do. That's why I like desktop apps. I'm in total control of everything. But that's not the way the world is moving. I guess the good news is that I'm using CSS and so there is probably a way to fix it somewhat easily but then again, that's probably also why I'm having the problems. They have a comittee that decides what the rules are and the vendors are supposed to follow them. The problem is two fold though. The vendors don't. They either ignore stuff or give it their own interpretation. And the rules are just "for consideration". I can't remember the term but they keep bumping the numbers up and the never stamp it "official". They go from CSS 1.0 "under consideration" to 1.1 to 2.0 to 2.1. The whole industry is screwy and it drives me nuts daily. It's one of the reasons I'd like to get into something a little more relaxing....

PS. This message is EXACTLY why I love my avatar! That is EXACTLY how I feel on a daily basis. How sad is that.
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Postby BarbaraC » Tue Oct 16, 2007 9:55 am

Great... I've never even seen Firefox.


With each new version of IE, Firefox gains popularity.

They have a comittee that decides what the rules are and the vendors are supposed to follow them.


I've given up on most of CSS and just go for the basics, but then, all I'm doing is a small homepage and need satisfy no one other than me. I agree with you about desktop apps, though I'm so old-school that I could (almost) willingly go back to pre-Windows days when programming was a linear process: if this, then that. Everything made sense to me due to my very linear mind. :(

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Postby BarbaraC » Tue Oct 16, 2007 10:48 am

I did a four-slide test using the same two photos in each of the four but using a different version of a simple oval shape as a mask in each:

(1) Black oval on white background
(2) Black oval on transparent background
(3) Transparent oval on black background
(4) Transparent oval on white background

The results were identical for 1, 3, and 4. Not a hair of difference. The only one that was different--and expectedly so--was number 2, which showed an exact reversal of the others.

This has led me to conclude that black and transparency are equivalents, but oddly enough, when combined with a transparent portion, it doesn't matter whether you use white or black. If this isn't confusing, I don't know what is.

Barbara

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Postby rkligman » Tue Oct 16, 2007 11:06 am

Barbara and Rick, could you give it a try again. I fixed the layout so it is showing up fine now in IE6 and IE7. I don't have Firefox so I'll rely on Barbara for now to say it looks clean or not. Thanks.
Rick Insane Diego...

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