Notes on the production of an Audio Visual sequence by Mike Reed ARPS
	(These notes follow my method of working using Pictures To Exe v5.6) Reference to pro Show Gold relate to the first version. I understand that the layout of Pro Show has changed in later versions but I believe that my general rules can still be followed.
WORKFLOW
	The first thing I do is to create a new folder on my computer and title it with the name of my sequence. Into this folder I will put everything I produce for the show. That is Pictures, sound effects, music and narration.
PICTURES
	I normally shoot in Raw or High Jpeg which gives me a file size on my camera of about 34mb. This is far too big for an AV so it is necessary to reduce the resolution (size in pixels). I do this first by cropping to 1400 x 1050 pixels which gives me 4mb with no loss of quality. I then Save this for the web at maximum quality, (a Photoshop option in the save menu) and this gives me a file size of about 800k. I have chosen 1400 x 1050 (SXGA) as this is now the maximum size that The Surrey Photographic Alliance will accept for their projected image competitions and is the resolution at which modern projectors are running. Some older ones run at 1024 x 768 (XGA) but a 1400 x 1050 shown through a1024 x 768 projector is perfectly acceptable. It is my 1400 size images that I put into the AV Folder, the originals are kept elsewhere for competition prints etc. do not think that you can print from a 800k image to A4 size, not unless you want a shock!
TIP
	If you are having difficulty in deciding what picture goes where, make a plain paper contact print of your thumbnails cut them up and move them around on a table. It’s the equivalent of 35mm slides on a light-box. When I have a rough idea of the slide running order I rename each image starting with 001,002,003 etc. This make for easy loading into PTE as I can select a batch and drop them all in in one go.
ASSEMBLING THE AV
	In PTE go to the Project Options button. Under the Main tab I select a time interval of 5 secs for my slides this will space them equally along the time line. In the Advanced tab I select Auto hide mouse after 1 sec In The Screen tab I select Run Full Screen In the Effects tab I tick the far right transitions box (the one not ticked) then just tick the Fade in/out button. IN Pro Show I seem to recall that I set the dwell and dissolve times by entering the number of seconds in the boxes by the slide in the time line and set the type of dissolve similarly.
MUSIC
	For my music assembly I use Adobe Audition 1.5. It is a very old version but it does all I need. You can occasionally find it on E bay for a nominal price. Otherwise Audacity is nearly as good and it is Free. I am not sure if Audacity still has a problem in ripping music tracks off a Cd. If it does you may find that you have to also download some ripping software. I found this a bit troublesome and a way around it is to download into “I tunes” and then copy and paste into Audacity. Once you have your music it needs to be saved into your AV folder. Save it as a Mpeg file not a Wav file as this is also uncompressed and the name of the game is to keep your final Exe file as small as possible thereby giving the computer less to do when showing your sequence. If your music is too long for your sequence try to clip bits out of the middle rather than fading out at the end. That way of finishing always seems slightly messy. Now is the time to add your music to the time line. In PTE go to the Music tab in the Project Options and click Add. Browse your AV Folder and find the music track.In PTE you switch between the thumb nails and the representation of the slide times by clicking the Timeline button. When in the time line view also tick the waveform button on the bottom right this will also bring up the waveform. It is now just a question of left clicking with your mouse on the numbered slid to move it or the grey transition line to extend or shorten it. This is really a hit or miss affair and it needs to fit with the speed or tempo of the music.
TIP
	In PTE with the slide visible in the time line tick the small box on the bottom right of the window Hold Time Points. This will hold each slide in its timed position until you decide to move it. See below re Pro Show. I am not sure whether this can be done in newer versions of Pro Show. In the early version it could only be done by changing the number of seconds in the time scale boxes this then moved all the slides up or down the time line. This meant numerous reworks of the time line, the trick was to work back from the end of the show.
MAKING THE EXE FILE
	In PTE click the Create button and select the type of final file type you want. In Pro Show it is important that after you have clicked the EXE Icon you ensure that you select No Menus, then go to the Show tab and select Run Full Screen and in the Options tab unclick the show Pro Show Logo
GENERAL COMMENTS
	Copyright In general copyright belongs to the original author be that photographer, song writer or performer. If you are going to show your work elsewhere it is considered essential that you have the necessary copyright clearance licenses. For music they can be obtained from the IAC www.theiac.org.uk click on Copyrights For printed material it is necessary to contact the author and obtain approval. Do not assume that if it is on the WEB it is in the Public domain and therefore Copyright Free because it is not unless it says so. Competitions held by Pagb and RPS require that you certify that you have copyright clearance. It is customary to acknowledge that you have been given permission to use other peoples work and also to name the music used. However it is not permissible to name the musician. The reason is that in changing the volume levels or clipping to shorten you have changed the music from its original and you may not therefore attribute it to the named performer. Current practice is not to put The End if you want to look arty I suppose you could try Fin. I hope that these notes are of some help. If you are struggling do drop me an email and I will try to help. Please bear in mind that my knowledge of Pro Show is very limited.
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