Paul N.

NCH has been able to replicate the problem but doesn't know what the problem is. They feel that since I'm the only one reporting it, it's a corrupt project file.

Their workaround is to recreate the project but with 70+ files, I'm not willing to do that.

So, this is a bit of a rant against NCH.

It's been a week since I opened my ticket with no response. I have also submitted this thread as a  bug through Photostage. 

I am dead in the water working on my 74 file slideshow. If I recreate it, I'm afraid I'll just hit the same problem.

I have not bought support for the following reasons:

• I believe this is a bug. As a user, I don't believe there is anything I could do to cause the audio tracks to disappear. There is no separate support path for bugs.
• I don't like the constraints on the purchased support "Up to 9 email consultations (10 minutes each consultation) Plus up to 2 telephone consultations (15 minutes each consultation)". I've been on a number of tech support calls with software vendors that took an hour or more especially when it's a bug. There is no mention of a credit if the problem is identified as a bug so in essence, I'm paying to be a QA engineer.

I'll wait a bit longer but if I have to recreate my 74 file slideshow, I'll wouldn't be using Photostage.

1. Click to select the Transitions tab
2. Use CTRL-mouse click to select the slides to want to adjust. You can also use standard selection patterns to select a range of slides.
3. Select one of the transition effects. 

I found I had to do the same thing. I selected a block of slides then chose Randomize (bottom choice)

5 hours ago, TECH Support said:

In this particular case, please open a support ticket here: https://www.nch.com.au/support/supportcontact.html?software=PhotoStage&support

We might be asking for screenshots or even the portable project so we can check what the problem is. 

Ticket open but I haven't bought any support.

1 hour ago, elk said:

Do you get the problem with other projects or just one of them? You may want to test it using an older version, so that will help us to understand if the issue is related to v8.22. You can download it from this link: http://www.oldversiondownload.com/oldversions/photostage-8-05-2021-01-22.exe

Thanks Elk. I also got this with the previous version which caused me to upgrade.

I've tried it with a backup and other projects; same results.

I followed the following instructions I've seen  posted several times but it did not change anything.

The bars for the two audio are there but don't' show anything to select.

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Uninstall PhotoStage, then delete 3 folders named "PhotoStage" and 1 named "Components" from these locations:
**C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Roaming\NCH Software\PhotoStage\
**C:\Program Files (x86)\NCH Software\PhotoStage\
**C:\Program Files (x86)\NCH Software\Components
**C:\ProgramData\NCH Software\PhotoStage\
**If you can't find any of the folders, just continue. 

After that, restart your computer and reinstall the program using this link: https://www.nchsoftware.com/slideshow/pstagesetup.exe

Once done, restart your system one more time and try to add the audio files again

I haven't worked on my slideshow for a couple of weeks. When I opened it today, it was not displaying my narration or music channels. The audio is there when I play the slideshow. If I click on the Media, the cursor is positioned to where it would be. 

I've cleared cached. I've tried running under Admin priv.

I just updated today and installed 8.22.

One of the behaviors of PS I find frustrating is that if I remove an audio clip (music or narration)  all other media seem to shift. This is even if there is dead space between recordings. There is no concept of anchoring the start of a piece of audio to a specific slide so it does not move. It is tedious having to manually reset all the audio especially if a change I made is at the beginning of the slide show.

I find it distracting to hear the playback while I'm recording a narration especially if I go into another narration. Is there anyway to mute playback while recording? Thanks

Sorry Yamasita, I have to rely on Google Translate to understand your problem.

I hope the translator had a hiccup. In order to create a MP4, you need to use Export->Video to create a MP4. I'm not sure what you mean by "...  it will not be played as a still image."

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山下さん、申し訳ありませんが、問題を理解するにはGoogle翻訳に頼らなければなりません。

翻訳者に問題があったことを願っています。 MP4を作成するには、[エクスポート]-> [ビデオ]を使用してMP4を作成する必要があります。 「...静止画として再生されない」とはどういう意味かわかりません。

2 hours ago, Dave68 said:

did you find a fix for this

This may be expected behavior. I don't know since it is combining two different effects together.

The closest I got was the following:

1. Insert a Photo that shows with black borders
2. Make sure the photo is selected
3. From the top tool bar select Slide->Change Aspect Ratio->Stretch to the size needed.
4. Choose Effects->Image Overlay.
5. Select the same Image, position it in the middle, and size it up.
6. I lost the Stretched Aspect Ratio so went back to Slide->Change Aspect Ratio
7. It stretched both the original as well as the Image Overlay.

Would likely not have been a solution since there seems to be a bug and the Image Overlay is not saved.

Problem still exists with PS 8.13

Thanks Elk. I tried several different JPG's, same behavior. I also notice that when I add the effect, I have the green bar at the top of the slide. Once I save and reopen it, that green bar indicating there is an effect on it is gone as well.

I'm going to skip the deinstall/reinstall until I see if anyone else duplicates this and/or says I need to submit a bug.

I have a small image with music credits for my slideshow which does not get saved.

1. Create a blank slide
2. Choose Effect->Image Overlay
3. Choose the image file from disk
4. Align the embedded image in the middle
5. Change size to 42
6. Select Fade In/Out=.5 secs
7. Play from the previous slide, and the embedded image in the blank slide is presented properly
8. ^S to save the project
9. Reopen the project
10. Go to the slide with the embedded image. Blank slide is there but not the embedded image.
11. Play from the previous slide and it only shows the blank slide with no Effects loaded against it.

I tried clearing cache and I on version 8.10.

Any ideas of what's wrong?

Thanks Guru. I know I could add up all the individual durations of slides in sequence. What I actually do is take the start time of the first slide and the start time of the slide following the sequence, subtract them, to give me the duration. For this I need to use an on-line time calculator. For example, one sequence of 18 photos starts at 3:12.0 and ends at 4:22.0 which is 1:10.0. 

I was hoping there was something to tell me what the duration was without having to calculate it.

I have a number of sets of sequential slides that I want to assign music to. The complication I find is that I don't know what the run time of the slides are unless I measure the start and stop time of the sequence. What I'm looking for is something like selecting the sequence of slides the being told what the run-time is. Does this exist? Thanks

Referring to: https://nch.invisionzone.com/topic/35497-exportation-du-montage/

Patrick, sorry but I don't speak French but will try to help.

When I read the English translation of "becomes totally blurry in image when it is transformed into the final version and therefore exported" it sounds like the resolution you are selecting is low. Have you tried different EXPORT resolution options. Hope this works with Google Translate.

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Patrick, désolé mais je ne parle pas français mais je vais essayer de vous aider.

Quand je lis la traduction anglaise de "devient totalement floue dans l'image lorsqu'elle est transformée en version finale et donc exportée", il semble que la résolution que vous sélectionnez est faible. Avez-vous essayé différentes options de résolution EXPORT. J'espère que cela fonctionne avec Google Translate.

If this is for PhotoStage, then you may need look at creating a video with lower resolution.

If you want to use your 310MB file, then you need to look at a compression utility like 7ZIP.

(Sorry, I don't speak Spanish. This is done using Google Translate)
 

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Si se trata de PhotoStage, es posible que deba crear un video con una resolución más baja.

Si desea utilizar su archivo de 310 MB, debe buscar una utilidad de compresión como 7ZIP.

(Lo siento, no hablo español. Esto se hace con el Traductor de Google)

Are you saying the video you have does not have an audio track? If so, you should be able to add one

If you want to manage the audio for video separating, you can right-click on the video and select 'Unlink audio' and it will appear separately in the audio track.

Just an observation, but you would need to check if playing continuously is a feature of the format of the video you export to. For example, a quick search suggests MP4 does not have that feature and you need to look at putting the MP4 in something to perform the looping. So, what you are asking for is not likely something PS could do outside of the spec.

FWIW, I was playing around Exporting a DVD yesterday. When I pointed to a hard drive, it created an ISO file. I then had to download another utility to burn the ISO to a DVD. Mine was a 4 minute Project that created a 170MB ISO.

When I Exported to a DVD directly on my DVD burner, it created the directory structure and files but was not recognized by a DVD player.

The other consideration is the resolution you want. Myself and at least one other person did not find exporting to DVD doing a very good job. See https://nch.invisionzone.com/topic/31267-dvd-movie-disc-pictures-are-very-grainy/?tab=comments#comment-93644

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Never had this problem with other slideshow programs

Jrs, which other programs burn acceptable DVD's? 

I got concerned because I was planning to burn some DVD's for family members. I reached out to members of my photography club and they provided the  same information that 'elk' replied with.

What I don't still understand is why the quality of the DVD's from PhotoStage seem so much different than DVD movies I own. I'd need to burn them to 4:3 instead of 16:9 to see if that makes a difference. I found that the Zoom automation on a photo on DVD was very grainy.

I also found that I could not burn directly to my DVD from Export in PS. The resulting files could not be found when I went to play them. I have to save the DVD files then use a utlity to burn the ISO file to the DVD.

So 'Steve P', we are experiencing the result of the DVD standard. More details can be found on the web at places like this.

I know have to figure out how to create portable media to share with my family. I may have to break down and but a blue-ray burner and player 🙂

Some points I was forwarded:

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When you create a DVD file, you have to down-res from your native size to 420p; and then when that gets played back on a modern TV - whether it be 1080p or a 4K - it is up-res’d (scaled up) ... and that makes those visual flaws even more visible.  I don’t think there’s a win here at all.

Your real solution is to make Hi Res MP4’s and distribute them via sharing, YouTube or Vimeo or transferred one-to-one using a service like WeTransfer.  Or perhaps you could make one and copy it to a DVD file (data not a DVD runnable disk) only for distribution, where it would be copied back to the computer to be played.  But any digital distribution system would be better than that, easier and faster.

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When it comes to videos, the terminology can get a bit confusing. MP4 is actually a "container" that generally includes a video track and an audio track (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_video_container_formats). The way the video and audio is encoded is determined by the "codec." MP4 files can include video and audio tracks encoded by a variety of codecs. The most common video codec used in the MP4 "container" is "H.264" and a common audio codec is "AAC." Many slide show programs will generate MP4 files using these codecs. The resolution of MP4 videos can vary considerably. For the club photoessays, I recommend you encode at 1920x1080 resolution.

Cabinet "J’aimerais connaître le fonctionnement détaillé de base, en français." Je ne parle pas français. J'ai répondu en anglais. Désolé

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Here is a translation of Cabinet's question through Google since I don't speak French.

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Hello Hello.

I am having great difficulty using my PHOTOSTAGE software.

I bought it on 10/25/2020.

I would like to know the basic detailed operation, in French.

For example: in which folder I should place my photos after having modified them with "Photoshop Elelent 15".

Likewise, in which folder I should place the audio clips.

I would like to use this software to make SLIDESHOWS.

Thank you in advance

Cabinet, it doesn't matter where you place your photos or audio clips. However, there are a couple of things I've discovered:

• If you are going to have new versions of any media, your should have a version suffix on the file. The reason is that while PhotoStage is open, it locks the file. You can't update in place. You change change the location of where the file is in the Media pane so I use that to point to the new file.
• If you use the Backup feature the all the files and Project file (.SPJ) are copied to a single directory. THE BIG PROBLEM IS THAT YOUR PROJECT FILE IS MODIFIED TO POINT TO THE BACKUP LOCATION. All the file references are changed to local directory lookup.

So, if you backup, the you could copy the backup as your current Project. For that reason, it may be better to keep all media files in the same directory.

Sorry, no easy answer especially if you use their Backup.