Railfan Technology > CD Slide Show

Last week, at our Central Coast Ry. Club monthly meeting, I put on a slide show with photo CD's of my mostly steam shots from Canada in the late 1950's, NP steam in the mid-1950's, etc. Unfortunately, several things went wrong. First, the photo's were not displayed in the proper sequence. Second, the captions that I put on each shot did not display. So, my request is HELP!
1. I scan 35 mm slides as much as 50 years old and 2 1/4x3 1/4 B&W negs with an Epson 4490 flat bed scanner. I use the grain, color restoration, and dust reduction s/w.
2. The result is then transferred to Photoshop Elements 5 where I do the final manipulation. Each photo is then reduced to 1024x768 pixels
3. This result is then transferred to Picassa2 because it's easy to use their slide show feature and transfer photo's to photo CD's
4. For projection, a laptop computer is used to feed a digital projector, operating at 1024x768 pixels.
My objectives are: 1.)Be able to show these photo CD's using a laptop and digital projector. 2.) Have a photo CD that I can give to the Denver Public Library 3. If possible, be able to show the photo CD's on our Plasma HDTV using a desktop as a source.

Any ideas?

Thanks.

Hal Lewis

I assume you ran it on your computer and ran fine.???

Use powerpoint, everyone uses it and can help you out. If the program you are using is not on the host computer, then you can have compatability problems.

Run a test show for next meeting. Maybe 20 images.

When you reduce to size(for show) also be sure not to save at too high a quality. You can save at 300 ppi and it will display fine but keep the file size maybe at 250K. Others may have a better idea on size.

For the library you want to give them full sized Tiff's, for archive, and then maybe another one for a slide show. That is if you want them to archive the originals for varied uses.

Bob

Picasa 2 is far from purrfect. Be sure to use the latest build which addresses many past issues: Version 2.7 build 36.60 dated June 26, 2007. I have noticed an improvement with the current version. tom

J-1Hudson Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> First,
> the photo's were not displayed in the proper
> sequence. Second, the captions that I put on each
> shot did not display. So, my request is HELP!> Any ideas?
>
> Thanks.
>
> Hal Lewis


Here's another vote for PowerPoint if you're on a Windows machine. It's easy to pick up the basics, it has a TON of features once you start digging in and exploring, and you have a level of control that other tools don't give you.

If you're on a Mac, iPhoto is pretty good.

JAC

Power Point is also available for Mac.

One thing one must keep in mind is not just what program you are using but how you name your files. Picasa2 is a cool program but it uses .ini files to store information in each folder you load with it. If that ini file is not included Picasa2 will load the files in default order which means if you arranged the files in a specific order on your own computer, they will NOT be in the same order on any other computer.

To truly have pics display in the order you want them in no matter what program you use (other than PowerPoint) you need to name your files using a number at the front end then rename the rest of the files in the numeric order you want to see them in. Time consuming at best!

PowerPoint is okay but I personally find it cumbersome for large numbers of images. I now use ProShow Gold by Photodex for creating my shows. This is the same software the Winterail shows are created in. It runs around $80 but allows for cool effects, sound, captioning etc.

The only down side is the software is not Mac compatible at all. So, back to PowerPoint for cross platform compatibility.

As the producer of GorgeRail, I can unequivocally state that ProShow Gold is my slideshow program of choice. You lay out your slides in order, set your transitions, (optionally) set your soundtrack, and can output the slideshow in a variety of formats. Creating an executable (EXE) file means that you can then play the show on any Windows computer... it doesn't need to have any particular software installed.

In short, it just plain works. When presenters give me a ProShow EXE I know that I won't have unforeseen technical issues. I can't say the same for PowerPoint and some other slideshow generation programs.

Aaron
http://www.dogcaught.com

For produced shows, I vote for ProShow Gold too. But keep the file sizes reasonable, not to large--maybe 200-300K.

Regarding the renaming of files to attain a specified playing order for informal presentations--can't you just use the batch process tool to rename a group of files at once into a specified order?

Chico
http://www.heartlandrails.com

The computer used was a Mac; I don't think it had any support for Microsoft applications.

Oh, and the software used to show the slides was Phoenix Slides, which simply shows a directory of pictures in alphabetical order[1]. I don't think it supports any other metadata (such as captions).

[1] Alphabetical order differs among languages, so even that approach has a drawback.

Name your photos as CLEM01, CLEM02 and such in the order you want them presented and the program should display them in the order you want no matter what the language. Image resolution for windows computers should be either 72, 84 or 96 pixels per inch which are the default screen displays for windows computers. The digital projector is just another monitor which throw out light rather than exciting phosphors on the back of a glass screen. Most of the projectors are intended for Powerpoint presentations so photos with an AdobeRGB color space get a bit "electric" expecially the BNSF Cigar Band nose logos so keep the images in the sRGB colorspace the projectors know how to handle.

The folks at the Essex October event are using a slide program which comes free on the CD with Canon P&S cameras. It works pretty well with some basic disolves between images. The presenters just bring in a CD of their images named or numbered for the order of presentation and sized for the 1024x786 or 786x5?? for vertical presentation. These seem to work well so far.

Thanks to everyone for the helpful responses. I have downloaded all of the images from the two CD's in question to a Seagate external hard drive so I assume that I can recover these and follow the advice that you guys gave me. I'm going to rerun my old B&W negs from the D.C area, and the Mid-West from the late 1940's and early 1950's. These are 2 1/4x 3 1/4. I have been scanning these at 1200 dpi and coming up with a large file, doing the image manipulation, then reducing them to 1024x768 (approx.). Does this make sense? I have read some articles that suggest that using software with grain reduction (as in the Epson 4490) somehow degrades the image. any thoughts? Clem, at the next BOD meeting I'm going to suggest that CCRC buy a lap top and develop written procedures for setting up and projecting photo CD's as well as the software and procedures to be used in preparing the photo CD's. Are you willing to lead this little project?

Hal

If you want a Mac equivalent of ProShow Gold, then look at PhotoMagico. I used PhotoMagico to produce my Winterail show last year, then output it as a QuickTime movie so Evan could show it on the Winterail equipment.

As for sizing images for projection, the limiting factor is the projector's resolution. Winterail and EastRail use projectors rated at 1024x768. Thus, sizing your horizonatls to be 1024 pixels across and sizing your verticals to be 768 pixels high is best. Larger files present two problems -- 1) if you don't size the images to the projector resolution, you then have the projector interpolating the pixels to make them fit, which may result in a less than optimized image and 2) anything larger than what the projector can handle is simply overkill that will slow down your computer as it tries to process each image for projection. I size my images at 1024 or 768 (depending on orientation) and save them as uncompressed JPEGs.

If you are giving your images to a library, you might want to consider giving them a self-executing slide show and a companion CD of the images as high resolution TIFs. The stuff sized for slide shows is okay for slide shows and internet, but pretty much useless for future publication or enlarging to look at minute details.

Good luck.

Steve Barry
Railfan & Railroad

sbarry Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> >.....
> As for sizing images for projection, the limiting
> factor is the projector's resolution. Winterail
> and EastRail use projectors rated at 1024x768.
> Thus, sizing your horizonatls to be 1024 pixels
> across and sizing your verticals to be 768 pixels
> high is best. Larger files present two problems --
> 1) if you don't size the images to the projector
> resolution, you then have the projector
> interpolating the pixels to make them fit, which
> may result in a less than optimized image and 2)
> anything larger than what the projector can handle
> is simply overkill that will slow down your
> computer as it tries to process each image for
> projection. I size my images at 1024 or 768
> (depending on orientation) and save them as
> uncompressed JPEGs.
>

Thanks for the input Steve,

One exception to the advice of having no images larger than native (1024x768) is that a larger than 1024x768 file (say 3502x22..), enables a presenter to use the zoom button on the projector's remote (or computer keypad) and key in on some aspect of a photo that would otherwise have been missed--say a crew member's face expression on a passing train--and see it clearly.

We're discussing produced shows in this thread, not "loose car" unproduced projection as my example is, but interesting how file size can be used for or against you in digital output..

Chico
http://www.heartlandrails.com