So <senzotaku> in another forum 4 years ago came up with the idea that PSC should make a book:



(link to the forum: http://photoshopcontest.com/boards/viewtopic.php?t=19974&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=15)

They were mostly just musing on the forum but I think this is a great idea, and I would like to help make it happen!

My idea is that people could submit a couple of the images that they are most proud of into a shared online drive. Then with this resource we can compile them into a book, or at the very least, a gallery or ebook.

Here is a list of the things we need to do in order to make the project happen:

1. First, we need to set up some sort of shared drive where people can share their photos. (Any Ideas?)

2. Then need to give the criteria by which the images must follow. For example no copyrighted work if the book is to be
published. If nobody has any good uncopyrighted images we just won't publish our book, rather keep it unofficially within the community.
In order to organise the photos, we would also have people attach information to the files, such as the date created and
obviously the name of the
creator, maybe also the original source photos.

3.Then we create the book! We can discuss how to order the photos beforehand... One idea is to have different sections for the different themes like in the
gallery section (most votes, authentic looking, skillfully executed, funny, creative, theme, and winners) with the last section for the legendary choppers.

Having laid out what we need to do in these three steps, I await your feedback.

-Papchap

Also when you give feedback, please try to make it constructive. Do not just list problems, but also give ideas for how we can work around the problem.

Thank you.

Hell yeah

so Im thinking about using apple's iCloud? It limits the amount of space to 5g unless you pay for it and not everyone has an apple device of course, so it is far from ideal, but i cant seem to find much of a better solution. If you don't have an apple device you could hand your photos to someone else to upload and when we run out of space we could use another person's 5g. I don't want to use this but does anyone else have a better solution?

we could make a page on site but i have no idea how that would work

Ok I think we should try to use the site because iCloud just ain't gonna cut it.

who has the power to add stuff to the site? we just need somewhere to put information actually. hey what about google docs? wow Im gonna try that...

OK! I have a solution! It is still not ideal, but it should suffice. go to this google docs link and follow the instructions:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/17LHyuht2sCGRolsJb1Pqwp2n6jL8EChf-qqLd8yf9Y0/edit?usp=sharing

guys nobody has added anything...

https://docs.google.com/document/d/17LHyuht2sCGRolsJb1Pqwp2n6jL8EChf-qqLd8yf9Y0/edit

https://docs.google.com/document/d/17LHyuht2sCGRolsJb1Pqwp2n6jL8EChf-qqLd8yf9Y0/edit

Are people just taking their time or do people not really want to do it? Or are there technical problems? Don't have a google account or something? I thought for sure there would be at least one person to have submitted to the doc by now.

I appreciate your enthusiasm, but book publishing is expensive. Personally, I would not put money into this. The exposure for copyright infringement claims is significant. Even with the best due diligence and the most honest intentions, there may be memory lapses with regard to source images. Possible litigation aside, selling hard copies successfully would require obtaining an ISBN, establishing a relationship with one or more distributors, and devising a fulfillment method. Selecting a reliable printer is another challenge. Maintaining accounts is another. For a hard copy book, publishing is best handled by a single person or a very small group. It's a lot of hard boring work.

Then there is the matter of content. If you were to have even one hundred choppers present their best three images, you'll have three hundred to deal with. I can tell you with great certainty that my three best don't compare to the three best of ReyRey, the burning couch, Claf, vicspa, Luxwiz, Daenerys, and many others. In short, an editor or editors would need to filter out all of the crap. And there would be a lot of crap. Tsunamis of crap! Think of all the cranky messages and e-mails associated with the filtering process.

I applaud your desire to highlight some of the great chops here at PSC, but I don't think a book is marketable. Perhaps a print-on-demand book would work, but design and image selection would be labor intensive. I am pretty sure that hosting for such books isn't free, but I have no experience with POD projects. Do some research.

There is another possibility. Get permission from the current PSC owners to reproduce chops on an external site. Someone here started doing that years ago on Deviant Art, as I recall, but they didn't follow through. Perhaps you could revive that. Post one PSC image a day and solicit comments. That would be fun. The galleries here are filled with great chops. An alternative is to create your own site. Check out GoDaddy. The cost is not great, I am told. Just make sure you get PSC permission.

Of course, having a new code module here at PSC to honor past greats would work, too. Not a new forum thread, but a dedicated menu selection. The galleries are neat, but they are vote-driven. Many fantastic chops did not receive many votes because they appeared during low participation periods here. And, of course, there is no GIF category, so good luck finding old animations.

If you are Hell-bent on publishing a book, wait a bit. The upcoming Reunion Contest may bring in some old farts like me, if someone sent out an e-mail. Did someone send out an e-mail? I hope so.

Anyway, I'm not trying to take the wind out of your sails. Just offering my humble opinions.

Cheers.

--Ted


.

Ok. I'll clarify. I have already thought this through, I just hoped I'd already written enough on the forum...

I know that its complicated and expensive to publish books. I at the moment am not trying to publish a book. I dont even have a job, let alone money to publish. (I'm 13). At the moment I am trying to create a resource. I dont really care where this project leads, but it's not going to get anywhere if we keep thinking about it. Things need to happen, not be just mused over. If we cant publish the book, fine. But at least we'll be able to say we made something.

And as for making money off of it, that wasn't even a goal. One should make something because they want to rather than because it will make money. If something you make is marketable, then why not sell it, but quality often goes down if you have this mindset that it's work.

If people seriously just dont want to participate..., OK, I can accept that, but it shouldn't be hard to choose a few interesting peices from your portfolio and donate a short string of information. If someone else set up this doc I would be happy to contribute! And you'll notice none of this is mandatory.

Also, I don't believe crap will be a problem. I assumed if people dont have any interesting chops then they just wont feel like submitting anything -- it wouldn't be worth their time. But I don't want people to feel unqualified to submit either. I am not trying to gather all the ReyReys and Daenerys. If I was I would pm them.

But you have a good point about the filtering process -- sending possibly hundreds of emails to poeple who's works didn't make it in to a book. (Assuming there would be so many conributors that it couldn't fit in one book or people have such bad taste and submit bad chops.) I will write a notice on the doc warning people that publicity is not guaranteed. That should solve the email problem.

[also sort of unrelatedly]: Do you think we should make a limit to who can contribute? I thought about a 10-entry minimum bar like how it goes for voting and commenting. I think that might be wise because newbies don't have such a wide selection of entries to choose from and more importantly are not quite part of the community... (I think/hope I've graduated )

OK sorry If this felt a little angry I just want to get things GOING already and I dont want to keep dwelling on the future...

-Paps