Meets monthly, October to May - see Calendar
This group trains and supports the majority of our members now using digital techniques to produce their images. There is also an email distribution list for day-to-day issues and queries.
The subject is inevitably technical but we try not to be too 'techy' and spend most of the time discussing digital images produced by the group and the challenges that they raised in production.
After going out of fashion in recent years, audio-visuals are back!. Digital technology enables us to create sophisticated sound and picture shows of high quality. To ensure that the synchronisation problems and mucky slides of the past are not replaced by software crashes and system errors, we have now extended our scope to cover A-V creation. Past A-V masters are sharing their experience in image blending and audio mixing and a slot will be set aside periodically to show the results to society members.
Software
We have standardised on the A-V software PicturesToExe and purchased a club-wide license. The program can be downloaded from WnSoft Inc. and if you are a paid-up club member, email Steve Brabner (see Communications link) for the free registration code. The ubiquitous Windows Media Player (Ver.10 or above) rips music from CD to mp3 files and Audacity is an excellent free audio editor. A LAME plug-in is also needed for mp3 encoding. See Audacity's website for details. An increasing number of people are also very keen on ProShow Gold which is more powerful but as easy to use as PicturesToExe.
See the Calendar and Competitions links for competitions dates and rules.
At first our prints didn't match our screens. Then we bought a projector, e-mailed images, and posted them on the internet and the problem became worse. Since 2005 we have really focussed on this issue and a combination of profiling and an understanding of the correct way to set up and use our systems has largely solved this problem.
The following two documents explain how to achieve print and screen matching and how to achieve consistent colour between different systems and with the club projector;
To view and save the recipe for Print to Screen Matching click /here/ *Updated November 2007*
To view and save the recipe for Achieving Consistent Colour click /here/ *Updated November 2007*
Finally, here is a test image to help you assess your system;
To download the test image (614KB) /right-click here/ then select Save Target As..
Reference prints of this test image are available within the club to compare with your own printer output.