Layers problem

[ade1982 Profile Private message]

Hi all

I am a complete beginner at PSP. I have made a 300 slide slideshow in PSP, and have now decided to put a video background as a second layer on each slide.

I created a layer (Layer 2) on the first slide and put it behind layer 1, and no matter which way I try, when I copy that Layer to the other slides, it comes out on top over Layer 1. Is there any way to get this video to be set as Layer 2 for each slide, without me manually going through each slide and demoting it?

Many thanks in anticipation

Ade

[im42n8 Profile Private messageWebsite]

When you copy layer to another slide, it will ALWAYS be placed as the first layer of that slide. You will need to go to each slide and move it below any other existing layer. There is no other way to do it. Bummer eh?

You know what's odd tho ... is that if you copy captions, the captions get copied to the lowest layer, not the topmost.

A video background on every slide ... ambitious. Makes for a huge file.

Dale

[debngar Profile Private message]

Hi all

I am a complete beginner at PSP. I have made a 300 slide slideshow in PSP, and have now decided to put a video background as a second layer on each slide.

I created a layer (Layer 2) on the first slide and put it behind layer 1, and no matter which way I try, when I copy that Layer to the other slides, it comes out on top over Layer 1. Is there any way to get this video to be set as Layer 2 for each slide, without me manually going through each slide and demoting it?

Many thanks in anticipation

Ade

Hello Ade - welcome to the forum.

Not that I know of. That's just the way the program works - copy a layer to another slide and it puts it on the top layer. It would be nice to have the option of being able to select top or bottom of destination slides wouldn't it?

Here's a thought though.... I suppose a slide style could be created with just that video clip in it as a non-replaceable bottom layer and a blank replaceable image layer on top. If your show has 1 image per slide, it might be a workaround to apply that slide style to every single slide.

- Select Slides
- Right Click on the Slides selected and click "Apply Slide Style".
- Choose a Style and click Apply to Slides and Done.

This would only work if the slides in place have no other slide styles applied and are just dropped in with no other changes to the settings, one after the other. Because once another slide style is applied, it overrides the settings in the slide currently there. That may not make sense to you at the moment since you said you were new at the program. But you'll eventually catch on.

If you want to try that tip, I suggest doing it on a very small test show with maybe 5 slides first before potentially messing up your show of 300 slides. That way you can fiddle and experiment to your hearts content and not ruin the work you've done already.

As a side note, repeatedly using a video clip in 300 separate slides may give you grief in rendering and playback because that can tax your machine's power. It will certainly increase the size of the show by 300 times the size of one video clip plus the size of all your photos. If it does cause you problems, be thinking of a show design plan B and maybe decrease the use of the video background to fewer, more special slides to alleviate the problem.

Good luck on your show.

[im42n8 Profile Private messageWebsite]

Debbie did a pretty good job of repeating nearly everything I just said ... great reinforcement eh? That is, with the exception of creating and applying slide styles. I would not recommend the styles approach as you have already created your 300 slide slideshow. Applying such a style would overwrite any changes you have already made to any existing slide.

As for copying the background video to all of your slides, you will want to observe the slide transition between slides to make sure of how the video looks as the transition progresses (that is, there is not abrupt change or that the video ends on the previous slide before the slide ends). If the slide is longer than the video, you will need to either duplicate the video or slow it down (expand it to fit by changing its speed under Layer Settings, Video Clip Settings, Speed). The change in speed will also change the length reported in the first line under video clip settings (to give you a clue as to how close your speed setting is to creating a video as long as the slide time ... also consider the amount of time you have assigned to each transition ... the transition after the slide is going to act sort of like it's part of the slide time ... meaning that if you have a slide of 10s, with a 2 second transition on either side of the slide, that's going to be a 14 sec slide: 2 sec transition into the slide, 10s slide time, and 2s transition out). Then, just scrub the slide and make any speed tweaks until you get the proper change in speed for the slide time. You might just want to use the video sparingly and where it make the most sense or is more appropriate.

As a FUTURE project however, it might work. But ONLY as you are building the slideshow or after you have placed a single image on each slide. If you have a number of images on the slide that are in excess of the single placeholder and video layers in the style, the excess images will end up on layers below the video and image layer (populated by the placeholder layers you had placed in the style). That means you're back where you started. In short, I think it creates more work for you in the short and long runs. There are a few gotchas (one of them being that you have to identify the video layer as a non-replaceable layer before creating the style). Also, you can add the style to any number of layer right from the get go. Just highlight all layers you want to apply the style to and hit "FX" button, make sure the styles tab is selected, select the category you saved your style to, select that style, and then select "Apply to Styles."

As you get more familiar with the program you'll get a better idea of what I'm talking about. However, you're already doing well creating a 300 slide slideshow without having much experience with the program. I can relate however. My very first slideshow wasn't short either.

Dale

[gpsmikey Profile Private message]

For what you are trying to do, depending on what tools you have available to you, I think I might consider going at it from an entirely different direction - if you have a video editor, I would consider using a green background for example on all slides then take the resulting video into a video editor and chroma-key your video in to the video you just created. That said, while that method will work, I would give serious consideration to having a video background for that many slides. In general a show tries to direct the viewer's attention to the main portion of the slide. Having things moving in the background is a distraction and you may find it just doesn't work the way you want it to. Try your idea of the video background on a short show and see how it works - you may not like the effect.

mikey

[im42n8 Profile Private messageWebsite]

That's a great idea Mikey. The video editor would handle that situation a whole lot better than an all Producer-created video would.

Adding a green background for each slide is a great idea if the desire is to have a video background on each and every slide ... especially if the video background is a looping video. Exporting that 300 slide video to a format for the video editor makes the issue of the video background somewhat less of a problem.

I agree about the moving background being a distraction tho (drawing the eyes away from the stuff that is supposed to be the important stuff to be focused on). That was my intent for mentioning the video only being used sparingly. You made it much more clear as to why she might want to rethink the idea for using it on all slides.

It's nice to have options!

Dale