Thursday, June 26, 2014

PE 12: Scary Halloween Main Menu Default Highlight Sequence

INTRODUCTION

The Scary Halloween disc menu theme exists as a "plus member only" theme in Premiere Elements earlier than 11, but, in those versions, it cannot be accessed nor used any longer by the users of those programs since photoshop.com and photoshop.com plus is discontinued. But the theme survives in versions 11 and 12 as part of the regular set of disc menus that come with 11 and 12.

The Scary Halloween theme is found in 11 and 12 under Tools Menu/Movie Menu/Holidays and Events or Tools Tab/Movie Menu/Holidays and Events whether the Expert or Quick workspace is used. When the theme is applied to a project and previewed in the Movie Menu customization area of a project, it first presents with the main menu which includes the"Play" or "Scenes" choices. See Figure 1.

Figure 1. Scary Halloween Disc Menu In Preview Of Premiere Elements 12, Displaying A Main Menu Default View.
Unlike many others of these themes, the default is the highlight targeting first the "Scenes" choice and not the "Play" choice as shown in Figure 1.

ISSUE

How to change the default highlight sequence so that the red highlight first targets the "Play" choice and not the "Scenes" choice?

SOLUTION

The solution to the issue was found in the reordering of the Layer Sets in the theme's main menu psd file that the project preset directed the program to display in the Movie Menu customization area of the program
  • halloween_hd_mm.psd (if HD project)
  • halloween_w_mm.psd (if SD project, widescreen)
  • halloween_s_mm.psd (if SD project, standard)
This reordering (editing) of the theme's psd file was done in Photoshop Elements 12* since the task required moving the Layer Sets and not opening them.

The original order of the main menu psd Layer Sets that provided for "Scenes" red highlight displaying initially as the default can be seen in Figure 2.

"Scenes" Red Highlight Default

Figure 2. Scary Halloween. Original Order Of Layer Sets In Theme's Main Menu .PSD File Named Halloween_HD_MM.PSD.

The revised order of the main menu psd Layer Sets that provided for "Play" red highlight displaying initially as the default can be seen in Figure 3.

"Play" Red Highlight Default

Figure 3. Scary Halloween. Revised Order Of Layer Sets In Theme's  Main Menu .PSD File Named Halloween_HD_MM.PSD

HOW TO

STEP 1
Copy/Paste Scary Halloween .PSD Files to Computer Desktop 

The original Scary Halloween main menu and scene menu .psd files are

Intended for use if HD project
halloween_hd_mm.psd
halloween_hd_sm.psd

Intended for use if SD project, widescreen
halloween_w_mm.psd
halloween_w_sm.psd 

Intended for use if SD project, standard
halloween_s_mm.psd
halloween_s_sm.psd

They are found after Movie Menu Content Download

Local Disk C
Program Data
Adobe
Premiere Elements
12.0
Online
DVD Templates
All_Lang
Holidays and Events
(AV) Scary Halloween
and in the (AV) Scary Halloween Folder are the theme's .psd files cited above.

For this example, the HD files were copied and pasted to a desktop folder where they were renamed to avoid confusion. So, at the end of STEP 1, there existed a desktop folder named 2halloween which contained the files
2halloween_hd_mm.psd
and
2halloween_hd_mm.psd

STEP 2
Reordering the Layer Sets in the Main Menu .psd File Named 2halloween_hd_mm.psd

The 2halloween_hd_mm.psd file in the 2halloween Folder was right clicked, Open With selected from the drop down menu, followed by Adobe Photoshop Elements 12. The Layer Sets of the .psd were reordered, displaying as shown in Figure 3. Changes were saved.

STEP3
Placement of the 2halloween Folder in the Correct Hard Drive Location

The 2halloween Folder with the Layers Set revised 2halloween_hd_mm.psd and the original 2halloween_hd_sm.psd was placed in the following path

Local Disk C
Program Files
Adobe Premiere Elements 12
DVD Templates
Common
ATR Specials (created for the occasion)
and in the ATR Specials Folder was placed the 2halloween Folder which contain the .psd files named 2halloween_hd_mm.psd and 2halloween_hd_sm.psd.


COMMENTARY

At this time, I cannot tell if the default highlight sequence seen in 11 and 12 was a consequence of Adobe moving this theme into the regular group of disc menus of 11 and 12 or whether what is is what was.

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* Premiere Elements 12 and Photoshop Elements 12 were used in this work and run on Windows 7 Professional SP1 64 bit.



September 03 2014 Add On
Also see blog post
PE: Disc Menu Folders/Files Locations
http://atr935.blogspot.com/2014/09/pe-disc-menu-foldersfiles-locations.html



ATR