First post

[The Clicker]

I did a Trash the dress type shoot last week and this is the show I made of the images. I'm still learning producer. I looked around here for some interesting effects, but didn't find anything that I thought would enhance the show. If anyone has any suggestions, I would love to hear them, or even just links to threads you think I should or would be interested in reading. Thanks for watching.
http://www.photodex.com/sharing/viewsho ... alb=134083

[BarbaraC Profile Private messageWebsite]

You have excellent photographs, and all the attention should be on them. My only criticism concerns the fluctuations where the picture comes in, goes out, then comes in again. I found it disconcerting to see this lady coming and going so much. Either drift in or drift out, but not too much.

The above said, you take really gorgeous photos!

But what the devil is a "Trash the dress type shoot"?

Barbara

[stickgirl Profile Private message]

The photos are spectacular, but I do agree with Barbara on the too much in and out of the photos.

But what the devil is a "Trash the dress type shoot"?

It is a fairly new trend where girls trash their wedding dress as a symbol of the committment
made to her husband. You wear your $3,000 dress and lay around in horse manure, climb on
tires, play in the mud, etc.

If I were getting married today, I don't think it is something I'd particpate in. I'd rather see it go
to someone less fortunate or placed in a consignment shop or saved to make a Christening dress
for my child. But that's just me.

Kathy

[suebee]

The photographs are beautiful. You did a great job of choosing where to use a touch of color and where to use black and white. I especially like the b/w with colored leaves. The wings in the reflection were a nice touch. I do agree there is too much zooming in and out. Zooming slowly in or out is great but not both on a single photo as a rule.

I found a show I think is a good example. It is a wedding show but one I think makes good use of subtle well placed zooms (in my humble opinion). http://www.photodex.com/sharing/viewsho ... 8627&alb=0

[The Clicker]

Actually the in and out movement was not intentional, and I couldn't get it to go away without starting all over. And since it was all for fun and not a paying client I decided to live with it.

And Trash the dress does not always result in mud or actuall destruction of the dress. Usually they are dry cleaned and come out like new. Only some people are literally trashing their dresses. I'm not sure I could do that to a wedding dress, but like in these pictures we used a bridesmaid dress. I like calling them Dirty Formals. Destroying a dress someone will never wear again anyway. Although this particular dress didn't even need to be dry cleaned.

And thank you so much for the photo compliments. I love what I do and when someone pays compliment to my work it's a great feeling!!

[debngar Profile Private message]

Hello Clicker,

Too much zooming in and out, yes. That can be easily fixed with a change to one slide and copy settings to all the rest if you want them to remain static or whatever.

Don't feel bad. We have all done the over zooming thing when we first start making slideshows. I just redid one of the first shows I made 2 years ago and I would never have the nerve to show it to anyone in the first edition. My goodness, I had quite a few images zoomed in to 500%. YIKES! LOL

Too much movement distracts the viewers eye from the images. Next time try only 8-10% difference. You could mix it up a little with 3-5% rotation instead of zooming but don't do it all at the same time. Have a purpose for the zoom or rotation to help guide the viewer to what you want them to focus on and I think you will see it improve the shows.

I loved the shot with the wings.

Must have been fun to shoot. I was expecting to eventually see shots of her in the water. LOL

I have seen some of these trash the dress images - pretty exotic, done often for the photographer and the bride who wants to pretend she is on location on some fashion shoot.

The ones I thought was the most interesting were the ones done in the water.

I have tried to go back and find them and I can't seem to locate the websites for those particular ones I had in mind. If I happen to find them again, I'll post links.

Debbie

[pwholmes Profile Private message]

To put it a little differently than Barbara, I thought the movement in your show was very classy -- except -- for those times you zoomed back and forth. I liked the way you would often pause, then zoom, or rotate. Very well done. I think your only problem is you haven't quite got the hang of keyframes. You made them work in the beginning but you weren't quite sure how to undo some of it later.

Paul Holmes

[The Clicker]

Thanks everyone for all the feedback.

Debbie here is a forum for trash the dress, there are a lot of great shots in there. I like the ones in the water riding the horse. www.trashthedress.com/forum

Paul, what are keyframes?? And you are right I had done something to some of them, then couldn't undo.

I've been makeing these shows for about 2 years but I wanted to step outside my comfort zone and try to do it a little different. Most of my shows have the same basic movement and effects to them. But I feel it's time to put a little more in to it. But not too much, as someone mentioned earlier I don't want to distract from the photos. Maybe I just need to spend a little more time playing with it. That's how I learn everything else.

Thanks again for all the feedback. I love the support of forums, what a great place to learn.

[The Clicker]

If anyone is interested, here is a wedding I shot in September, the groom past 6 days after the wedding, and they loved that they had this to show at the viewing. All my slideshows fit this basic format. Not that I don't like it. I just want to challenge myself, I guess.

http://www.photodex.com/sharing/viewsho ... 6190&alb=0

[pwholmes Profile Private message]

Very nice show but unlike the first show it was a little dizzying because almost every shot was a zoom-in, zoom-out or pan and the pace almost never varied. Taken individually, any of your movements could have been interesting for one slide, but the lack of variation made it seem almost cookie-cutter. I think you can get away with a lot in a slide show because the client is often very forgiving simply because you've memorialized something for them effectively, but I think this show would have been more interesting if you had chosen to linger a little longer at times on a photo and, if zooming in, at least much more subtly and imperceptibly.

As far as keyframes, I thought you were doing keyframing within slides for some of the movement in the first show, but I assume you were using continuing slides to accomplish something similar (in other words, duplicating the slide and continuing a new movement from there?)

Paul Holmes

[debngar Profile Private message]

Clicker,

You might want to spend some time watching "Vidqueen" tutorials.

http://www.photodex.com/sharing/viewalb ... alb=124704

Jennifer covers a lot of the basics including key framing, copy settings, having a purpose for movements in your shows. Those three alone will give you a good foundation for creating better shows IMHO.

Simple can often be better. Try using only the fade or cross fades and then a couple of other transitions that fit rather than a random transition mix. You will see that the show can have a better impact.

I have a few tutorials too but they are shorter, much more simple in format, no voiceover audio and are for simple techniques or effects you can do in Producer and typically without the aid of Photoshop.

You can find those in my Photodex album "debngar" but they also assume the user has some kind of working knowledge of Producer and key framing, etc. So maybe you might want to wait on those until you watch Jennifer's tutorial basics shows first.

Hope that helps.

Debbie

[The Clicker]

Thank you so much for the advice and comments. That is exactly what I needed and why I am here.
That link was perfect...I'm off to learn something. I'll let you know when I finally get what I'm trying to do.