Jim,
Since you used the term Simple Slideshow, I will conclude that you are using Elements 3. I had slightly different results. I will note that my machine has Adobe Reader 6.0.2 installed, which could be a factor since the slideshow plays back from a PDF file.
Starting from the Create Icon, I just did a short Simple Slideshow specifying the Dissolve transition and it appears to have worked. I left the photo size as original, had 5 seconds as the duration and selected Dissolve in the pull down box. When the PDF document plays back, I believe that it is the Dissolve transition; it pixelates the whole photo as the transition to the next.
However, next I tried Wipe Left as the transition and what I got is a wipe from the bottom to the top. Something does seem wrong here. Wipe Up gave me a wipe from the right side of the screen to the left- bad again. So I went higher in the list and Blinds vertical seemed OK.
As an absolute stab in the dark, I suggest that you try different transitions and see what you get. I do vaguely recollect a prior post talking about not getting the correct transistion, so you might also try searching. Please do post back with your observations so we can compare results and report any bugs to Adobe.
Barb Olson
Well, I’m reporting back as you asked. I’ve spent the last hour trying to do a dissolve with the slideshow. Near as I can tell this feature was perfected by someone on very exotic drugs. BTW, in the TV and film business a dissolve does not involve prominent pixels — one picture cross-fades to another.
Hardly any of the transitions do what they claim to do. Most seem to do the same thing that I assume is the default. I’ve yet to find anything resembling a dissolve or a glitter even though they are "choices".
It is in short a VERY PRIMITIVE looking slideshow like the ones made with your grand father’s slide projector that slid in and out with black in between.
Not a good feature of photoshop.
In this case, you have not gotten what you paid for, you’ve gotten a relic. Jim
Jim,
What version of Adobe Reader do you have on that system? I am sort of puzzled at the differeneces between your results and mine. But that may be just an academic question if you can not achieve the results that you thought you would get.
I suspect that this slideshow is a carryover from the prior Versions of Elements. And slideshows are definitely not a strong point of Elements.
The Custom Slideshow does have more options but it does not allow full resolution photos. It can save as a Windows WMV file so it could be attached to an email for someone who has Windows – it does have different options that you can choose to balance file size versus quality of the video that is the slide show.
Barb O
I have Adobe Reader 7.0. I think the slideshow is more likely a carryover from the first Adobe program that "touched up" drawings made by cavemen. :).
I’m usually a big supporter of Photoshop Elements 3, but in this area they not only offer a really disappointing product, but they promote it as one of their selling points.
To coin a phrase, "What’s wrong with THIS picture?" Thanks for your help. In spite of my displeasure with this feature, I probably won’t go out and buy the new program from Acme Storm Door and Photoprocessing, Inc.
Jim
Jim,
I don’t know if it will help, but I have read elsewhere (maybe even on this forum) that it is possible for end users to override any transitional effects that you put in your slide shows simply by adjusting the preferences on their local copy of their reader application. Now that’s way above my head, but are you getting as far as saving your PDF and then when you view it in Reader is all comes out wrong? Or is it the case that you are not even getting as far as saving your show because the preview is incorrect?
Best of luck
Mark
Mark,
I’m using Simple Slide Show since the Custom version doesn’t seem to offer what I want — i. e., a simple email output consisting of a PDF slideshow attachment.
I am unaware of any preview function. I select some pictures, put them in the right order, select the transition (this is the problem area), and specify a duration for each picture to be shown.
I save it, and if the proper box is checked, I get a preview after it is successfully saved. As to what the viewer sees . . . I wouldn’t send anything that looks like this to a viewer, and when I do, I wouldn’t want the viewer to have to, want to, or be able to modify how he views it. I don’t send out "beta" email.
There is no problem with how any of it works. It does.
The problem is in selecting the transition. It doesn’t seem to deliver what the effect should be. I have yet to get it to dissolve between pictures. Perhaps this is a hideously complicated computer problem, but it sure is a common presentation device, and I would think any self-respecting program that says it will dissolve, will in fact dissolve, and should, I believe, do that when I select the effect labelled dissolve.
This one doesn’t.
Jim
I am sorry that my suggestion was erroneous Jim. I’m afraid I am at work at the moment and don’t have access to PSE3 (which sits on my home PC). I was trying to suggest something from memory and I appear to only have complicated matters instead of shedding further light!
Mark,
I appreciate your interest. One of the reasons I use this forum is that every answer stimulates me to rethink the problem, and sometimes that leads to a better solution than I had hoped for.
Thanks.
Jim
Jim,
– Mark is correct that some aspects of the PDF slideshow can be reworked from within the PDF Reader. I don’t know if type of transition is one of them. There have been previous discussions of this in the ELEMENTS 3 ORGANIZER folder/subforum. So you might want to search that subforum.
– It is interesting and annoying that your results displaying the Slideshow with Adobe Reader 7 seem to be different than mine running on Reader 6.0.2. Do you want to send me a PDF file with a few slides where you specified Dissolve for me to run on my system? Using the web interface to the forum, you can click on my userid to see my email address.
Barb
Jim,
<
http://www.markandlouise.dsl.pipex.com/Elements/GuideToEleme ntsSlideshows.pdf>
is a reference that I was trying to find earlier. It is a comparison chart on the Slideshows in Elements 3. Just below the chart there is a topic on Control of PDF Slideshow with Adobe Reader. Also look at chart entry for "Can other person redo the Slideshow" – but in this case I anticiapte that you would redo it yourself before sending it to anyone.
Barb
Thanks for the link Barb. This is exactly where I recalled reading about Adobe Reader’s capability of over riding transitions that we create in our slideshows that we save in pdf format.
For the benefit of Jim – if he hasn’t (a) given up yet 🙂 or (b) got around to reading the link – Page 4 of the pdf file contains the information I was trying to impart earlier:
Transitions & Nº of Transitions. Mark Williams goes on to explain:
Transitions: Per show. Single effect or random. Can override within Adobe Reader.
Nº of Transitions: 19. Does not have fade. Can override within Adobe Reader which has 30 transitions, including fade.
Hope this helps Jim and other readers.
Mark
Oops! ALomost forgot to refer to Mark’s advice on PAge 5 too:
Control of a PDF Slideshow With Adobe Reader
This applies to Adobe Reader version 7, but most of this also appears in version 6.
Once you have generated a PDF, you view your slideshow with Adobe Reader in full screen mode. You use View\Full Screen, ctrl-L, or the full-screen button (in version 7) to switch between the normal window view and the full-screen slideshow view.
Adobe Reader provides facilities to control the slideshow. Use Edit\Preferences (ctrl-k) and choose the Full Screen category to see these options:
· Number of seconds after which to advance the page
· Whether to loop after the last page
· Whether Esc key exits full screen mode
· Whether left-click and right-click moves forward and back. · Whether the navigation bar is visible (in version 7 this is a discrete couple of arrows in the bottom left that fades out of view after a while). Might be missing from version 6.
· Whether to do transitions.
· A default transition (from a set of 30). Includes fade. · Whether to hide the mouse cursor or not, or after a delay.
Mark
I have only the comment that if I am "The Director" of the slide show and decide that a dissolve is the most effective transition, I don’t wish to have "The Audience" be able to change it to a slide on – slide off.
Thanks for your help.
Jim
