Re: Column: Create a Story from a Single Still Photo with Photo St

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I'm currently working on a test project with just two pictures in it... both
copies of an 11 megapixil image.... I want the identical settings for the
panning/zooming/transitions/duration settings. Here's my approach.

1 - Open the saved project... it'll create a temporary folder with copies
of the files in it.
2 - The pictures will have names of 0.jpg, 1.jpg, etc.... maybe BMP if
that's what you used. It doesn't keep the original file names. This is one
issue with combining two projects as you'll have two sets of files with the
same names.
3 - Rename my new pictures with the same 0.jpg, 1.jpg, etc.... and replace
the temporary ones with them
4 - Save the open project to a new project file name... it'll carry the new
pictures into the new project file
5 - Render the story and it'll have you new pictures.

It might work in your case too... see the Photo Story 3 > Narration and
Motion page of my website for info about the location of the temporary
files... I first got into them when swapping out the music/narration files.
--
PapaJohn

Movie Maker 2 and Photo Story 3 website - http://www.papajohn.org
MM2 Tips and Tricks: http://www.simplydv.co.uk/simplyBB/viewtopic.php?t=4693
Online Newsletters: http://www.windowsmoviemakers.net/PapaJohn/Index.aspx


"Gaston, My Man!" <GastonMyMan@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:36F2726E-0875-4E1E-9AD0-813D41415BA1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Thanks, Mike.

Well I'm sorry if I wasn't able to get the real message across in my
earlier
post -- well, it's not about overcoming any fixed limitation as to the
number
of photos that can be imported to a single PS3 (.WP3, not .PS3) project
file,
or what does or does not make sense to any PS3 user. I just thought that,
for "really behind" users like me -- who sometimes work without the luxury
of
time and a fast PC, who just want to merge existing project files and
apply
the same duration settings to multiple frames -- having those two
features
is not too much to ask for. And also, making PS3 look like Excel may make
sense to some, but not all.
:-)


"Michael J. Mahon" wrote:

Gaston wrote:
thanks a lot, sir.

well now you got to know someone who's been wanting to do it. and
you're
right -- i'm no programmer, w/c is why i'm on this forum -- and it's no
surprise since this is about XP consumer/end-user digital photos/movies
tips.
We all know that WMVs can easily be merged using the right tools
(there's a
lot of free ones). But WP3 project files are the source files that are
PS3-editable. So merging WP3 project files would just logically result
in a
single, larger, and still PS3-editable project file.

But, of course, this would not overcome the 300 photo limitation
of PS3, since PS3 is the only application that can "play" .ps3 files.

If find that generating the .wmv files from PS3 and combining them in
a DVD authoring tool is quite adequate.

If, for some reason, I feel that I need to ajust one or more of the
segments, I return to PS3, edit the segment(s), re-generate the .wmv's,
and re-burn the DVD.

The only way this would get *really* easier would be if I could burn
a high-resolution DVD of a PS3 show directly from PS3--and the Sonic
encoder only produces blurry DVDs.

the reason i posted my question is i want to merge several 30MB WP3
project
files, each of which was created by importing several dozen 2MP+ JPGs.
the
photo sequence, pan/zoom options, and transition effects for each
project
file is almost perfect already (took me forever), although I might want
to
make some minor changes (e.g. insert/change photos, music, timing,
whatever)
in the resulting "merged" (if possible, w/c now i know is not) project
file.
now you may not find that "merging" capability to be really neccesary
at this
point. but we're aware how much of a drag it is to make the correct
photo
sequence for a project with a hundred or more of 3MP photos, esp. when
you're
pressed for time. of course you can just drag/drop using the
thumbnailed
photos timeline w/in PS3, but the problem is you can't select multiple
frames
simultaneously (Ctrl+click and Shift+click don't work), even if you
want
multiple frames to have the same transition effects and timing/duration
settings. so I ended up renaming each jpeg file accordingly (001.jpg,
002.jpg, etc.), while in thumbnail view in windows explorer, before
importing
them altogether to my individual project files.

so one should not just be after the resulting WMV, but the WP3 file as
well.
and i'm sure we're aware that once you've imported those tons and tons
of
photos (up to 300/project) to your project, you no longer need to
retain
those photos in your hard drive (if you need to free up some space and
you
already have copies of them somewhere else -- e.g. CD/DVD) even if
you'll
need to edit your project later.

again, as a free product, PhotoStory3 is really impressive and cool
already.
and like those who've been using it, i have liked it the first time i
saw
it. adding a couple of very simple/basic but truly time-saving
features is
just gonna make it a lot better.

well, i guess i can just consider the two features below as my top
wishlist
items for any future PS3 upgrades:
(1) the ability to merge multiple project files into a single WP3 file
(2) the ability to select multiple frames simultaneously w/in the PS3
project thumbnailed photos timeline

I'd like to see (2), but it would seldom make sense for me to use
the same transition/zoom/pan setup on a group of pictures. The
controls would need to be split out so that what was being set
identically could be restricted just to a few things--like duration.

In practice, I find that I seldom set several pictures to the same
parameters--except time--and there I sometimes want a "pattern" to
be repeated to match the rhythm of the music, so a simple "set all
to a fixed value" wouldn't cut it.

Maybe making all the photo parameters editable and block copyable
and pasteable as in a spreadsheet would be the way to go. In fact,
having them literally in a spreadsheet, with the first column being
a thumbnail of the picture, would be outstanding.

-michael

Home page: http://members.aol.com/MJMahon/

"The wastebasket is our most important design
tool--and it is seriously underused."



.

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