Making a picture grid mask

Hi everyone,

I must say that I am fairly new to the whole proshow gold program. I purchased proshow gold 4.0 a few months ago and made a small slide show for my nephew. I am attempting to learn some tricks and gain some tips and just stumbled upon your website the other day. I cannot believe how informative this site has been for me already. I was hoping someone would have an answer to a question I have. I did notice on the photodex website that one of their tutorials shows someone making a picture grid mask combined with motion. I simply love this slide effect and would love to try it myself, but I don't know where to begin. Is this something that can be done in proshow gold and do I need additional photo programs (ie. photoshop)?

Hi there !

I was jut browsing through newly posted messages when I saw yours. What I think is that you have to use Producer to make the kind of grid you're talking about. Gold doesn't support that application. I suggest you write to Photodex people a short message to be absolutely sure of what I'm telling you.

Good luck !

D Langlois (JOS)

[Roo57]

Yes that sounds like it's Producer. Can you link to the tutorial?

I'm just wondering if there may be a way to simulate what you saw in Gold.

Thanks for all your help. I think you are both right about me needing producer to achieve this effect. It's too bad because I would have really liked to use it. I will write photodex just to be sure.

thanks!

[im42n8]

If you create a grid in a graphic editor and save it as a png, tiff, or psd, you can have a similar effect (all the holes would be transparent as would the region outside the outer border). Depending on how thick the grid is, you probably won't be able to do much in the way of zooming the images (a very small amount maybe). But, you'll have to be careful about how you size each of your images so that they'll just fit into/fill the "hole" and not zoom beyond the border frame and into another frame hole. To resize your images you'll probably have to do this in a photo editor to do it right (there are other options tho, such as in Lightroom, JPEG Compressor, maybe even Irfanview...).

The grid would be in layer 1 and the photos below that. If you bring in a main photo from one of the edges, like photodex did, you'd have that in layer 2. Then, on the next slide you'd fade in on a slide that has all the images in the appropriate openings of the frame (and the frame in the same position on all slides).

So, there you have it, basically! Now, if you want, you can change images by just adding a slide with the replacement image and go from there, a slide at a time. It's not exactly the same as what Photodex had but it's gonna bet similar! It's a bit more work but you can make something that's pretty darned acceptable ... it that's something you want to do!

Dale

[briancbb]

But, you'll have to be careful about how you size each of your images so that they'll just fit into/fill the "hole" and not zoom beyond the border frame and into another frame hole.

If you are careful as to where your layers are it is possible to zoom beyond the frame border.

If, say, it is a 3 x 3 grid, and the middle picture is the bottom layer, this can be zoomed beyond the other picture frames as it is below them and hidden by the surrounding pictures and will not be seen in their frame 'hole'.

Just needs some thought, maybe the four corner pictures are the bottom layers, these can be zoomed beyond the frame boundries, untill they hit another corner 'hole'.

Dale and Brian,

Thanks again for the tips. I will definitely give it a try as soon as I free up some time. It does sound a little challenging for a novice like me, but I guess you have to dive in at some point.

It seems like just about everyone is using some form of photo software to enhance their shows. Does anyone have a suggestion for one that is user friendly and easy to learn? I know that everyone has their own preferences, but I am sure many of you out there have tried many and would have a better idea than myself.

thanks again,

Max

[trulytango]

Hello tmax - welcome to the Forum

If you go to the main Board Index>Member Created Files section, you'll find the Forum Book. It might help get you started on tackling this effect (and others too)

http://proshowenthusiasts.com/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=9359

Re image editors... Paint.net is an excellent little program - and better still, it's FREE! You'll find it here:

http://www.getpaint.net/

Regards
Iris

[DickK]

...It seems like just about everyone is using some form of photo software to enhance their shows. Does anyone have a suggestion for one that is user friendly and easy to learn? I know that everyone has their own preferences, but I am sure many of you out there have tried many and would have a better idea than myself...

There's a bunch of programs out there and if you're in the novice class for photo editing then I'll echo Iris and recommend finding some free ones to try first. Try a couple and see what you think--play with them in context: think about what features are you going to use for slideshows. Oh, and ignore all the clamor about PhotoShop, that's expensive and no one has ever accused it of being easy to learn. Rather than try to recommend something, here's an article you may find of use:
http://graphicssoft.about.com/od/pixelb ... otoedw.htm
However, if you run a search on "image editor review" even more will show up covering both free and retail options.

"Easy-to-learn" isn't a tag I'd put on any editor that's useful. Now partly that's just me I think but a lot of others seem to feel the same way. I've played with at least a half dozen editors and "easy-to-learn" and "does what I need" didn't go together. But a good one will reward the effort to learn and become easier to use over time. My point is simply that some investment of effort will be needed and don't be afraid to try out several of the free ones so you get a feel for what the genre of software is all about. You may find one of them is all you want and need--a lot of people do. But there's a reason that the retail products are popular and a good part of that isn't that they do something the other software can't do, but the attraction becomes the community of users that surround the popular applications, especially the PaintShop, PhotoShop and PhotoShop Elements trio.

Good luck and have fun!
Dick

[nannybear]

I agree with all the above. I don't buy until I try now. I have too much that I got excited about and it ended up having to steep a learing curve. Photoshop CS# Extended and PSP are enough on my plate for now. Cheers Jan

Dick,

I know that you are right when you say that there are a lot of photo editing softwares out there and my best bet is to try them out. I can certainly agree with you when you say that there are no "easy-to-learn" programs out there either. I guess it's just in my nature to want to feel experienced in something so quickly. I need to realize that it will take time. After all, Rome wasn't built in a day.

Thanks again to all of you who have responded. I must say that this forum is extremely helpful and friendly. I'm happy to have stumbled upon it and I can only hope that I will be able to make my own contributions in the near future.

cheers,

Max