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PowerDirector Creative Question
R4TPRIZE [Avatar]
Newbie Location: Raleigh, NC, USA Joined: Oct 07, 2014 22:17 Messages: 27 Offline
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Hello,

I am new to PowerDirector, and finishing off a rather large video project for my high school reunion. We had a very large graduation class, 884 students, and showing all of these in a couple of 2-3 minute videos is a real challenge.

I wanted to appeal to everyone's creative side to ask if you faced a similar problem, and how you handled it? One think I thought of would be a continuously building collage of photos where photos fall into a pile and you see several while new ones are falling on top of them. Would there be a way to do this in PowerDirector? ----------------
Cheers,
(R4TPRIZE) DB Lection
Warry [Avatar]
Senior Contributor Location: The Netherlands Joined: Oct 13, 2014 11:42 Messages: 853 Offline
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884 photos i guess? What I do in some of these situations is, turn the photos ionto a slide show, PD can do that for you, nice transitions etc.
Save that as a video file, recommend higher quality.
Import that viodeo file and cut it into 4 equal length pieces and put each of those pieces in a separate track and scale each track down to 1/4 of the screen placing each video in one of the four corners.
It is best if you either take great care to position each video very accurately, or put a mask above it to hide any border incorrectnes.
The resulting video shows all people next to each other in 1/4 of the otherwise required time, you may even consider to make the display length per photo a bit longer. You will see that each photo is still long enough on the screen to be watched in its own right.
R4TPRIZE [Avatar]
Newbie Location: Raleigh, NC, USA Joined: Oct 07, 2014 22:17 Messages: 27 Offline
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Warry,

This is a great idea! Thank you very much for posting!

Cheers,
DB Lection

P.S. One small variation I may try to place the 4 videos side
by side instead of 4 corners. I am producing the video in 16:9 resolution, and all the photos are portrait photos, so they would lend themselves to a 3up or 4 up horizontal placement. ----------------
Cheers,
(R4TPRIZE) DB Lection
Warry [Avatar]
Senior Contributor Location: The Netherlands Joined: Oct 13, 2014 11:42 Messages: 853 Offline
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Indeed, any variation. In all cases it takes some time to scrop the originals such that it looks still consistent. Unless of course the pictures are all made by the same camare, same position and distance, which in your situation may very well be the case. Otherwise you end up with small and larger heads etc.
Richmond Dan
Senior Contributor Location: Richmond, VA Joined: Aug 07, 2014 17:17 Messages: 673 Offline
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"Otherwise you end up with small and larger heads etc. "


Sounds like the kids I went to high school with... Regards,
Dan
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Warry [Avatar]
Senior Contributor Location: The Netherlands Joined: Oct 13, 2014 11:42 Messages: 853 Offline
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Not at the end, when all should have been filled equally?
ynotfish
Senior Contributor Location: N.S.W. Australia Joined: May 08, 2009 02:06 Messages: 9977 Offline
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Hi dblml320 -

Another possibility for this circumstance is to use a combination of the slideshow &/or theme designer templates that display a number of images on the screen simultaneously.

Examples:
Cell SS - up to 10 photos at once
Scrapbook, Collage & Montage - 3 at once
Camera & 3D - 2-4 at once.

I'd say mix and match the screen format throughout the presentation to break it up, if you want to keep your audience a bit interested

Cheers - Tony
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R4TPRIZE [Avatar]
Newbie Location: Raleigh, NC, USA Joined: Oct 07, 2014 22:17 Messages: 27 Offline
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Quote: Hi dblml320 -

Another possibility for this circumstance is to use a combination of the slideshow &/or theme designer templates that display a number of images on the screen simultaneously.

Examples:
Cell SS - up to 10 photos at once
Scrapbook, Collage & Montage - 3 at once
Camera & 3D - 2-4 at once.

I'd say mix and match the screen format throughout the presentation to break it up, if you want to keep your audience a bit interested

Cheers - Tony


Hi Tony,

Let me apologize up front for my possibly asking a stupid question. I looked all through PDR13 but I could not find these templates. I saw something like them in the Fx area, but they did not have the same names. ----------------
Cheers,
(R4TPRIZE) DB Lection
ynotfish
Senior Contributor Location: N.S.W. Australia Joined: May 08, 2009 02:06 Messages: 9977 Offline
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Hi DB Lection -

You just need to keep exploring to find where all the bits are.

To get to the slideshow templates:
1. Select some photos in the timeline
2. Click on the Slideshow button
3. Select one of the templates to apply to the photos
- Nina & Barry have described them here - http://forum.cyberlink.com/forum/posts/list/40632.page
- this tutorial shows how you can use slideshows - http://youtu.be/J6PDeatLY1Q

To get to Theme Designer:
1. Click the plug-ins icon (jigsaw piece) under the word "Capture"
2. Select a theme (template)
3. Import photos or videos
4. Drag and drop into the spaces
- this tutorial shows how you can use Theme Designer - http://youtu.be/51TSh4t0TG0

Cheers - Tony
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R4TPRIZE [Avatar]
Newbie Location: Raleigh, NC, USA Joined: Oct 07, 2014 22:17 Messages: 27 Offline
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Tony,

Thanks very much for all your help! I really like PDR and switched over to using it full time from the similar Corel VideoStudio editor. PDR seems to have more function, and it faster.

With that said, I really find the PDR documentation LACKING!! Not your fault of course, but pictures are worth a thousand words, and there are not enough of them! I spent a lot of time looking for a slideshow function .. but it doesn't show up until you select a couple photos in the timeline, as you suggested ... But I could not glean that from either the online help, or the PDF manual.

I had similar issues with the font settings, and the location of the plugins, but found that one pretty quick. Too many UI elements in PDR appear and disappear based on mode .. and that is not a good idea if there are too many of them. I think they should be grayed out when not available, rather than being hidden.

Anyway, again thanks for your help! ----------------
Cheers,
(R4TPRIZE) DB Lection
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