December 2010 - Digital Group - Audio Visuals

Meeting Notes March 2009 to 2018.
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spb
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Joined: Tue Mar 25, 2008 7:04 pm

December 2010 - Digital Group - Audio Visuals

Post by spb » Fri Dec 03, 2010 5:46 pm

The subject for beginners tonight was Printing. After covering the basics, I went on to say that I have updated my paper entitled Why Doesn't my Print Match My Screen? This covers the process of colour management and profiling of screens and printers and is essential reading if you are having colour matching problems. I have also updated the paper Achieving Consistent Colour which covers the best choice of colour space for your camera and software.

Both of these papers can be downloaded from the Digital Group page of the APS website, together with a reference image.

NEWS

dpReview have posted a group test of Enthusiast Compact Cameras which is good reading if you planning on buying an up-market compact camera for Christmas. You should also consider the Canon G12 which appeared after the tests were conducted.

A friend has just reported excellent results from the remarkable EyeFi SD cards which transmit the images from your camera to a nearby computer using WiFi. Could be very handy, say, in a studio situation.

AUDIO VISUALS

There are two highly recommended products for creating Audio Visuals;

PicturesToExe for which we have a free club licence. Email me for details.

ProShow Gold which costs £43 for a year of upgrades and £27pa thereafter.

The former is very popular but the latter is by far the superior product in my view, without being any more difficult to use. There is also a more advanced ProShow Producer version which adds further sophistication if required.

I demonstrated the new ProShow Gold Wizard which creates shows from a folder of images and music with just a few clicks. If you find the result too fussy and 'American' you can easily produce a more watchable show with your own choice of transitions and styles. Music and sound effects can be added and edited for length, fades and volume from within the program. Pans, zooms, captions and menus can be added very easily and output created in a variety of formats and resolutions from the original material without the need for any re-sizing of the original images.

DVD output is universal but of fairly low quality. EXE output can be played on any PC but requires a reasonably fast processor for a smooth result. Best results can often be obtained by outputting the show as an MPEG2 or MPEG4 video file which requires less processing power to play.

Over the years, members have commented positively on the club loudspeakers. These are Acoustic Energy Aego M 2.1 widely available online for around £120. Several members, including myself, have bought them for home use.

NEXT MEETING

- Digital Group - Thursday 6th January 2011

- Special Audio-Visual Night - Weds 26th January 2011 at which I will be featuring my latest Harley Davidson AV of New Zealand and showing how the effects were achieved.

Both in the Small Barn Hall, Amersham Community Centre.

Cheers, Steve Brabner.

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