Errors and Omissions Excepted...!

Or should that be 'accepted'! Last week we put up Scott's article on platinum printing, which seems to have been a considerable success - but I must make you aware of a miscalculation in the original article as published.

It has been corrected now, but Scott made mention of using shot glasses to create a series of contrast agents at specific percentages. In fact, instead of using 1, 2, 3 or 4 drops of distilled water with the 20% solution of NA2, it should have read 1, 3, 7 or 15 drops of distilled water to get the required 10%, 5%, 2.5% and 1.25%.

Thanks to scootermm over at APUG for spotting that one.
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New Feature Image

Following on from Nigel Meaby's wonderful image "Pelling, Sikkim", of the young orphaned girl, the next featured image has been posted.

With a title of "Holy Mary Sunrays", Andrew O'Neills picture certainly sounds intriguing!

This imagee caught my eye because Andrew was shooting pretty much towards the sun, and yet by carefully minimising lens flare, he's managed to produce a nice image which captures detail in the shady areas of the church as well as controlling the highlights. Add some clever printing and you can see the result for yourselves here.

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The next installment of Scott Davis's platinum & palladium printing article will also be posted on Tuesday - look out for that too, to see the results of Scott's printing.
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General bits & bobs...

I've made a couple of (very minor) changes to the site and added some more images for your delectation and delight.

There's now a link from the competition page to the competition entries (who am I kidding - competition entry (thanks Ole!)). The link searches Flickr for the tags "cim" and "photocomp1" and then spirits you away to view them. Now, I'm not a great fan of how it works as it means you leave the magazine website; and I want you all to stay!

Anyway, I thought it worth mentioning as it'll be an easy way, as time goes by, to see what others are posting for the competition.

Now, when the new build comes along...

Speaking of which, the new build is coming along nicely and I'm on a bit of a push to get it done and dusted in the very near future. It's very similar in style to what is currently up there, but provides me with much more flexibility when it comes to articles and images.

As an aside, I've also put some more images in the gallery for you to peruse - with more being added over the next day or two hopefully.

That's about all for now,

Cheers,
David Vickers.

Feel free to contact me at info AT creativeimagemaker.co.uk (replace the "AT" with "@").
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Print-On-Demand...

Since a comment appeared by John Labovitz about printing via Lulu, I've got in contact with another print-on-demand (POD) specialist.

John suggested Lightning Source - whom I had not heard of before. They have operations both in the UK and the US.

I contacted Lightning Source here in the UK, and so far they have been very helpful; and also they've kindly sent out some samples for me to review. That's something that I'd asked LuLu for, but they wouldn't (unless I bought my own work before publishing it).

So, I've just received an email letting me know that the package is on it's way via UPS - I'll let you know more once I've had a chance to look at these samples.

David.
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Platinum / Palladium Printing

This weeks (and next weeks come to think of it) article is all about platinum / palladium printing and has been written by Scott Davis, whom some of you may know from the APUG forum.

The article shows you all you need to know to get started with this form of printing and takes a look at the equipment and chemicals that you'll need, the preparation required and how to go about actually printing your first platinum / palladium print as well as some troubleshooting hints and tips.

I've decided to split the article up over two weeks - the first week, starting on the 22nd January, looks at the history of this method, the equipment needed and the preparation. Next week (29th January) picks up from where we left off and sets out to show you how to actually make your first print.

I hope you enjoy it, and a massive "Thank you" to Scott for all his efforts in putting together this article with it's step-by-step images to help you along the way.

The article can be found on Creative Image Maker magazine.

David.
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Birthday time - we're one week old!

Well, we are now one week old and what a success it's been! Thank you all for your support and coming to visit the site at http://creativeimagemaker.co.uk.

There's been a marvellous response and it's been great receiving your mails, with the vast majority seeming to like the new site.

So, how well have we done? Well, in the first seven days there's been just over 750 visits and an amazing 3,615 page views (now, that can't have all been down to my wife). Actually, my wife has still to visit the site so she's still a little perplexed about what it is that takes up my spare time!

There's a new article going up tomorrow (Tuesday 22nd January) which I think you'll find really interesting - more about that later on.

The build of version 2.0 of the site continues apace and I had a bit of a breakthrough over the weekend with how articles will be displayed - nothing fancy, I just wanted a particular look and neat coding! So far, the article archive has been sorted out, as has the competition page, the gallery and featured images - I reckon another couple of weeks should see the new, new site completed and ready for switchover.

Again, thank you for the support you have shown - keep popping by to check out the latest articles and images.

Cheers,
David Vickers.
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Magazines via LuLu?

I've been in contact with Lulu.com about publishing our magazine through them - and it's potentially not great news.

I was particularly interested in the type of paper they would use - they have many options on the sort of things they will print (books, brochures, notebooks, photobooks, etc.) but nothing specifically mentioning magazines.

So I was keen to chase this one up - if we are to produce something that will really show the images to their best then the paper chosen to print on is of paramount importance.

However, it seems that whilst many people create books then change them on a monthly basis, in effect creating a magazine, this is not something I want to do. Firstly, it would mean that once changed you would not be able to go back and get a copy of an older issue, and secondly, after a few more questions it seems that they do not print on glossy paper. This is a big deal, so I though I would ask to see if they send out samples of their publishings so that I could assess quality.

It turns out they don't. I can load up a magazine, get it printed and then buy myself a copy to check it out, but they don't give away samples.

Clearly this needs a rethink! More later...

David.
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Competition...

Great news for those of you that plan to enter some pictures in the 'Image Within An Image' competition... there's now a prize on offer thanks to Fotohuis RoVo (Fotohuis RoVo).

Full details are available from the website at http://creativeimagemaker.co.uk, but the winner - judged by you - will be receiving some free 135-36 exposure or 120 roll film.

My sincere thanks go to Robert Vonk at Fotohuis RoVo for his generous offer of a prize.
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Correct URL...

Just a quick one to let you know that the URL is http://creativeimagemaker.co.uk - it does not need the 'www' bit.

So pleased it's actually gone live and is now visible!.
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We're Live!

I've just pressed the 'Publish Site' button, so I guess that means we're now live!

You might find that there's a slight delay before you actually see the site - don't worry; because of the way the internet works, the changes need to be propagated throughout the web (for those in the know, the Domain Name Servers need to be updated and could take up to 24 hours).
Cheers,
David.
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So Near, So Far.

It's just a couple of days until we go live and I can't wait! There's been a couple of set-backs, but we'll deal with those in a moment.

The site is just about ready - a couple of finishing touches which I'll do Sunday morning, before publishing the site. I'm looking forward to getting it live, as I'd like to spend some time with my wife and daughter!

Now, about those setbacks. One contributor, John Cowie, was going to write an article but is due in hospital thanks to a bad leg. I'm sure you'll wish John a speedy recovery - then he can use that rest and recuperation time to write that article ;-)

The article that I was hoping to lead with has had to be put back one week to give out writer a chance to complete it! I can't wait for this one, and he was always up against it to produce the article against a pretty tight deadline. Not too worry, as it just so happens that I've a couple of spare articles knocking around that have been sent in!

I'd just like to say a huge "Thank You!" to those who have sent in their writings and images, as well as to those who have pledged articles.

Now for the one big setback...

Despite that fact that we haven't actually gone live yet, I'm busy writing a new website. It turns out that the web hosting package that I purchased (that clearly advertised an 'unlimited' number of pages) only had a very limited number of pages - 66 maximum. Whilst that might sound like a lot - it was arranged as 6 top level pages, each with 10 sub-level pages. That's it - no sub-sub-level pages, and no more than 10 pages per top level page.

Considering the number of articles that I'm hoping we can produce throughout the year, we're not going to get too far with that restriction.

So, I've had to start back from scratch, loading up an web-server and Perl language scripts on my laptop. I've had to dust off a few brain-cells from my days as a Systems Administrator working on UNIX systems to create the new site!

So, don't get too comfy with the version 1.0 of the Creative Image Maker site! I reckon we'll be renting that space for about a month whilst I write version 2.0, then we'll switch over.

Anyway, until then, enjoy http://www.creativeimagemaker.co.uk when it goes live on the 13th January (when we'll also launch the competition). The first article will be on the 15th.

Thanks to all those who have helped with advice, work, comments, pictures and to all those who have joined the Creative Image Maker group on Flickr.

David Vickers.
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One month old.

Today, the project is one month old! The 6th of December was the first posting on the Creative Image Maker blog and what a journey it's been!

In that month, there have been over 1,350 hits with over 71% of new visitors. I've got to say that this is already well beyond what I had expected! I thought that maybe 100 or so people would be interested in seeing what was going on - how wrong was I?

As from next Sunday we'll have our own 'proper' website, with the first article appearing in it a couple of days later. Then, all being well, it's one article a week - thoughts have already turned to the paper version and a trial magazine has already been created.

The Flickr 'Creative Image Maker' group is growing and several people have already posted images - take a look at http://www.flickr.com/groups/555449@N25/ and see what members have posted. Feel free to use the discussion board there to discuss anything about these images, equipment used or whatever.

The testers have fed back some information and a couple more changes have been made to [hopefully] improve the site.

Thank you to everyone for your interest, help and commitment to this project - it's your magazine!

Cheers,
David.
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Site Testing

I'm very grateful to a few of you for helping out with testing the new site at http://www.creativeimagemaker.co.uk, which goes live in a little over a week.

They've brought to my attention a couple of improvements and so, hopefully, the slightly larger typeface is easier to read, the typos have been corrected and the layout altered a little. A idea / comment by Johnny101 on a previous post also resulted in some swift changes being made!

So, I'd just like to take this opportunity to thank the testers for their time and effort in improving the site before it goes live.

Cheers, guys - you know who you are.
David.
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Forums...?

So, here's a decision for you... should the Creative Image Maker website have a forum?

Firstly, I've got to stress that I would not want to step on the toes of APUG, RFF, LF, Leica Camera or any of the other superb forums out there. But should we make a little space on our website to discuss images and articles that are published on the site / in the magazine.

This is one decision where I'm sitting on the fence, so to speak. I quite like the idea that you could look at an image, then pop a comment on the forum, or ask a question about something you read in an article. On the other hand, I wouldn't want it turning in to one of the afore-mentioned forums. It would have to be a strictly 'magazine-only' forum.

It's up to you - either send in a comment, or email me at info at creativeimagemaker.co.uk with your thoughts.
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Email-a-go-go

I think the problems with the email have now been sorted. This will mean that along with the new site, there will also be a relevant email address.

There's just the one email address at the moment, but I may add a few more if it turns they're needed. So, if you need to contact the magazine, you can now email info@creativeimagemaker.co.uk which is active right now (the email, not the website!).

Speaking of which, the website build now includes a feature image, a photo-gallery (which will need filling up, and I'll be looking through the Flickr 'Creative Image Maker' group to pick some out). There's more, of course, but I don't want to give the whole game away just yet!

Cheers,
David.
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