mpd

August 22, 2011

Dave,

I too built and maintain my own site. I felt the need to redo the web site this winter because the old site used a flash slideshow. I knew this was not displaying on iPads so I found an alternative. I use a List. Each item in the list is an image, formatted either vertically or horizontally. The next image loads before it is displayed so there is not any blinking.

I use CoreFTPLite. It is free and easy to use. You will need to know the user name and password to your web site.

Lastly, I used a text editor to build my site. I knew nothing of HTML when I started. It took about a week. I documented the process on my blog (you will need to go to the older stuff and read from the bottom). You might want to take a look before you purchase anything.

Besides my text editor, the only program I use today is Lightroom to build my galleries.

Good luck,

pat

May 14, 2011

I am using CS5 on a Windows 7 64 bit machine. I was looking at memory usage today and noticed that memory is not released when files are closed. For example, I was editing a large panorama. Task Manager was showing 5.4 GB of memory used while the photo was open. When I closed all images in CS5, Task Manager showed 5.4 GB of memory usage. I thought that was odd. I closed CS5 and memory usage went down to 1.5 GB.

Is there a way to have CS5 release memory when a file is closed? Maybe a Cache setting?

Thanks,

pat

March 20, 2011

Sheldon,

Thank you. That was it.

Odd though. I have been using the numbers to change the Opacity for years. I first noticed this behavior with CS5 but it not always happen. No matter, your suggestion works 100% of the time.

pat

March 20, 2011

When using the Brush tool in CS5 I would like to be able to change the Opacity setting using the number keys. I must have changed a setting because this morning the number keys are changing the flow and not the Opacity. I thought this was controlled by one of the icons displayed on the tool bar but I cannot seem to get it to reset.

What is the correct way to toggle numeric key control of the Opacity and Flow settings?

thanks,

pat

March 17, 2011

Patrick, Thank you for looking. I want to send these jpgs to Millerslab for printing. I need to know if they will print correctly. I will call them and ask them to advise. Your thoughts?

Olli, Garrison. Thank you for confiming what I thought might be the problem. I didn't know what the EXIF info is or how it was stored. But you confirmed I was on the right track. Here is the oddest thing. I didn't make any changes in LR, EVER other that the BW conversion en masse. All of my editing was done is CS5 (I don't know how to use LR for those edits such as Liquify). The CS5 were saved as jpgs, Imported into LR and everything was fine. My web gallery was produced without any problem.

This is the sequence of events. The LR image on the screen looked fine. I deleted the BW conversion collection and the next image I browsed to after the delete had this problem. All the images had this problem. It makes me nervous that I do not understand the cause.

If I find a way to undo the EXIF I will post it back here.

thanks everyone.

March 16, 2011

Andrew. Yes. Image viewer, IE, etc are not managed and the three Abode products are. My understanding is that Photo Mechanic, like Adobe, is also color managed. And when viewed in Photo Mechanic the images look normal. If that is correct, I have two color managed programs on the same computer giving very different results.

I posted the whole jpg so others could look at the image in their copies of CS5 or LR3. Or they might look at info inside the jpg. I thought it was going to be a "side car" file issue. But jpg's don't have any associated files (my raw files can have a xmp file associated with them).

Marc. When I get back I will try your suggestion. But it implies that I made corrections in LR3 and as far as I know I did not. The only thing I did was delete the collection. If I did make changes in LR3, I have no idea how to undo the effects in LR3. It took me almost 8 hours in CS5 to edit the raw files. I only imported them in to LR3 so that I could make a gallery for my web site. Which I did and the gallery looks fine. If I cannot find out what is going on, I will have no choice but to delete the jpgs and start over again.

March 16, 2011

I have a folder of raw files that I edited in CS5 and saved as jpg's. That went well. I imported them into LR3 and made a collection. That went well. I deleted the collection in LR3. This is when I noticed a problem. After deleting the collection, I opened one of the jpg's in CS5 (LR3 deletes the collection but leaves the jpg's on the hard drive). It was a mess. I opened the same file in Windows Image Viewer and it was fine. I uploaded the image to my web site and opened it using Safari. It was fine. But it continues to look bad in LR3, CS5 and Abobe Raw.

This is the actual .jpg. It is LARGE ~5 MB.

<a href="http://www.patrickdillonphotography.com/gallery/1517.jpg">http://www.patrickdillonphotography.com/gallery/1517.jpg</a>

The screen capture of the same file in CS5 is 245 KB.

<a href="http://www.patrickdillonphotography.com/gallery/screencapture1517.jpg">http://www.patrickdillonphotography.com/gallery/screencapture1517.jpg</a>

The blacks are blocked. The contrast is screwy. The exposure is wrong. etc., etc.

What is going on here?

I would like this image and all the others to revert to their original state that I see when I display the image in any program but the Adobe programs. Is this a thumbnail vs actual image issue?

The underlying question "What did I do in LR3 that caused this" will probably never be answered.

Any help would be appreciated.

thanks,

pat

March 8, 2011

Finally, I have it. It looks pretty good on TV and the PC show is just fine. I worked with ProShow Gold tech support. They were great.

I will try to describe the changes they suggested as best I can.

All of these were things suggested by support.

From the main menu Edit>Preferences>Playback then Maximum internal rendering resolution. I set this to the resolution of my monitor, 1920 x 1080.

After selecting Create Output:

<ol>

<li>On the Options tab, place a check mark in the Desaturate checkbox (this is done by default but I had removed it).</li>

<li>On the Executable Tab (This is necessary to create a DVD or standalone slide show that will play using the ProShowGold player on a PC). Place a checkmark in Include PC Autorun checkbox. Note: even with this checked, I still needed to launch the slideshow manually on my PC. And there is a trick to it. </li>

</ol>

In Windows 7, if I right click on the DVD Drive in Windows Explorer there is an option to PLAY. Do not use this option. This launches Windows Media player and the slide show will look fuzzy and out of focus. Instead, OPEN the DVD drive and browse to the Show.exe. Double click this exe to run the slide show. Using this .exe to show the slide show on the PC solved 90% of my issues.

3. By selecting the PC Autorun Checkbox, all the sizing options become available. My input image size is either 693x1024 or 1024x683 (I have no idea how I arrived at those sizes. It should have been a 4 x 3 ratio. That is an investigation for another day).

The rest of the settings are:

a) I placed a check mark next to Start Maximized. This overrides the settings in Window Size above.

b) I placed a check mark next to Image Size and set it to 1080 x 810

c) I place a check mark next to Resizing and set it to 1440 x 1080

d) Increased Image quality to 100%

e) Set Video Quality to High Quality

f) Set Video Clip Resolution to High Resolution

With these setting I could either burn a DVD or create a PC Executable. For testing purpose I created lots of PC Executables. When I had a pleasing result I burned the DVD.

This whole process started 10 days ago and has consumed quite a few hours. I hope my notes will help someone else avoid my mistakes.

pat

March 8, 2011

Kevin,

I am encouraged that you get stunning shows. Your comments confirm my belief that my problems are self imposed. I am going to keep at this until I am satisfied.

The text was part of the image. I will change that and figure out how to do it with PSG Titles.

I had started to get good results with HD but only when I made the intermediate file. I couldn't get the same results when I burned the DVD. How do you first make an intermediate file, mpeg2 or mpeg4 and then burn it to a DVD? Do you use another program for the burning?

I looked a couple of DVD burning programs but they all errored out when the burn began because I didn't have audio. Or so the error message stated.

thanks,

pat

March 7, 2011

Kevin,

Thanks for your reply. I have to agree with you, this is a mess. For now let me try to refocus this discussion on the fuzzy faces and blurred text. I added the bit about color shift at the last minute. I thought if someone else noticed a shift they would comment about it. I was just trying to be thorough.

Let me focus on your suggestions 4, 5 and 6 which seem to go the image distortion issue.

4.) Which ISO output are you selecting for a DVD burn? I am not 100% sure of the answer but I think it can be found on the Burning tab of the DVD Output wizard (see psg_output_settings.jpg from above). I placed a check mark after ISO creation and before Generate disc image on the fly. I noticed the note suggesting lowering the Speed. Mine was set to MAX. I have lowered it to 4X. I burned another disc and the image was still fuzzy.

5) Is "de-saturate" colors on or off in PSG? Desaturation on the Options tab is not checked as can be seen in the psg_output_settings.jpg image.

6) Which file format are you using in PSG? I imported a .jpg in the size mentioned above. I do not know what file format PSG used for the burning of the DVD. I looked at the Executable tab and I have “Include PC autorun on the disc” unchecked. By unchecking this box all the other resolution options are disabled.

I really thought the fuzzy image issue was going to be a function of image scaling. Me using too large or too small an image for the slideshow. And/or perhaps needing different size images for TV than for the PC. And even different settings for different PC monitor settings.

What settings would you suggest producing a TV Slideshow? What size should the starting image be if it is vertical? What size should it be if it is horizontal? What output setting should I use in PSG?

By the way, I am not trying to discount your suggestions, 1 thru 3. I would like to focus on the fuzzy image issue first.

Thanks,

pat

March 6, 2011

Hi, Let me apologize in advance for a long and detailed post. I wanted to give as much info as I have to assist everyone in answering my question. It seems like a fairly simple question, “How do I make a slide show of my images?”. But the answer is way too complicated for me. Every time I try to burn a DVD slide show, the result is a blurry image that has a color shift. Not exactly what I want to give out. I have tried doing this in: ProShow Gold Pinnacle Studio Ultimate Collection Windows Movie Maker PhotoToMovie Wondershare plus a couple of others I realize that all these programs cannot be deficient. It has to be how I am approaching this. Here goes: I am trying to create a proof of concept DVD with just one image that is about 20 seconds long. Here is the full size image. Be careful this is a large file (2.2 MB) 3264x4896 <a href="http://www.patrickdillonphotography.com/psg/764full.jpg">http://www.patrickdillonphotography.com/psg/764full.jpg</a> I placed this starting image into PSG. Once this image was on the timeline in PSG, I observed a color shift in the Preview window. PSG image is on the right and looks cooler to me. 130 Kb <a href="http://www.patrickdillonphotography.com/psg/psg_colorshift.jpg">http://www.patrickdillonphotography.com/psg/psg_colorshift.jpg</a> To burn the image I used the settings shown in this image. 435Kb in size. Around 1920 x 1080 <a href="http://www.patrickdillonphotography.com/psg/psg_output_settings.jpg">http://www.patrickdillonphotography.com/psg/psg_output_settings.jpg</a> Finally we get to the output. I am not sure how to make it an apple to apple comparison.

This image was made by opening the full res image in CS5. Scaling to 100% and cutting part of the image into a new file. Then I ran the DVD and sized Windows media player to be about the same size on my monitor as the CS5 file was at 100%. I did a screen capture and saved the result. 206 Kb <a href="http://www.patrickdillonphotography.com/psg/psg_playback_vs_cs5at100pct.jpg">http://www.patrickdillonphotography.com/psg/psg_playback_vs_cs5at100pct.jpg</a> I see fuzzy faces, blurred text and a color shift. Thinking that it might have something to do with resizing the image, I used CS5 to create a 720 x 480 image from the full res file. 108 Kb <a href="http://www.patrickdillonphotography.com/psg/764at720x480.jpg">http://www.patrickdillonphotography.com/psg/764at720x480.jpg</a> Interestingly enough, I think I detect a color shift in my downsizing (I used BiCubic Sharper but did it all in one step.). But the image is not soft or blurred. So back to the simple question: How do I create a DVD slide show in PSG of my images that look like my images. These slide shows are intended for both the PC and a TV. Thanks, pat

February 16, 2011

Bob,

Homeowners is not an option. But thanks.

Marios, Yes, I know. But it has to be better than nothing

By the way I have not heard back from either of the two carriers I emailed.

pat

February 15, 2011

At the end of March I will be traveling from the States to Nepal and trekking to Everest Base Camp. I would like to explore purchasing insurance for my gear even though I do not anticipate it leaving my side. I checked with the company that Photo.net recommends but they do not do international. I found one post that suggested Hill & Usher in Az. I have emailed them. Now I am looking for additional companies.

Does anyone else have suggestions of companies that might provide this type of insurance? I would be particularly interested in your personal experiences in purchasing this type of insurance.

Thanks,

pat

January 31, 2011

David, Thanks for you kind words. If the slides change you have javascript. If you see an UnOrdered list of 16 images javasctipt is not enabled on your machine. I do not like listening to music when I go to a web site. I usually have my own playing. The first thing I look for is the Mute button when I encounter a site with music. But maybe I am just a cranky old man. To add music you would just have to add another control to your web page. Google "Web site music player free" and you will get lots of results. Many of them are Flash/Shockwave players. This requires your visitors to have these apps installed on their computers. I don't think that is a big deal because most people have these installed long before they get to your web site. Where would you get your music without violating copyright laws? This is a hot topic on photog forums. I guess there are royalty free sites for that also. I should look into it as my slideshows do not have music either. pat

also see <a href="../website-creation-forum/00Y5c4">http://www.photo.net/website-creation-forum/00Y5c4</a> for more discussion on music on a web site.

January 30, 2011

Chelsey,

Ditto what has already been said, especially the music. Please turn it off by default. I do like the site. One thing that I noticed is that something is up with your About page. Go directly from the Home page to the About page and the slideshow continues to play at the bottom. I find that distracting. And I don't think that is intentional. Next navigate to the Categories>Romace>Weddings. Then go back to the About page. The slideshow that was playing at the bottom of the About page before is now replaced with the images from the Weddings page.

pat

January 30, 2011

Alwin, I created my own slideshow. It uses javascript. Previously, I used Flash but with the growing number of iPad users I that I needed to address the lack of Flash support on the iPad. One of the interesting features is that it resizes the image tag to display vertical or horizontal images. Also, my page will display even when there is no javascript (Its not pretty but it is not blank either. Sometimes corporations turn off javascript based on the employees login ID.) If you are interested, email me and I will send you the code and you can just plug in your data. I didn't write all of this code alone. I spent many hours working in forums with others guiding me. pat <a href="http://www.PatrickDillonPhotography.com">Patrick Dillon Photography</a>

January 15, 2011

Thanks guys. It was hidden. I clicked on the dark gray arrow at the top-middle of the screen. This exposed the top panel (Library|Develop|Slideshow etc.). I had been wondering where that had gone. I had been switching modules by clicking on the Window menu choice. This is much better!

pat

January 15, 2011

I am using Lightroom 3.3 and I am very new to the program. When I export, either from the Web module or the Library module, I do not see a progress bar. I am using a Win 7 64 bit. If I hover over the Task bar, the LR program icon's background color progressively becomes green and then goes transparent when it is done. But I am guessing there must be a good old fashioned progress bar somewhere that I must have hidden by mistake.

Suggestions?

thanks,

pat

January 7, 2011

Garrison,

Thank goodness I do not have one of those keyboard that have the FN key activation button. That drives me crazy!

I haven't noticed anything out of the ordinary while using the keyboad. I do not see a Keyboad icon in the task bar.

The other funciton keys work all the time. I have created many short cuts. Some of those use the Shift-FN combination. I have been careful not to create a Shift-F5 shortcut that would conflict.

Thank you for your reply.

pat

January 7, 2011

The shortcut for the Fill Comand is Shift-F5 on a Windows computer. I am running CS5 on Windows 7 64bit. The Shift-F5 works sometimes but not others. I use it frequently to fill a new mask with black. Does anyone have a clue as to why this shortcut works sometimes but not others. I always make sure the mask is highlighted. thanks, pat

December 24, 2010

I am a new user of Lightroom 3. All of my images are displayed in a slide bar across the bottom of the screen. After selecting an image, I can right click on it and select Edit in Photoshop. I would prefer to have the image edited in Photoshop when i double click on that thumbnail. Is there a was to change the default behavior of LR so that when I double click on the thumbnail that the image is opened in Photoshop?

thanks,

pat

November 18, 2010

I am new to LR3. I was adjusting the settings of the Grid view in the Library module. I accidently replaced the file name below the images with my camera model. How do I change it back?

thanks,

pat

November 12, 2010

If you are looking for disk performance you should be looking at Raid 0 or 5. Both split the data transfer between the disks. Raid 5 adds an extra level of security. If one disk fails in raid 5, your whole array does not fail. You can replace the failed disk and no data will be lost. For a rule of thumb consider the more disk spindles, the faster disk performance will be (there are lots of other factors to consider but that is beyond this post). You can get a external raid 5 array pretty cheap these days. The more disks you put in it the better the performance will be. Use your firewire connection and not USB.

You might also want to consider splitting up the disks where activity is taking place. You could have one disk for the operating system, another for Photoshop scratch disk and a third for storage (when I say disk I mean a raid array or a solid state disk). How many Firewire connections do you have?

I have yet to see a laptop that outperforms a desktop. As a reference point, my desktop which does not have a particularly fast disk subsystem can still write 5 GB/min. That is more than enough for my needs.

November 12, 2010

I am upgrading from Photoshop CS 3 to CS5. I have created some actions in CS3 and I would like to copy them and load them into CS 5. CS 5 is installed on a different computer.

I did a Windows search for all .atn files. None of the files returned have a Modified date later than 2007. I know I modified one of my actions last month. Where are my custom actions stored? Or what file extension is used to save my custom actions. If I know the extension I can Search for the file and their paths.

thank you,

pat

October 30, 2010

It is time for me to buy some memory for my 1D Mark IV. I always use the second memory card as a backup. I cannot find the Canon specification for write speeds to either the CF card or the SDHC card. Does anyone know what they are? Does the camera write to the cards in parallel? If the camera does write to the cards in parallel, my thinking would be to purchase cards with similar write speeds.

Thanks,

pat

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