The Digital Photography Show #56: Pro Show Gold Slide Show Software and Taking Great Group Shots
The Digital Photography Show #56: Pro Show Gold Slide Show Software and Taking Group Shots (26Mb, 58 mins)
June 22, 2007: Welcome to the fifty-sixth episode of The Digital Photography Show! It’s all Michael’s fault!
Today we talk with Paul Schmidt, President of Photodex, makers of Pro Show Gold.
Pro Show Gold turns your pictures into outstanding slideshows, with beautiful transitions, stunning clarity and the background music of your choice. Paul tells us all about the program. I’m especially interested in how it is that Pro Show Gold burns on DVDs – will they really play on the DVD players we connect to our TVs? Paul gives us the skinny on the best kinds of DVDs to use and burn.
A lucky listener will also win a copy of Pro Show Gold. Send the answer to the question we ask on the show to us at TheDigitalPhotographyShow@gmail.com.
In the news, we cover CNET’s review of the Canon EOS 1D Mark III and Safari for Windows (see below).
Then we cover this excellent article from the online resource Digital Photography School on how to take group shots.
Also on the show, Michael and I talk about our latest contest: Little Creatures in A Little Color. Here’s the buzz on the contest.
We are looking for animals smaller than a cat, which also means No cats and No dogs. Rodent s such as ferrets, gerbils, hamsters, rats, are okay. Bugs, lizards, amphibian are also good. The subj ects can be posed or not. Alive or dead, but you can’t kill it for the contest. And please, no roadkil l.
The Technique is: Duotone. This technique is performed with your image processing program. You make th e image have only to colors, any colors you want, however black and white (together) are not acceptable.
1. Email jpg images to dpscontest@gmail.com.
2. The image must be in jpg format, and no more than 800 pixels on its widest side.
3. You may only enter three photographs.
If more than three photographs are entered, the first three received shall be entered.4. Please include the original exif info within the image
5. Please rename the image file with the photographers first and last name (so we know its yours).
6. If you are inclined to title your image (titles are optional),
please append the title after the photographers name of the image file name.
Example file name: MichaelStein_ElbowStuckInEar.jpg7. Only one image per entrant can be eligible as a finalist.
8. Please provide us permission to post the image on our Phanfare site.
9. Photos will be accepted through Saturday, 14 July, 2007.
Bastille Day10. Have fun.
Check out the contest entries here.
We’d love to hear what you thought of the show either here on the blog or at TheDigitalPhotographyShow@gmail.com.
Thanks to our advertiser DXO (www.dxo.com) for the 20% discount they are only offering to listeners of this show. Try the program for free, and when you’re ready to buy, use the code DPSSHOW.
And don’t forget the fifty buck discount on Alien Skin’s Snap Art (http://www.alienskin.com/snapart/index.html) and the 50% discount on Exposure (http://www.alienskin.com/exposure/index.html) . Just call and tell them you heard about it on The Digital Photography Show.
Thanks to everyone for listening and joining us here on the blog.
Scott
June 23rd, 2007 at 9:05 pm
Hi Scott and Michael,
heard that Scott had trouble with pumping gas himself. Here in Sweden, if you want gas you have to do it yourself, most of the gas stations are unmanned so no chance of any help there :)
But hey, it’s not THAT tiresome/hard to pump gas in your car, now is it?? C’mon Scott, I know you can do it.
and hey, since I’m writing, THANKS for an informative and great podcast! Haven’t missed a single epsiode!
cheers guys!
June 23rd, 2007 at 11:15 pm
Edward S. Curtis, Legendary Photographer, What no Photoshop?
Curtis didn’t use a Canon or Nikon SLR, but made his images with a 6 1/2 x 8 1/2 Premo reversible back camera. It had a 22″ bellows, and a ground glass back. It took at least 15 minutes to set up a picture, and his fastest shutter speed was 1/100th of a second. He didn’t have a “healing” or “cloning” tool, sharpening, curves, or levels… neither Photoshop nor the computer, or the CCD had been invented yet. My God! How did he do it?
For as much criticism as this man has received in the last century, it leads one to think that perhaps he did create a little magic. Perhaps he was on to something in the photographic world.
The beginnings of the modern west certainly resonate in the works of Edward S. Curtis. His photos were made at a time when Indians already driven from their lands were being shorn from their cultures.
This history is very apparent in a new film on Curtis’s works, THE INDIAN PICTURE OPERA, (Amazon, DVD). In it, his images are explained in his own words. It’s a re-creation of a 1911 E.S. Curtis lecture and slide show.
This film goes way beyond the images in showing how the west was transformed. It was a last grasp at recapturing was he called the “vanishing race”. Ironic that Curtis’s works were underwritten by J.P. Morgan, who helped bankroll expansion of railroads into America’s west.
A journey into the past is always enlightening. Even though photography has been reinvented by digital, it’s golden age was a century ago.
Jay River
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June 24th, 2007 at 12:51 am
Hi Scott,
Here, in Toronto, Ontario Canada, you can visit a self-service pump or a full-service pump. Sometimes the gas stations are one or the other, sometimes they offer the option of either, so you can decide. I remember visiting CA years ago and being surprised that you “had” to pump your own gas, that there was no option.
Holly
June 26th, 2007 at 12:52 am
In Michigan, pumps are almost all self-service.
Anyone looking for an incredibly easy Duotone program can check out PCDcom.nl and it’s freeware! Can’t get much better than easy and free.
Keep up the great work guys. You keep getting better and better!
Mary
June 26th, 2007 at 12:54 am
I should’ve mentioned that the duotone program at PCDcom.nl is Mac only.
June 26th, 2007 at 6:54 am
All pumps are self-service here in the UK!
June 27th, 2007 at 4:02 pm
Scott. U might be interested to know almost all the petrol stations in Malaysia has an attendant doing it for ya. They’ll even prop up the rear wheel of your car with a brick/thick plank of wood so that they can really fill it up to the brim. And then you pay the pump attendant the money, to pay for the petrol and also maybe a pakc of ciggarettes and a coke so you don’t even have to leave ur seat.
June 27th, 2007 at 11:47 pm
I have been listening to your show for a couple of months now. I finally just got done with going through your back catalogue, I listened to them in reverse order which was interesting as you mention things which you have done on previous shows which I didn’t get to listen to for a while.
Keep up the good work.
I even got round to posting some photos for the contest this month.
June 28th, 2007 at 12:04 am
Hiya Scott and Michael:
Love your show! I am learning heaps and telling everyone I know about it. In fact, I hope you don’t mind but I linked your show to my photoblog (shrewshutters.wordpress.com)
I hope you will consider photo contests in the future where owning photo manipulation software is a must. I don’t own Photoshop (yet) and it would still be nice to be able to participate.
Take care,
Shrew
June 28th, 2007 at 12:06 am
You can still get full service in Pennsylvania if you know where to look!
June 28th, 2007 at 12:10 am
Hey Scott, in Mexico all gas stations have attendants so you CAN’T pump your own gas, they’ll do it for you.
That been said, I think I like it better here in the states where you pump your own (I might be a control freak).
June 28th, 2007 at 7:12 am
Victoria, Australia: Most pumps are self service. You still find the odd place where the attendant does the work for you, but it’s rare, and they’re definitely in the “quaint” category.
June 28th, 2007 at 7:25 am
C’mon, how can you not like the smell of freshly minted gas! Self service isnt that much of a pain. I might be dating myself a bit here, but I used to work at a gas station pumping gas. Pumping gas was the easy part (well maybe not when the wind chill was 40 below! It was using the little sponge pad to clean off all those dried on dead bugs on the windshield that was the real pain!
June 29th, 2007 at 6:55 am
At these gas prices (2.93 in Boston), I will save the 25-30 cent per gallon premium they use to soak us even more with full serve, and do my own pumping. That roughly translates into one 4×6 digital print for every gallon pumped. If the price difference wasn’t so great, I’d say, sure, give me full serve. But gas is big enough a ripoff as it is.
The full serve stations of New Jersey, and their lack of pay phones, played a prominent role in the last episode of “the Sopranos”.
June 29th, 2007 at 7:07 pm
Jambo from Kenya, We only have serviced pumps here. Very civilised. A friend tried to serve himself and was arrested for attempted theft!!! Great pod cast. Stewart
July 1st, 2007 at 10:45 am
February in Antarctica is actually summer down there. If you decided to go to Antarctica, February would be much better than July.
July 11th, 2007 at 1:17 am
Like Malaysia, you are safe in Thailand and China, Scott. But in case you thought they might not be capitalizing on the captive audience, Thailand stations will often set an advertisement on your hood so your mouth waters or thirst heightens as you wait!
July 30th, 2007 at 5:13 pm
ALL the petrol stations here in South Africa are not self-service. It might have something to do with job creation but then again I could be wrong.
January 22nd, 2008 at 4:20 am
Here in the state of Oregon it is not legal to pump your own gas. A “fuel technician” must fill your automobile.