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General Meeting
by By Eric Saca - December 02, 2000 at 23:34:35:
In November, we were visited by our old friend Randy Whittle from MGI Software, who presented the new versions of PhotoSuite and VideoWave. (Randy last joined us in May 1999.)He started with a slide show, presenting his five new products, as follows:
PhotoSuite 4.0—There are several new features in this version. It has enhanced phototapestry with which you can use your own images. You can create cutouts from photographs, save them and paste them into other photos. It has a new photo-sprayer tool with which you can ‘spray’ multiple objects from your own photos onto other photos, creating a confetti-like effect. It has MP3 support and support for Adobe plug-in effects. You can now create screensavers with it. Also, the Platinum version has enhanced stitching. It can create animated GIF files and use them on Web sites. You can create interactive panoramas and publish them to the Web. It also has support for Adobe Photoshop plug-ins.
VideoWave 4.0—This version also has many new features. It has an improved interface, which makes better use of the screen. There is the new time warp effect, which lets you produce slow motion and other different speeds in your video. The new scene detector feature breaks up a clip into scenes, based on scenery changes or a time code. You can now publish your videos to the Web. MGI even provides free Web-publishing space with VideoWave to host videos you can share with others. You can save your video files in Real or WMV (Windows Streaming Media) formats. You can also extract digital audio from your music CDs and add it to your video clips.
PhotoVista 2.0—This relatively new product can take multiple pictures of a scene and meld them together into a 360-degree panorama of the location. This panorama can then be published to the Web.
SoftDVD Max 4.0—This DVD player software allows you to get the most out of your DVD movies. You can even use it with special Dolby headphones and hear your movies through Dolby 5.1 Digital Theater sound.
YM Digital Makeover Magic—This new software allows you to try new looks, without committing to them for several months. Once you import your picture from a scanner, digital camera or CD, you can manipulate it to try out a new hairstyle or color. Women can try new eyeliner, makeup and lip-gloss—without worrying about smudges. Once you are satisfied with the new look, you can e-mail it to friends or try it in real life.
After Randy presented the new products, he announced special user- group prices for them, which, in most cases, were less than half the retail prices. Plus, he announced a special $90 NOCCC price for a bundle of all five products.
A member asked if these new products are compatible with Windows 2000. Randy revealed that he was actually using Windows 2000 for his demonstrations. (However, YM Digital Makeover Magic cannot work with Windows NT or 2000.)
Randy then kicked off his product demonstrations.
PhotoSuite 4.0 Demonstration—Thumbnail screen and database—He showed us PhotoSuite’s special features to help you organize your photos. There is the thumbnail screen, on which you can see tiny samples of several pictures at once. You can browse all the pictures and then double-click any one to display it in full size and detail.
Randy also explained that there is a complete database behind the thumbnail screen. You can assign information to each picture, such as name, date, photographer and description. Then you can even search and query for pictures based on this information. For example, if you had entered your mother’s name in the description for all her photos, you can use that data to instantly find her photos. You would just have PhotoSuite display all pictures with your mother’s name in the description.
Red-eye removal—Randy opened a thumbnail with pictures of his family. He expanded a picture of his daughter with heavy red-eye. He then removed the red-eye almost instantly by pointing at each of his daughter’s eyes and clicking on them.
Fixing damaged photos—Randy showed an old picture of his father as a child. It was faded and had a number of cracks and water stains. Then he showed us the same picture fixed up by PhotoSuite. Although it was black & white, it looked almost new. It took him only 25 minutes to touch it up that well.
A member asked if PhotoSuite could be used to colorize black & white pictures. Randy said that it’s possible but not recommended. Even the professionals have a hard time making colorized pictures look natural.
Cloning and cropping—Randy then presented a picture of his son talking to a little girl, with three other people in the background. He demonstrated the cloning and cropping tools by removing the other three people from the picture. One person was in the middle of the picture and the other two were on the sides. Randy used the cloning tool to erase the man in the middle. He took the colors from the background and cloned them right over the man—until he disappeared. Then Randy simply cut out the people on both sides using the cropping tool. It resulted in a smaller picture – but one containing only the subjects he wanted.
Cutouts and the edge-finder—Next, Randy demonstrated how to cut a person out of a picture and save him as a separate file, using a picture of his son. He used the helpful edge-finder feature to help him highlight the edges of his son and cut him out of the picture in less than two minutes. Then he pasted his son onto a completely different picture – and it looked natural. As he did so, he showed us that he could flip his son’s picture and change the color and shadowing effects as needed before pasting him.
Other features—Randy also showed us how text can be added to a picture, in any size and font, with any rotation and special effect of which the computer is capable. He also demonstrated the photo-sprayer tool, which can rapidly paste copies of selected clipart or photo objects onto a picture, creating a confetti-like effect. He took a picture of his daughter and sprayed clipart butterflies all over it.
He showed us how PhotoSuite can take multiple pictures of an object in different positions and turn them into an animated GIF. Finally, for a laugh, he demonstrated a distortion tool with a picture of himself and his daughter. He used the tool to expand his own head and shrink his daughter’s head in the picture.
VideoWave 4.0 demonstration—Randy announced that you can publish to the Web with VideoWave 4 because MGI offers free Web hosting space with the product.
Randy demonstrated VideoWave 4 by editing a streaming video clip in which two figure skaters were interviewed. He noted that you can create streaming videos by capturing video clips, cutting and pasting them together, then editing the final product as needed.
In editing the clip, Randy touched on several of VideoWave’s features. He set up a transition between two scenes. There is a whole palette of possible scene transitions where you can preview each one before making your selection. You can also ‘soften the edge’ of a transition if necessary.
He demonstrated how you can mix audio from other sources (other clips, wave and MP3 files) into your video. There are both foreground and background audio tracks. You can adjust the volume of both for your final product.
Randy demonstrated adding fade-in and fade-out to a scene. He demonstrated adding text onto a scene, for titles, subtitles, credits, etc. (Of course, all possible variations of fonts, sizes, colors, rotations and effects can be added to this text.) He showed us some possible special effects that can be added; ripple, mosaic and others. In fact, there is also a special effects palette allowing you to preview each effect before applying.
When Randy finished editing, he replayed the interview full-screen to show us the finished product.
MGI PhotoVista 2.0 Demonstration—Randy briefly demonstrated this product with twelve pictures of a train station interior. He ran PhotoVista with those pictures. It took a few minutes blending and melding those pictures in front of our eyes, until it produced a 360-degree panorama. The finished product also took on three-dimensional properties. With it, Randy demonstrated panning around the whole 360-degree train station and zooming further into and out of the picture.
After this wonderful presentation, we had our raffle, which included a few of the demonstrated MGI products.
Next Meeting—Microsoft will demonstrate Windows ME and their new home products
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