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main meeting
by Eric Saca - December 23, 2001 at 19:26:35:
In December, we had another entertaining presentation by Richard Katz of McKatz Brothers Marketing. This time, he presented the latest Ulead photo and video software products.President Alan Pearlman opened the meeting, provided time for random access and made some announcements. He suggested that all members make sure that the club has their current e-mail address. This will allow them to receive meeting reminders and other important information via e-mail. Now, even renewal reminders are sent out by e-mail.
Alan encouraged everyone to ‘bring a friend’ as we try to build our membership.
Cathy Grammer-Margolin mentioned that the Long Beach and Los Angeles entertainment books are for sale and make great Christmas gifts!
George Margolin introduced Richard Katz. Richard started off by asking how many people in the audience use digital cameras. Most people raised their hands. How many use 35mm cameras? Most people raised hands again. Cardboard throw-aways? Most responded. Scanners? Some responded. Richard said that everyone who raised their hands after those questions could make use of photo manipulation software.
Next, Richard asked how many people owned video cameras. Many raised their hands. How about digital video cameras? Some responded. VCRs? Most if not all people responded. Richard said that whoever raised their hands to those questions can use video manipulation software.
Richard then announced the three products he was presenting from Ulead Systems: Photo Explorer 7.0, PhotoImpact 7 and VideoStudio 5.0. He demonstrated the most exciting features of each product.
Richard launched Photo Explorer 7.0. It presented a graphical interface with thumbnail views of all photo files in a folder. He demonstrated the following features: · Turning a picture into his desktop wallpaper. He made wallpaper out of a picture of one of his cats. · Instantly renaming a set of photos with a naming convention. He highlighted all photo files in the current directory and opened a dialog box. With this dialog box, he was able to specify a naming convention for the files. The prefix would be the same in all names. The numeric suffix would be different. He suggested that we name photos based on the month they were taken. He had taken the highlighted photos in November. Thus, in the dialog box, he entered a filename prefix with the letters NOV for November. Then he specified the increments he wanted for the numeric suffixes. When he clicked OK, all files in the directory were renamed with the same prefix and a numeric suffix that incremented for each file. · Creating a slide show from a set of pictures. Richard simply selected and dragged all photos in the directory to the slideshow feature. He configured some settings. Many possible transition settings were available for the change from one picture to the next. He selected wipe to right. Then he clicked a button and presented us with his slideshow that he had created in less than 60 seconds. · Removing red-eye and changing the subject’s eye color in the process. · Stitching together photos of a location to produce a 360-degree panoramic view. Richard demonstrated how you can smoothly rotate around the 360-degree scene and zoom in and out of any part of it. This 360-degree view is performed with Ulead Cool 360, a product that comes with Photo Explorer 7.0. Richard said you can save and e-mail these panoramic views. You can also post them on the Web. · Printing images and creating cards with them.
Richard said that Photo Explorer can also be used for editing and cropping images, although he didn’t demonstrate these features. A member asked of Photo Explorer was a viable alternative to Adobe PhotoShop. Per Richard, no it isn’t, but PhotoImpact 7 is. PhotoImpact is a full object-based image processor. It can be used to build websites with photographs.
Richard launched PhotoImpact 7 and demonstrated the following features: · Spicing up a dull photograph with bubbles, spotlights and additional colors. PhotoImpact comes with tons of special effects. · Re-touching an old, torn-up picture. He touched up an old picture of his dog. · Changing the background in a picture. He took a picture with a person in the foreground. He changed the background behind the person to a simple effect of gradient colors. He also filled the skies over Venice with an effect of colors. · Changing the perspective on a picture. He took a picture of an old building with a faded sign, photographed at a slight tilt. With a little cropping and rotating, he ‘straightened out’ the building in the picture. · Using the EZ Web feature to create an instant website of pictures.
A member asked if PhotoImpact can merge two images together (a process called flattening). He also asked if it can stitch images together. Richard answered yes to both questions.
Richard said that PhotoImpact 7 comes with a GIF animator. It also contains hundreds of graphics, textures, special effects, website banners and other files. You can download more of these files from the Ulead website.
Next, Richard launched VideoStudio 5.0 and demonstrated the following with it: · Combining a number of saved clips into one video. · Cutting out parts of a video clip. · Setting up transitions between clips. (Several transition options are available.) · Adding a title to a video.
Within minutes, he created a custom video for us and presented it. He said it would also have been easy to add voice-over and music to the video.
Richard suggested using Firewire to transfer video data from a camera or VCR to your computer. Firewire is a high-speed serial connection (designed by Apple).
A member asked if VideoStudio 5.0 can be used to create professional quality streaming media. Richard said that yes, it can.
Free copies of Photo Explorer 7.0 and VideoStudio 5.0 were given away in our raffle.
Next Meeting "The OTHER McKatz brother" Matt McCann, will be presenting a NOT TO BE MISSED program on the latest version of Quicken, the absolutely indespensible and amazingly easy-to-use bookkeeping program. And remember, Matt is as wild or maybe moreso than Richard Katz his brother from different mothers and fathers.
Be there! You’ll have a great time and learn something helpful, too.
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