POWERPOINT PRESENTATION ? HELP NEEDED

[ROADRUNNER3]

A client of mine is taking a large stand at Retromobile next month, and wants to use a large plasma screen to display the images I've shot for them. I've got the job of putting together a five / ten minute 'showreel' of images, each fading into the next, with captions beneath.

Any suggestions for the best / most intuitive (ie easy to get to grips with for a novice like me !)software to be using for this ?

Thanks,

Tim

www.fluidimages.co.uk

[craig_s]

If you have access to Windows then you will be able to use Windows Movie Maker, I think it comes with XP and Vista. Will do all sorts of transitions and things for you and text can be added as well as music if you want. It's got an automated thing too which takes all of your pictures and sticks transitions in between them for you. In about 20 minutes you can have something like what you describe playing in a DVD player.

[ROADRUNNER3]

Do you know if that gives me a facility to 'split' the screen, ie have two images, one on each side (for example, car 'as is' and car racing 'in period' ) ?

[craig_s]

Not sure, there's probably a way. I'm sure someone will be along soon to enlighten us both.

[andy-xr]

Open Ofice Impress has a fairly easy to use wizard that would do you.

It's going to be obvious it's Open Office, and you'll need to resize your pics to be side by side, but I think it'd do what you're after

ETA - www.openoffice.org

Edited by andy-xr on Thursday 15th January 18:54

[Scott328i]

craig_s said:

Not sure, there's probably a way. I'm sure someone will be along soon to enlighten us both.

Sure.

Simplest way ...

Say you have an actual canvas size of 1000x800 (e.g)

Resize images into 500x800 then copy the images into paint side by side. Save it thus now only 1 jpeg

[VxDuncan]

ROADRUNNER3 said:

A client of mine is taking a large stand at Retromobile next month, and wants to use a large plasma screen to display the images I've shot for them. I've got the job of putting together a five / ten minute 'showreel' of images, each fading into the next, with captions beneath.

Any suggestions for the best / most intuitive (ie easy to get to grips with for a novice like me !)software to be using for this ?

Thanks,

Tim

www.fluidimages.co.uk

Few questions to ask up front - is it his display or hired? How's it being driven? Native resolution via DVI or standard VGA (old style 15-pin D-type)? If it's his then you need to try and avoid static elements (logos etc), esp if high contrast. Even in a couple of days a stationary logo will start to burn on the older displays (You should see or 50" plasma at work!). If it's hired as part of a stand package I wouldn't worry.

How it's driven - This matters as it used to be everything was 4:3 ratio (ie 1024x768) so when you unplugged your monitor and connected a 16:9 widescreen plasma screen (ie 1366?x768) everything was stretched - faces, type, company logos, all not on. If this is the case you need to allow for it (producing everything at 1024x768 and squashing all the images and type so they are normal size when stretched by the display), which can be a reet pain with the worng software...

These days of DVI it's a lot easier as most PC's will output in native plasma res. - but you need to check.

My software of choice for these sort of things is Shockwave (think Flash with more powerful scripting), but Flash would also be a good choice. Powerpoint is a bit of a last resort - if you do use it don't go anywhere near the cheezy transistions, "Wordart" or such naff bumpf. But you knew that anyway...

To get images in PowerPoint DON'T copy and paste - you'll end up with soft images and a massive file size. Resize in Photoshop, sharpen as appropriate, then copy. In PP don't paste, but "paste as device independant bitmap". This will ensure that the image comes in nice and sharp. (PP uses odd display resolutions which makes everything look nasty)

Whatever you do try and make sure the text is "antialiased" - flash, shockwave etc will do this for you, but PP won't, and your text will look jaggy and nasty. There's often a graphics card option to force it.

[ROADRUNNER3]

VxDuncan said:

ROADRUNNER3 said:

A client of mine is taking a large stand at Retromobile next month, and wants to use a large plasma screen to display the images I've shot for them. I've got the job of putting together a five / ten minute 'showreel' of images, each fading into the next, with captions beneath.

Any suggestions for the best / most intuitive (ie easy to get to grips with for a novice like me !)software to be using for this ?

Thanks,

Tim

www.fluidimages.co.uk

Few questions to ask up front - is it his display or hired? How's it being driven? Native resolution via DVI or standard VGA (old style 15-pin D-type)? If it's his then you need to try and avoid static elements (logos etc), esp if high contrast. Even in a couple of days a stationary logo will start to burn on the older displays (You should see or 50" plasma at work!). If it's hired as part of a stand package I wouldn't worry.

How it's driven - This matters as it used to be everything was 4:3 ratio (ie 1024x768) so when you unplugged your monitor and connected a 16:9 widescreen plasma screen (ie 1366?x768) everything was stretched - faces, type, company logos, all not on. If this is the case you need to allow for it (producing everything at 1024x768 and squashing all the images and type so they are normal size when stretched by the display), which can be a reet pain with the worng software...

These days of DVI it's a lot easier as most PC's will output in native plasma res. - but you need to check.

My software of choice for these sort of things is Shockwave (think Flash with more powerful scripting), but Flash would also be a good choice. Powerpoint is a bit of a last resort - if you do use it don't go anywhere near the cheezy transistions, "Wordart" or such naff bumpf. But you knew that anyway...

To get images in PowerPoint DON'T copy and paste - you'll end up with soft images and a massive file size. Resize in Photoshop, sharpen as appropriate, then copy. In PP don't paste, but "paste as device independant bitmap". This will ensure that the image comes in nice and sharp. (PP uses odd display resolutions which makes everything look nasty)

Whatever you do try and make sure the text is "antialiased" - flash, shockwave etc will do this for you, but PP won't, and your text will look jaggy and nasty. There's often a graphics card option to force it.

Thats a very detailed answer - thanks ! The organisers want a load of money for a monitor / plasma, so the idea is to hire a 40", and run the show either from a dvd or laptop. As you can tell, I'm a complete novice in this area, so we've got to keep it simple, especially as there isn't a lot of time....

[VxDuncan]

ROADRUNNER3 said:

Thats a very detailed answer - thanks ! The organisers want a load of money for a monitor / plasma, so the idea is to hire a 40", and run the show either from a dvd or laptop. As you can tell, I'm a complete novice in this area, so we've got to keep it simple, especially as there isn't a lot of time....

... there never is (done a couple the night before...)

Going rate for a 42" plasma was about £1k/week the last few times we rented them (maybe four years ago). Pretty much the same as they cost at the time... The stand companies bnasically assume they will only get one or two shows out of a display before they either get broken in rough handling or too badly burnt in they have to be skipped.

Try and get one early so you can test it with the source. Ideally a modern laptop with DVI out into a DVI enabled screen, with the right graphics controller you should be able output native resolution. That's half the battle (no stretching and the best quality images possible.

As for the presentation itself for simple images and captions you might get away with a simple slideshow type package (or Powerpoint) - resize / crop all the images to the native screen res (ie 1024x768 or whatever), add the captions in Photoshop (or whatever you have), then save as a load of numbered images in a folder, point slideshow package at folder. Bingo!

[Simpo Two]

If you want to hire a plasma screen from a very reliable source, ask for Phil at Planet Hire 0208 5076210 and say John at Autograph Media sent you. I used Planet a lot for hire and they never let me down.

[DogChilliBilly]

Another vote for windows movie maker - or if you want something with a little more ooomph, one of the Magix products.

If you burn to a dvd it's simple - you dont have to fanny around with a laptop trying to connect it and get the resolution right.

[ROADRUNNER3]

Thanks all, as always, for great advice.

To be honest, time etc. is going to be an issue for me, because I'm on a very steep learning curve.

If there's anyone who feels this would be a walk in the park for them, and fancies helping out for a few quid, let me know - you can contact me on [e-mail]

Thanks again,

Tim

www.fluidimages.co.uk

[Colin RedGriff]

Lightroom will create a slideshow in a pdf file quite easily, the just nead Acobat reader to show it.

[cw42]

Tim, I've done these yearly retrospective films for our club (www.scoobysmacs.co.uk) for the last 3 years.
2006: http://www.scoobysmacs.co.uk/Videos/smacs%202006%2...
2007: http://www.scoobysmacs.co.uk/Videos/2007%20retrosp...
2008: http://www.scoobysmacs.co.uk/Videos/2008%20retrosp...

I've always used Pinnacle Studio v9 which I find more than adequate for my needs. In the case of the above, I opted to render the final film as a .wmv file, which is good quality but not too big. I could just as easily make it into a DVD file for playing on a laptop.

I also did a film for work last year which I had playing all day at a trade show on my laptop, it went down very well
Anything I can help you with let me know

[ROADRUNNER3]

cw42 said:

Tim, I've done these yearly retrospective films for our club (www.scoobysmacs.co.uk) for the last 3 years.
2006: http://www.scoobysmacs.co.uk/Videos/smacs%202006%2...
2007: http://www.scoobysmacs.co.uk/Videos/2007%20retrosp...
2008: http://www.scoobysmacs.co.uk/Videos/2008%20retrosp...

I've always used Pinnacle Studio v9 which I find more than adequate for my needs. In the case of the above, I opted to render the final film as a .wmv file, which is good quality but not too big. I could just as easily make it into a DVD file for playing on a laptop.

I also did a film for work last year which I had playing all day at a trade show on my laptop, it went down very well
Anything I can help you with let me know

Thanks Chris - I think the best option seems to be a high quality file that can be played back via a dvd player on a large plasma / lcd screen. I suspect there may be relatively involved resizing issues because I'd like each car to have a split screen - one side the current pic, and the other side a period pic, to give it some context. Each car will need to be seperately captioned too. Is this possible with Pinnacle ?

[cw42]

Sorry mate, I work night and then been out cycling this afternoon!
I've just knocked this up which I thought was one way you could do it - before and after
http://www.scoobysmacs.co.uk/Videos/TEST.wmv

Any good?

[ROADRUNNER3]

cw42 said:

Sorry mate, I work night and then been out cycling this afternoon!
I've just knocked this up which I thought was one way you could do it - before and after
http://www.scoobysmacs.co.uk/Videos/TEST.wmv

Any good?

Looks good - many thanks !

Meeting the client on Monday to discuss needs -plenty to think about....

[miniman]

Tim, if you get stuck I can get someone at work to do this for you in Flash for a few beer tokens.