Highlighter Pro

Discuss which third party applications you use to help create your slide shows using ProShow Producer. This is not a forum to promote other slide show software programs.
Active Member
Posts: 60
Joined: Tue Oct 28, 2008 1:22 pm

Highlighter Pro

Postby Moonwatcher » Thu Nov 06, 2008 7:56 am

I was looking over some of the topics and ran into one that was talking about Highlighter pro.
It looks really cool, but how easy is it to use? Are there others that would be better for a real beginner?

Moonwatcher

Honorary ProShow PHD
Posts: 667
Joined: Sun Jul 08, 2007 3:10 am
Location: Milo, Maine

Re: Highlighter Pro

Postby TinaJ » Thu Nov 06, 2008 8:23 am

I decided at 6:00 this morning to see if I could figure this out. I went to the help menu and was able to make a single thing of stars moving across a pic. I didn't have time to figure out what to do with it then so I could use it in proshow. Maybe tonite...doesn't seem terribly hard if you follow the help directions as it tells you step by step without extra yammering on...
TinaJ
PSG 3, PSP 4, Photoshop CS, Sony Alpha 200,
Grade 2/3 teacher
Somebody's Nanny all the time!

Active Member
Posts: 60
Joined: Tue Oct 28, 2008 1:22 pm

Re: Highlighter Pro

Postby Moonwatcher » Thu Nov 06, 2008 8:34 am

Tina,

Please let me know how it goes if you mess with it more to night.
Did you also get his other one... sketch something? Can't remember the name.
Really like some of the demos, but people make it look so easy.
I'm such a newbie!

Moonwatcher

.
User avatar
Posts: 1777
Joined: Tue May 27, 2008 2:29 pm
Location: Shingle Springs, Northern California

Re: Highlighter Pro

Postby ChrissyC » Thu Nov 06, 2008 11:49 am

Hi, if you go to Dave's website and watch the demos he has on UTube you can figure it out very easily...I bought Hilighter Pro and have his other one loaded as a trial, that one is a bit more difficult to learn but he has demos for you to watch, Highlighter Pro is easy! each time you want a new path click new path, if you want stars or whatever to fly around it's all in the settings, it also has a test button to test your action as you make it, I test over and over and over before I'm ready to build...in the box on the lower left is where you'll hit build bmp and then build the final avi, which you save your video file for your Producer show......just go to his website, choose the program you want open it and go to the help section, he has put demos on u-tube to watch...the settings let you choose how big to make your stars, how far you want them to fly out, it's all a matter of trying and testing, it took me about an hour to get a screen full of brightly colored stars some big and some small because you control their size as well, if you want them all the same make sure you click ALL PATHS if you want some big some small you control what each path of stars does....I really need a lot of hand holding to learn a program, it takes me a long time to grasp things, I wrote Dave twice, he answered my questions, I opened help and read read read, I watched his demos then I played around and around and around until I finally got it! it's really up to you to read his help files. if I can do these programs then anybody can!!!! it's all about how much time you put in to it to READ his help files
here is his website
http://www.visisketchpro.com/
hope that helps
Chrissy
Now I can make flying stars that race across my screen, or float gently from the center out, some stars are white, some are yellow, blue, pink, you control all of it, every star setting is all up to you and what you want....

Honorary ProShow PHD
Posts: 667
Joined: Sun Jul 08, 2007 3:10 am
Location: Milo, Maine

Re: Highlighter Pro

Postby TinaJ » Thu Nov 06, 2008 12:35 pm

Chrissy you are so right. HIs help files are great, and I just haven't had time to mess with it til now. Still haven't decided to buy. As I said, I only got as far as putting the path and stars onto a picture. I need to learn how to put words in next. It has a lot of possiblities!
TinaJ
PSG 3, PSP 4, Photoshop CS, Sony Alpha 200,
Grade 2/3 teacher
Somebody's Nanny all the time!

Active Member
Posts: 60
Joined: Tue Oct 28, 2008 1:22 pm

Re: Highlighter Pro

Postby Moonwatcher » Thu Nov 06, 2008 12:44 pm

Thanks Chrissy,
I did go watch one of the tutorials.
Looks pretty straight forward. But once you build the AVI file and it is saved ,is that what you open in Producer?
And what are the steps then to make it work?

Moonwatcher

.
User avatar
Posts: 1777
Joined: Tue May 27, 2008 2:29 pm
Location: Shingle Springs, Northern California

Re: Highlighter Pro

Postby ChrissyC » Thu Nov 06, 2008 1:03 pm

Moon, well once you have your avi, you would add it to the slide where you want it, it would be the bottom layer or the last layer in your in your layers function if it is to play behind your picture...you don't have to do anything to make it work it just starts doing what you made it to do when your show plays...oh gee, I wish I was better at explaining things! Ok for instance, I have a slide with a man singing, I wanted some fying notes to fly around him so I made some notes, I had some big, some smaller and in different colors, I rendered the avi and saved it my video folder withing my show, your show should contain 3 folders, audio for your music, images for all your pictures and video for your movies and avi's....I then dragged and dropped (while holding down my ctrl key) the avi notes...I then clicked on Layers to make sure that avi file was UNDER my photo, click play to test it and the action you made should be behind your photo...it should last for as long as youset the setting to in Highlighter, if I have my slide set to 6 seconds I would make my avi of stars last 6 seconds as well.....does that make sense? I'm not good at explaining but I'm willing to help if I can.
Chrissy

Active Member
Posts: 60
Joined: Tue Oct 28, 2008 1:22 pm

Re: Highlighter Pro

Postby Moonwatcher » Thu Nov 06, 2008 1:22 pm

Okay.
I think I got it. I thought you did a great job explaining... more than likely i will have more questions as I get into it, like-
when your working in Highlighter, (i went ahead and downloaded it) and I brought in an Image, it asked me something like do I want to save a copy of the original as something... sorry can't remember. Do I want to say yes or no to that?

.
User avatar
Posts: 1777
Joined: Tue May 27, 2008 2:29 pm
Location: Shingle Springs, Northern California

Re: Highlighter Pro

Postby ChrissyC » Thu Nov 06, 2008 1:32 pm

ummm ummm yes...I think you save a copy..gosh I don't have my program open but if the photo or image is to big it won't work, it gives you an error saying picture is to big..GOD that took me ages to figure out, I kept resizing the darn thing which is wrong, it asks if you want to save a copy say yes, I think then it works, experiment...and see.....I have to go get a flu shot right now...noooooooooooo owwwie..I hate shots but I don't want the flu either...so I'll drag myself to the fire station where they are shooting people..I'll be home later if you have another question
C.

.
User avatar
Posts: 1777
Joined: Tue May 27, 2008 2:29 pm
Location: Shingle Springs, Northern California

Re: Highlighter Pro

Postby ChrissyC » Thu Nov 06, 2008 6:36 pm

Moon, I just went in to Highlighter to redo an avi.....I chose on the right Notes_sm.bmp in the Glyph File Name pull down, I clicked once anywhere in the black screen..just once... then choose new path, your old path turns green, new is red, click once again on the black screen. If you click again without choosing New Path all your clicks will link together, which is ok to, but for this just click 4 or 5 times in random on the black screen...Path duration 6 click All Paths, important to do if you want all paths to be the same
Glyph duration 2 All Paths
Glyph flyout 400 All Paths this will make your notes fly out a long way
Glyph Dispertion 360 All Paths that sends them in all directions
If you want colored notes, choose the current path choose colorize glyph and choose a color, don't choose all paths or they will all be that color, change to a new path and change to another color and so on...the rest of the settings are up to you to test and try out......when you hit test watch what you made flying around...happy with it? under the black screen choose Build BMP..let it render in the window, it will say BMP Build Finished, then choose Build AVI it will ask for a save..save it in your video folder within your show...it will then say writing to disk in red font, it will tell you it's finished. Go into Producer and add it to your Layers on the slide you want, under your photo, then test it and see what happens. let me know how you get on.
oh, when you bring in a photo that you want to lay an effect right on it, you have to get rid of that photo before you render it, remove background I believe.....what you will be left with is like a mask that your then going to open in Producer, it eill be over your photo but your going to have to fiddle with it to go right over the spot on the photo you made the avi for.
gooood luck!
Chrissy

Active Member
Posts: 60
Joined: Tue Oct 28, 2008 1:22 pm

Re: Highlighter Pro

Postby Moonwatcher » Fri Nov 07, 2008 6:30 am

Chrissy,
I followed your instructions... and i could see the music notes over my picture in layers. But when I went to view it they are gone.
Now, when i created my notes in Highlighter I did not use a background picture, just left it black. Do I "still" have to say, remove background?

Active Member
Posts: 60
Joined: Tue Oct 28, 2008 1:22 pm

Re: Highlighter Pro

Postby Moonwatcher » Fri Nov 07, 2008 6:32 am

Something I forgot... I'm only using the trial version, will that make any difference?

.
User avatar
Posts: 1777
Joined: Tue May 27, 2008 2:29 pm
Location: Shingle Springs, Northern California

Re: Highlighter Pro

Postby ChrissyC » Fri Nov 07, 2008 9:14 am

..no you don't have to remove background..make sure your avi is the bottom layer....photo first then avi the trial version is fully functional, if I remember it has a logo or something annoying untill you purchase it..I remember it bothered me enough so I bought it..it was months ago so my memory is fuzzy...I was in the program last night, I discovered something...if you go to Help and look down to Presets..in the lower right you'll see Load Example Preset, a window comes up with lost of presets, pick one it will load..click test and see what it does..well I found one I loved and thought ok I'll use this one, all I had to do is build BMP then Build Avi saved it where I wanted and brought it into Producer and used it with my closing credits slide, it was twinkling stars....I added this avi to my layers, making sure it was the last layer..under my text slide, I played it and there were the most beautiful stars going off and on, it was perfect!
I am no expert by any means, the way I learned was to open the program and just play around, make a pattern and hit test, then played with settings....one thing I did was if I changed a setting and I liked it I wrote down the settings, because often I would continue changing settings and would forget the setting I liked and wanted to go back to. My only advice is to just play play play, bring your avi into Producer and see if it looks good, if not remove it and start over...this is really a cool program and when you get good at it you can even bring in your own graphic, like say a little rose, he doesn't have a rose preset, but there are instructions how to make your own glyph to really customize your show! maybe your doing a wedding show and want rose petals falling down behind the couple, go find a petal and make your own glyph...that is the next thing I want to learn for myself... what I am struggling with is....I have an old car in a picture, it's a restored Caddie from the 30's..looks like a mob car, I want to have a puff of smoke out the back...I tried for 2 hours last night to get the smoke right, there is a preset for a puff of smoke, but I finally gave up last night..when I get frustrated I just close the program cuz I can't get it right when I'm frazzled, I'm going to work on it again later today....I don't give up! I'll get that sucker to work or die trying LOL
hope I am helping you..let me know how you get on!!
Chrissy

Active Member
Posts: 60
Joined: Tue Oct 28, 2008 1:22 pm

Re: Highlighter Pro

Postby Moonwatcher » Fri Nov 07, 2008 9:56 am

This is fustrating!
I've done what you said, but it just won't show up over my picture.
If I run it with out a background it shows. And yes there is a funky logo over it.

.
User avatar
Posts: 1777
Joined: Tue May 27, 2008 2:29 pm
Location: Shingle Springs, Northern California

Re: Highlighter Pro

Postby ChrissyC » Fri Nov 07, 2008 1:09 pm

Moon..is your photo full screen? what I did with mine is it is a vertical with a black background...I centered my photo and made sure it fit within the safty zone, the notes avi was my background behind my photo, if you want your notes on top of your photo then I would put the avi on top of the photo in the layer stack....go take a look at this small show I did...in one photo the notes are the background, a put further on the stars are on TOP of the photo, it all depends on how you layer the photos in the layer section...If I knew what I was doing I'd love to send you a screen capture to show you but I don't know how to!!
let me know which one of these photos you want to copy...behind or on top...then get back to me and I'll see if we can figure this out...I want to help you so much! be patient, I only learned this program a bit ago and I haven't even scratched the surface of know it all....
http://www.photodex.com/sharing/viewsho ... 7630&alb=0
ok get back to me...
Chrissy

Next

Return to PSP - Third Party Applications

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 5 guests