Always a pleasure to watch your illustrations, Tony!

If I dare to reveal my opinion, it will be:

I am planning to redecorate (paint) my kitchen.

1. Different backgrounds: I go down in my cellar to find the leftovers of paint I have, various colours, and start painting.

2. Same background: I decide what colour I want, go to the shop and get that.


Just something.
https://www.petitpoisvideo.com

Hi,
The kitchen scenario appears quite pointless and a distraction to say the least.

The ability to alter and create ones own backgrounds is the important part here in this thread. The type of background available to an editor depends upon their skill level and what they're able to do. Both Tony and I are able to create backgrounds of either sectional images or ones with full resolution originals. We have both mapped (Tony has analysed significantly more) the rotational movement of the slideshow's background selection, this is the point which is much more prominent and noticeable in whole image backgrounds.

Adding a little more. A background sectional image of 800x600 pixels is less attractive for 1980x1080 HD resolution video. Any method to improve resolution should be looked at. Many editors complain of blurry images and a 800x600 would appear on some screens as blurry.

The choice is not what you have as a background or which method you prefer, but the fact you can make your own.

Oh dear, accept my appology for interupting
your 2-way conversation/discussion.....
Just something.
https://www.petitpoisvideo.com

Nina,
Have you tried to create either of the methods, to make your own backgrounds? When you do, please give feedback. I'm sure both Tony and I would like to read about your experiences as well as all editors on the forum.

Quote: Somebody is having a fit with the star ratings on this thread.

Quote: How do I get almost All 5-star (or none) for years, and then some little turd with an attitude gives low-star ratings for simple observations about a new product, and my rating goes down?
"Why can't we all just get along?" (famous quote from a famous felon)

I recently wrote a PM to a member who had been awarded a one star to explain that the majority of senior members have opted out from the system. Having seen how corruptly it is being used, I offered some sympathy and explanation. I have recently used the system to award one member a 5 star to raise them from a single star. I haven't awarded a star rating in a long while. I can only wish the individual who's targeting me the best and hope they're able to work through their problems.

:lol

Hi,

Well, I'm not a slideshow-kinda girl.
In 3-4 years, I have probably used 20 seconds of slideshows, as bits in video.
But since the moderator shows an interest for me to try it out for the background, and also
is of the opinion it might have interest for others, I give you 2 backgrounds.
It wasn't my intent to spend time with this today, but again; why not?

To make a fluid background (which is the kind I would prefer most)- you would be
best off by using image(s) of a "calm", constant texture, - like sand, sky, grass, rock etc.
It's avoiding the hard edges abut that will be the thing to work on.
I guess it really comes down to how much work you want to give it. Maybe, if one adapts some
kind of rutine it will fall more in to order when taking out the bits of an image and which should
succed which image. Again, not being a slideshow enthusiast, I'm not inclined to have a
deep and thorough learningcurve on the matter.

I followed Tony's recipe with 17 background images.
I made one set with a rust-image. Not very smooth and calm surface, so here you'll get the edges clearly.
I haven't gone to the trouble of tossing them around, but feel free to try.
The other one has maybe a better display with not so hard edges.
For now, this is the time I'll spend on this ....
My interest is not deep enough to "track routes" etc.

I have downloaded Tony's excellent sand-background








Just something.
https://www.petitpoisvideo.com

How could someone divide the original image into 16 equal parts?

Hi,

I suppose we go about this in different ways.
I had images with rather large resolution (3-4 Mb)
and used grids to move around to the selections.

Just something.
https://www.petitpoisvideo.com

I think Dafydd mentioned once a software that actually does that. No doubt a teensy little bit of code someone wrote sometime, but someone needed it, so somebody wrote it. HP Envy Phoenix/4thGen i7-4770(4@3.4GHz~turbo>3.9)
Nvidia GTX 960(4GB)/16GB DDR3/
Canon Vixia HV30/HF-M40/HF-M41/HF-G20/Olympus E-PL5.
Tape capture using 6 VCR, TBC-1000, Elite BVP4+, Sony D8 camcorder with TBC.
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You are correct, Mr Crab! http://forum.cyberlink.com/forum/posts/list/17146.page#86920

I'm yet to find such a piece of software, but the maths bit of my brain still works OK.

Cheers - Tony
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Barry wrote

I think Dafydd mentioned once a software that actually does that.

Just being curious, I've searched for "a teensy" soft that can do that, and a few are
listed. Don't know how each and every work. Some seem to be older stuff.
Maybe someone has tried this?

Edit: on second thought I removed the link. Probably considered as advertising.


Just something.
https://www.petitpoisvideo.com

Guys & Gal -

I'm not posting this to excite any "kitchen wars", but to share some learning & resources.

Till recently, I've been dividing images manually. Like Nina, I started hunting around the net to find a freebie that would do the job for me. I've been playing with some shareware that seems to work pretty well, called Image Cut (link in PMs).

These are the latest backgrounds I've done for the Camera View slideshow template...



If you're interested, you can download them at http://www.4shared.com/file/VeEjWHgs/Cam_Backs.html
(this server is a bit slow for a download of that size)

In case you want to know, these images started out to be quite large, ranging from 5833x3646px (copper) to 16000x16000px (nebula). I cropped them to 16x9 before splitting them.

Cheers - Tony

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ignore this if you don't care about this stuff...

Part of this thread is about sharing resources & the other part is about the choices we make in displaying images in slideshows.

Selecting a background for a slideshow is much more complex than for a single image, which, in itself, needs some thought. It's more complex because there is so much variety in colour, shape & texture in a range of images. What's in the background has a huge impact on how each image looks. I won't go on about that - you probably know that anyway, & this forum isn't about art & design theory.

BarrytheCrab made the point that the background shouldn't overwhelm the foreground images, & he's right. That's why art gallery walls are painted as they are.

Here endeth the sermon


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Here's a background i recently made.

The original image:




I then reduced the brightness and contrast to this:

Here's another i created.

Original:

I plan to try out a splitter during the day, and will post findings later.
In the meantime:
Tony has rocked my position as not being a slideshow-kinda girl.
How?
Go watch a super tutorial at http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=PDtoots#p/u/0/J6PDeatLY1Q

Oh yeah.....I will have to reconsider a few things!

Nina
Just something.
https://www.petitpoisvideo.com

Hi,

Good to see a number of you taking up the task.

I'm keen to retain resolution quality for backgrounds. To that end I will provide a little task some of you may like to experiment with.

a) Create a 2 layer panoramic of 4 images.
1 2
3 4

or

1 3
2 4

your choice.

b) Using a stitching program unite all four images. Note the overlap and the merge of resolution.


c) Using a splitting program, create the segmented sections 4x4

My first attempt wasn't hot and I only managed to create a 5260 x2819 image from 4@3264x1840.
The split stitch images end up as 1315x704 each. In the image below, the first frame still needs to be duplicated and renamed. The splitting program I use created the 16 images in seconds. I'm aiming for HD resolution per segment of 1920 x 1080 (didn't get it right this time).

The stitch program edited the merged images, ghosted out areas and accounted for light variations as can be seen in the attached image.

I will test a 9 image three layer panoramic as that'll give even higher resolution images per segment - I need to allow more for an overlap or just zoom in closer for a better crisper image. My experimentation will continue when I have 5 minutes to spare.

see image.


I'll post the information regarding software used on: https://forum.cyberlink.com/forum/posts/list/7958.page
PART J
I will refer the post (Part J) to CyberLink.
One software is free and the other isn't.

The images used here were for demonstration purposes only - to help show what is possible and how an editor can develop a theme from multiple images.

The splitter-program is the same I posted and later withdrew.
I have not had the time today to do other than download it, but I think
Tony is on the same trail. We had some differences in our download file.


Just something.
https://www.petitpoisvideo.com

Thanks for your kind words about the toot, Nina.

... & Dafydd - thanks for the challenge! I'll get onto photo stitching after I catch up on some proper video editing. I've spent a bit too much time, lately, digging into the intricacies of slideshows.

The difficulty with ending up with 1920x1080 segments is that you need to start with a 7680x4320 photo in the first place. Hence, your photo stitching, Dafydd.

For anyone who's interested, I've posted a little video on YouTube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NmtSdL_CZHE - showing, in context, some of the backgrounds & frames I've done for the Camera View slideshow template. I uploaded it using PD's FULL HD WMV profile.

You'll possibly spot a bit of a glitch in it, but try not to make to much of a big deal about it. Just send me a polite PM, if you notice.

Cheers - Tony


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Hi Tony,
I've used Photo Stitched images in a number of videos mainly panoramic views of scenes, using a motion path to pan. It's quite effective and stops the distortions often associated with a video slow pan.

I'm with you Tony, I have spent too much time on this and I have video tasks to complete and to just look over.

I had a great weekend - loads of video, super weather, lots of action, darn it was good. I hope you all did to and weren't stuck on a PC all day.

Heres a template i made that might be helpfull for a travel diary. The original image is from the Ship Travel style folder.

Rather than use an image splitter, I simply find the image I want, and set Photoshop to 800x600 and it "samples" the image each time at that size. Very easy, I just move my selection square. HP Envy Phoenix/4thGen i7-4770(4@3.4GHz~turbo>3.9)
Nvidia GTX 960(4GB)/16GB DDR3/
Canon Vixia HV30/HF-M40/HF-M41/HF-G20/Olympus E-PL5.
Tape capture using 6 VCR, TBC-1000, Elite BVP4+, Sony D8 camcorder with TBC.
https://www.facebook.com/BarryAFTT