|
|
Post by tasmanianartist on Feb 5, 2022 3:06:51 GMT
Hi everyone - it's been a while, mostly for 2 reasons - numero uno being the dreaded virus, making life a little awkward, and numero deux being I've simply been away from the computer/internet because both my macs have been declared 'vintage' by apple (thankyouverymuch) and cyberspace is baulking at them - so I bit the bullet and am expecting delivery of a brandspanking new macbook air pretty soon. But that's not why I'm popping my head around the corner to look in at the forum. I'm on a personal mission, and would like to know how others are dealing with the same question. I create (created, not at the moment), a lot of digital art that only exists as an accumulation of bits somewhere in cyberspace. I don't really like that. In the past, when I was still able, I used real brush, real paint, real canvas, to hang my paintings on a real wall, or alternatively, real film, in a real camera, developped real photos, and put them in a real album. I still run around photographing every flower I come across, but now on digital camera, creating digital images, that go somewhere in the digital realm. But ... ... and that's my grammaw's concern - when the power goes out, EVERYTHING is gone. It will eventually come back, when the power comes on ... but ... my 40 year old photo albums are still standing on their shelves - I can look at the memories without having to pay anyone for the supply of electricity to look at them. They cost me money when I bought the albums, had the photos developped, and bought the sticky corners that hold the photos in place - I don't need to pay x-amount of money each time I switch on a gadget that runs on electricity (battery or direct), to look at my arty-farty things, or family from the past, etc etc. Back when Lulu still had the old photo wizard I was able to create some gloriously huge and expensive photo albums - I invested in them, and luckily did so before Lulu was gracious enough to simply toss them without as much as a bye-your-leave. I'm glad I did - they are so beautiful. Still sore about that ... never mind. They now have a 8.5x8.5 photo album ... underwhelmed by it. After a long enough time, I thought I'd give them a go with a 147 page book that contains a cross section of photographs and digital things that I'd like to have in a physical form. It should get to me by the end of the month. I'll then be able to see whether the investment of A$65.72 was worth it. A similar book from Mybestseller at 148 pages cost A$38.27 but the size is 7.87"x7.87" - and the shipping was almost 3 x as much. But I'm still hoping their plans to have printing facilities in Australia will eventuate soon. At least there are options to 'make digital works physical' by placing them into a printed book. Am I the only one wanting to see my digital creations in a tactile, physical form? Posters and similar prints are okay - but there are only so many walls in the house to take them - certainly not 147 of them. What do other artists/artisans do to make their digital creations physical - is a photo album the only way to do it? Or am I overthinking things?
Have a great 2022
cheers tasmanianartist
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Feb 5, 2022 8:45:16 GMT
Hi everyone - it's been a while, mostly for 2 reasons - numero uno being the dreaded virus, making life a little awkward, and numero deux being I've simply been away from the computer/internet because both my macs have been declared 'vintage' by apple (thankyouverymuch) and cyberspace is baulking at them - so I bit the bullet and am expecting delivery of a brandspanking new macbook air pretty soon. But that's not why I'm popping my head around the corner to look in at the forum. I'm on a personal mission, and would like to know how others are dealing with the same question. I create (created, not at the moment), a lot of digital art that only exists as an accumulation of bits somewhere in cyberspace. I don't really like that. In the past, when I was still able, I used real brush, real paint, real canvas, to hang my paintings on a real wall, or alternatively, real film, in a real camera, developped real photos, and put them in a real album. I still run around photographing every flower I come across, but now on digital camera, creating digital images, that go somewhere in the digital realm. But ... ... and that's my grammaw's concern - when the power goes out, EVERYTHING is gone. It will eventually come back, when the power comes on ... but ... my 40 year old photo albums are still standing on their shelves - I can look at the memories without having to pay anyone for the supply of electricity to look at them. They cost me money when I bought the albums, had the photos developped, and bought the sticky corners that hold the photos in place - I don't need to pay x-amount of money each time I switch on a gadget that runs on electricity (battery or direct), to look at my arty-farty things, or family from the past, etc etc. Back when Lulu still had the old photo wizard I was able to create some gloriously huge and expensive photo albums - I invested in them, and luckily did so before Lulu was gracious enough to simply toss them without as much as a bye-your-leave. I'm glad I did - they are so beautiful. Still sore about that ... never mind. They now have a 8.5x8.5 photo album ... underwhelmed by it. After a long enough time, I thought I'd give them a go with a 147 page book that contains a cross section of photographs and digital things that I'd like to have in a physical form. It should get to me by the end of the month. I'll then be able to see whether the investment of A$65.72 was worth it. A similar book from Mybestseller at 148 pages cost A$38.27 but the size is 7.87"x7.87" - and the shipping was almost 3 x as much. But I'm still hoping their plans to have printing facilities in Australia will eventuate soon. At least there are options to 'make digital works physical' by placing them into a printed book. Am I the only one wanting to see my digital creations in a tactile, physical form? Posters and similar prints are okay - but there are only so many walls in the house to take them - certainly not 147 of them. What do other artists/artisans do to make their digital creations physical - is a photo album the only way to do it? Or am I overthinking things?
Have a great 2022
cheers tasmanianartist
Welcome back, tasmanianartist. I think T-Shirt PODs are now printing art as well. This is one: www.redbubble.com/shop/pod+prints |
|
|
|
Post by potet on Feb 5, 2022 14:21:14 GMT
|
|
|
|
Post by And still Kevin 2024 on Feb 6, 2022 13:32:41 GMT
Could I suggest an 'IBM Compatible' PC instead of an Apple? The former are very much upgradable to reduce them becoming obsolete. And they are much cheaper per power.
|
|
|
|
Post by And still Kevin 2024 on Feb 6, 2022 13:51:08 GMT
Once upon a time, on Lulu, I created a large book with most of my art in. My art is more or less all digital (jpgs) so it was easy. The problem was that in full colour they are expensive, even though I did not use the Photobook Wizards. Although I also made it as a PDF option. At the time Lulu also did art, but only as downloads I think, but all the same I thought the album would compliment what art I had on Lulu. But, even though not using the more expensive photopaper options, just 'normal' book and Wizards, the images in the album still did not look too bad, and cheaper than Photobook Wizard options (with its size and layout limitations etc,) but still expensive. But as I expect you know, Lulu do not print anything, so the price includes some printing company's profits. For self-use one-offs (or not for sale via the site) there are many other companies that do print photobooks, so are comparatively cheaper. But I have no idea what size and ratio limitations, and max page counts, they have. Most just take 'normal' photo size and ratios I would suspect. Anyhow, a few examples from 100s > www.bonusprint.co.uk/photo-bookswww.photobox.co.uk/shop/photo-bookswww.vistaprint.co.uk/photo-gifts/hardcover-photo-books |
|
|
|
Post by tasmanianartist on Feb 8, 2022 2:59:32 GMT
Thank you so much for all the ideas and suggestions - the idea of making digital art physical, rather than just leaving it in an untouchable state is definitely not just my notion. Hi Maggie - I've been with Redbubble since 2014, mainly for hubby's bird photography, but also for my digital art, especially their scarves (I have 20 of them), and the zipped hoodies for winter. I wish they had a photo book of sorts .... 600 scarves is not on. Hi justkevin - I started on PC; my first one was an IBM, with floppy - as noisy as anything - the second custom built PC one had a fan that sounded like the jet engine of a DC10. And the images were always so pixelated on Windows - when I saw a mac screen picture, that was it for me - I went to the 'dark side' - and the machines are silent. ... Yes, I know, obsolescence with the macs is a pain. Now I have an obsolete 2008 iMac, still with bootcamp half of which holds Windows 2002 Home Edition with my old 1998 Photoshop 5.5, for the latter I still have a physical disc with 'key' (no monthly fees for a cloud appearance) - and 2 'vintage' machines, a large iMac 2014 which holds Corel Painter, and this macbook pro of 2013 with Artrage and GIMP, and I'll soon have a macbook air ... I don't agree with this obsolescence, but I won't go back to PC. Your 3 links are fascinating - one of them has an Australian site, but most of all, they are larger than the usual book sizes on Lulu now (or on others, like Mybestseller, who have a comperable size range) - I think photo books need to be larger, and by default, they will be more expensive because of the paper, too - but I'm glad I invested in the hundreds of dollars for the 'status symbol' versions back then. I'll thorroughly investigate the links - thank you - even if the photo albums are limited in page numbers, and they seem to have a variety of bindings available, too. I think invest in one such photo album a year, with the best digital creations over the past 12 months or so, is reasonable. Hello potet - thank you for showing me how you do it. I see you make a template for your pages. I didn't think of that - I'll investigate making a template to make the page by page creation easier. I use several image manipulation programs - artrage, photoshop, corel painter, gimp, and even mac preview (quite a nifty app) - and with each swap/switch, the resolution and trim size numbers change and revert to some mysterious 'default' - e.g. 300dpi to 72dpi, or 180dpi, depending on app, and the resulting change in pixel/mm/cm/inch measurements - egad. I'm awaiting delivery of a Lulu 8.5x8,5 hardcover 'photo album'. This is to compare a 7.87x7.87 version of Mybestseller (same page count by one) I got before Xmas. Here is a size/price comparison I made between the two POD providers (both hard covers with best paper/ink choices on each site): Lulu,8.5x8.5 - 147 pages edge to edge colour A$53.64, shipping A$12.09, (hopefully)good POD quality - total A$65.72. Mybestseller, 7.87x7.87, - 148 pages edge to edge colour A$38.27, shipping A$33.21 (from Europe), total A$74.31, acceptable POD quality. (Waiting for Australian printing options for cheaper shipping). But they still are not photo album quality. To archive some of your digital art in a physical version, I definitely want something a bit more substantial as an option. At least this exercise gave me a few more steps to follow and investigate alternatives. Stay well Cheerio
PS - justkevin - I didn't mean the electricity consumption of the machine for work per se - I meant that one is reliant on electricity to view a digital picture (which, of course, costs money either way).
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Feb 8, 2022 8:31:54 GMT
Thank you so much for all the ideas and suggestions - the idea of making digital art physical, rather than just leaving it in an untouchable state is definitely not just my notion. Hi Maggie - I've been with Redbubble since 2014, mainly for hubby's bird photography, but also for my digital art, especially their scarves (I have 20 of them), and the zipped hoodies for winter. I wish they had a photo book of sorts .... 600 scarves is not on. Hi justkevin - I started on PC; my first one was an IBM, with floppy - as noisy as anything - the second custom built PC one had a fan that sounded like the jet engine of a DC10. And the images were always so pixelated on Windows - when I saw a mac screen picture, that was it for me - I went to the 'dark side' - and the machines are silent. ... Yes, I know, obsolescence with the macs is a pain. Now I have an obsolete 2008 iMac, still with bootcamp half of which holds Windows 2002 Home Edition with my old 1998 Photoshop 5.5, for the latter I still have a physical disc with 'key' (no monthly fees for a cloud appearance) - and 2 'vintage' machines, a large iMac 2014 which holds Corel Painter, and this macbook pro of 2013 with Artrage and GIMP, and I'll soon have a macbook air ... I don't agree with this obsolescence, but I won't go back to PC. Your 3 links are fascinating - one of them has an Australian site, but most of all, they are larger than the usual book sizes on Lulu now (or on others, like Mybestseller, who have a comperable size range) - I think photo books need to be larger, and by default, they will be more expensive because of the paper, too - but I'm glad I invested in the hundreds of dollars for the 'status symbol' versions back then. I'll thorroughly investigate the links - thank you - even if the photo albums are limited in page numbers, and they seem to have a variety of bindings available, too. I think invest in one such photo album a year, with the best digital creations over the past 12 months or so, is reasonable. Hello potet - thank you for showing me how you do it. I see you make a template for your pages. I didn't think of that - I'll investigate making a template to make the page by page creation easier. I use several image manipulation programs - artrage, photoshop, corel painter, gimp, and even mac preview (quite a nifty app) - and with each swap/switch, the resolution and trim size numbers change and revert to some mysterious 'default' - e.g. 300dpi to 72dpi, or 180dpi, depending on app, and the resulting change in pixel/mm/cm/inch measurements - egad. I'm awaiting delivery of a Lulu 8.5x8,5 hardcover 'photo album'. This is to compare a 7.87x7.87 version of Mybestseller (same page count by one) I got before Xmas. Here is a size/price comparison I made between the two POD providers (both hard covers with best paper/ink choices on each site): Lulu,8.5x8.5 - 147 pages edge to edge colour A$53.64, shipping A$12.09, (hopefully)good POD quality - total A$65.72. Mybestseller, 7.87x7.87, - 148 pages edge to edge colour A$38.27, shipping A$33.21 (from Europe), total A$74.31, acceptable POD quality. (Waiting for Australian printing options for cheaper shipping). But they still are not photo album quality. To archive some of your digital art in a physical version, I definitely want something a bit more substantial as an option. At least this exercise gave me a few more steps to follow and investigate alternatives. Stay well Cheerio
PS - justkevin - I didn't mean the electricity consumption of the machine for work per se - I meant that one is reliant on electricity to view a digital picture (which, of course, costs money either way).
I've been using Teespring. It allows you to sell digital books as well, and they're adding products every day. Might be worth a look. |
|
|
|
Post by And still Kevin 2024 on Feb 8, 2022 18:23:47 GMT
Hi justkevin - I started on PC; my first one was an IBM, with floppy - as noisy as anything - the second custom built PC one had a fan that sounded like the jet engine of a DC10. And the images were always so pixelated on Windows - when I saw a mac screen picture, that was it for me - I went to the 'dark side' - and the machines are silent. ... Yes, I know, obsolescence with the macs is a pain. Now I have an obsolete 2008 iMac, still with bootcamp half of which holds Windows 2002 Home Edition with my old 1998 Photoshop 5.5, for the latter I still have a physical disc with 'key' (no monthly fees for a cloud appearance) - and 2 'vintage' machines, a large iMac 2014 which holds Corel Painter, and this macbook pro of 2013 with Artrage and GIMP, and I'll soon have a macbook air ... I don't agree with this obsolescence, but I won't go back to PC. It was once true that macs were better for digital images and what not, but PCs caught up and over took them. Apart from a choice of CPCs, there's also the choice of graphics cards. Although top end ones are expensive (my son just paid £600 for one!) But even relatively cheap ones are usually better than built in on the motherboard chips. Fans are much quieter now too, but the cooler the device, the faster it will run. Some PCs are even water-cooled.
Oh, and many are very pretty  uk.banggood.com/Wholesale-Computer-Cases-and-Towers-c-3039.html |
|
|
|
Post by potet on Feb 9, 2022 9:31:20 GMT
TasmanianArtist wrote: "Hello Potet - thank you for showing me how you do it. I see you make a template for your pages. I didn't think of that - I'll investigate making a template to make the page by page creation easier." You are welcome. My wordprocessor has been WordPerfect since its creation eons ago. I made photo albums of my art when this format was available. The result was good. The only problem was that the album could not be copyrighted with an ISBN. The current solution for me is to create a public photobook with an ISBN, 6x9", standard color, white #60 paper. The result is satisfying, and the price quite reasonable (see my post about it). The current price of my photo-book "Oeuvres Picturales" is 26.02€ www.lulu.com/en/us/shop/jean-paul-g-potet/oeuvres-picturales/paperback/product-deje2w.html?page=1&pageSize=4Whatever you do, nothing can replace the original.  |
|
|
|
Post by tasmanianartist on Mar 2, 2022 1:59:06 GMT
Just received Lulu's parcel today. I think they reverted to sending 'sea mail'. Compared prices and quality to Mybestseller. I've compared prices before - Lulu's books are quite a bit more expensive, but because they have Australian representation, they charge 'local' shipping, although some books are made in the US (with US quality, still the best when it comes to the 'detailing' of a trimmed book), Mybestseller quality in paper and printing is equal, but their shipping cost is off the planet. The only difference between Lulu and Mybestseller is that Mybestseller's 'hard cover' (that being the glued version, not the old-fashioned linen with dust cover), has a slightly larger 'air pocket' around the trim edges of said hard cover under the colour paper on which the cover art is printed, then glued and folded around a hard inner board (do I make sense?). The 'air pocket' is along that fold. Lulu's glueing (their printer's) seems to be tighter, tho the fold over along the rim also has that ever so slight air pocket. That of Mybestseller is simply larger. It is extremely difficult to photograph ... potet ... indeed, nothing can replace the original. Having said that - I have taken photographs of decades-old things I made once, cleaned them up digitally, and have then purchased a print from Redbubble on fresh paper / canvas. The things are presentable again, but a print, not the original oil or acrylic on canvas, or even glaze on a tile. The size of the old (gloriously oversized, fantastically heavy and madly overprized) photo albums by Lulu were not an industry standard, and not eligible for distro and ISBN. Lulu whittled down their size choices to industry standard sizes (mostly). One thing I discovered on my new macbook air (very curious*, too), is 'Pages', a program/app that is uncannily similar to the old Lulu photo album wizard ... some features are almost identical. Needless to say I took to it like a fish to water, and am now creating my photo albums again this way - sizes are customizable, so I can choose which size for which POD. I don't know how new it is, but I certainly don't have it in my 2013 macbook pro. It beats getting frustrated with the margin tantrums of the various PDF programs in the various macs. (*Curious because it resembles the old Lulu photo album wizard...) @kevin ... I'm slowly getting fed up with the lack of understanding of apple/mac that individuals spezializing in things need continuity in hard and software to be able to function properly in their field. This new macbook air has a few nifty new things (like 'Pages'), but others, which were quite valuable to me (with eyes that can't clearly see details in quarter inch thumbnails) are no longer, such as the 'cover flow' feature in the folders - it allows me to increase the size of the thumbnail to something recognizable when I need to work on images, with all images floating past in a kind of line up. Anyway - I'll keep going with what I've got, keep updating and upgrading apple's updates and upgrades for this new gadget (for the first time), and hope that by the time the end of life for this gadget comes along, the PC brigade has something that gives me what I'll lose with the old macs. All of my old macs still work like new - except the rechargeable battery in the 2013 macbook pro ... eek. But I'm reassured by the mac people that there is nothing wrong with having the charger plugged in permanently to work with electricity directly when the battery finally dies ... their word in god's ear ... So, if you live in the UK (or near it ... Mybestseller is Dutch), their quality of books is comparable to that of Lulu in my humble opinion. Cheerio Marlies |
|
|
|
Post by tasmanianartist on Mar 2, 2022 3:40:18 GMT
[...] One thing I discovered on my new macbook air (very curious*, too), is 'Pages', a program/app that is uncannily similar to the old Lulu photo album wizard ... some features are almost identical. Needless to say I took to it like a fish to water, and am now creating my photo albums again this way - sizes are customizable, so I can choose which size for which POD. I don't know how new it is, but I certainly don't have it in my 2013 macbook pro. It beats getting frustrated with the margin tantrums of the various PDF programs in the various macs. (*Curious because it resembles the old Lulu photo album wizard...) [...] Addendum ... I thought I had a senior moment when I read that 'Pages' was launched in 2005 (a word processor by apple mac) - so I googled ... and Wikipedia told me what's what.
Comment: The format of the book (21x21cm) was created in the 'File' 'Page set-up' dropdown, which functions exactly as the page setup in Word. The custom sizes then appear in the sizes choice dropdown in the book wizard. If nothing else, the $1300 for the new macbook in a roundabout way gave me back the photo album wizard (of sorts) of erstwhile Lulu fame, with additional formatting features of 'word'.
|
|
|
|
Post by larika on Mar 2, 2022 7:04:11 GMT
Hi tasmanianartist. I too much prefer the photograph I can hold in my hand and place in an album. However there are advantages to the digital form. Recently I wanted to put some photo images on to some mugs for my son and his family in America, my daughter and her partner here in the UK and my nieces and nephew in Australia.It was so easy to just send the companies my digital images. The results were great! I know both Maggie and potet have used digital images for t-shirts. I have accumulated many photo albums over the years and I love to handle the old albums and reminisce about the images.
|
|
|
|
Post by potet on Mar 2, 2022 10:55:36 GMT
Larika wrote: "Recently I wanted to put some photo images on to some mugs [ ... ] It was so easy to just send the companies my digital images. The results were great!"About a decade ago, I tried the mug to thank a Russian friend named Dima. He had a gallery on Fotki (a Russian photo site). I asked him what representation of himself he liked best. He pointed at a photograph he was wont to send to his girl friends. Fotki had a service offering reproductions on nearly any support; their prices were quite reasonable. I ordered a mug and had it sent to him. He was very pleased and sent me this pic of the mug. As you can see the result was quite good  The circumstances of the picture are interesting. At that time Dima was a student in computer designing, and was specializing in car wheel designs. He made some money doing various seasonal jobs (Father Xmas, washing dishes, etc.). Once he also landed a small contract modeling for male fashion. The photographer was a very professional lady. He took his chance - flirted a little with her begging her to take a picture of him that would seduce girls. She asked him to get bare-chested and to take the position you can see, explaining him he was not very muscular, but by posing like that his shoulder and upper arm muscles would look great, the rest being left to the viewer's imagination.
|
|
|
|
Post by And still Kevin 2024 on Mar 2, 2022 16:50:47 GMT
" @kevin ... I'm slowly getting fed up with the lack of understanding of apple/mac that individuals spezializing in things need continuity in hard and software to be able to function properly in their field. Not sure what you mean by that. A lot of my art is often 300mbs (uncompressed) and working with such needs more 'room' than that, and it also creates many Undo files which are not vastly smaller, and clip images, etc etc. The PC I am on now worked far better and faster with such files simply by slotting in a better graphics card which I did two years ago, but it does already have 16gb RAM which is fine for now. It's also an i7, but the machine itself is around 7 years old and has all that I need on it. One thing is games. I don't play ones needing vast power, but many people do, and every time a new game comes out, it needs more power. This new macbook air has a few nifty new things (like 'Pages'), but others, which were quite valuable to me (with eyes that can't clearly see details in quarter inch thumbnails) are no longer, such as the 'cover flow' feature in the folders - it allows me to increase the size of the thumbnail to something recognizable when I need to work on images, Yes, you can do that with Windows also. Have been able to do so for decades, to quite a large size. Windows also has Accessibility options including a 'magnifying glass'. with all images floating past in a kind of line up.
No idea what that is or what's the need for it! Anyway - I'll keep going with what I've got, keep updating and upgrading apple's updates and upgrades for this new gadget (for the first time), and hope that by the time the end of life for this gadget comes along, the PC brigade has something that gives me what I'll lose with the old macs. All of my old macs still work like new - except the rechargeable battery in the 2013 macbook pro ... eek. But I'm reassured by the mac people that there is nothing wrong with having the charger plugged in permanently to work with electricity directly when the battery finally dies ... their word in god's ear ..."
There's no compromise with PCs, you can create exactly what you need, as long as you have the dosh
www.scan.co.uk/shops/high-end-gaming-pcs |
|
|
|
Post by tasmanianartist on Mar 7, 2022 6:37:37 GMT
Hi tasmanianartist. I too much prefer the photograph I can hold in my hand and place in an album. ... - same here - I have a lifetime of photo albums and love leafing through them occasionally; sometimes for information, or sometimes just for a walk down memory lane. I love the ease of digital art, but would like to have pieces I value in a physical shape - there are only so many mugs, scarves, t-shirts etc I can buy from all the POD providers online, so I started putting the digital pieces in digitally created albums, and when I have a 100-page album together, I'll invest in a printed copy. potet - the effect on that mug is great - one trick to 'lose' a double chin on someone is to have them extend the chin by looking up to the photographer in an appropriate position - good photographers know a few 'looking good' tricks. @i am still Kevin - ah ... I'm not good at technical explanations (my bad) - but I took a screenshot of the old macbook's 'cover flow' feature; with the grabhandle between the 'cover flow' slide show on top, and the 'list of files' at the bottom, I can make either smaller or larger (in height) as needed - very handy. I've not worked on a new PC since 2008 so wouldn't know if they now do that too. Cover flow is handy when quickly scanning through a camera disc full of photos of the same subject, to choose the ones to work on - having to grapple with a 'magnifying glass' feature is a little ho-hum; I've had a few of those on photography software - not liking them.  About that continuity - (if it weren't for internet security, and things online requiring new, safer software, I wouldn't have bought a new computer) ... not everyone on the planet wants the next fastest, biggest, largest etc - some of us oldies want to be able to take that 1998 CD of photoshop 5.5 with one or two features that are REALLY NECESSSARY for those specialized things that we create, but are no longer available on the pay-by-the-month-on-the-cloud subscription only that Photoshop now has - out of a pensioner's $range anyway - and load that CD into a 2021 laptop and load it again, so we can continue using it. Same goes for the 2005 Corel Painter - can no longer be loaded into a 2021/2 computer - and so the list goes. New generations of hard and software have no option to continue where we left off - each new version reinvents the wheel and we have to start from scratch finding a 'similar' effect to the one we loved in 2005 Corel Painter, or the 1998 Photoshop 5.5
This new macbook air with Monterey 12.2.1 (2020, not even 2022) does not even have a camera card slot. Or a USB slot - it has a grand sum-total of two (yes 2) thunderbolts, which necessitated the purchase of a 6inch long conversion cable at just under AUD$30 to take a USB plug - if I want to read the dozens of old bird photograph archive CDs on it, I'll have to get a space-age-looking dock of sorts (goodness knows what that costs). I had to buy a separate CD reader with USB plug in 2014, when I bought the 2014 desk top iMac, as that one already had no CD slot.
That's what I mean with continuity - one buys the latest in technology and uses it, and by the next generation (which lasts something like 2 weeks), it has become about as useless as tits on a boar with the result that much of what one has created has become inaccessible because the new generation of soft and hardware refuses to give me access to the previous season's storage units (what a disaster when my new IBM of 2000 just died in 2003, and the replacement PC had no way of reading the old floppy discs, because it no longer had a floppy disc slot).
At least for now, with the 6inch conversion cable, I can also read the CD reader, the external hard drives, and with a bit of luck the memory sticks, too - I haven't been game to even try since the 3 old macs are still working like new. (Tho I have to add that I had to wind a bit of duct tape around the charger cable because the sheathing of the cable between the charger and the macbook has simply crumbled and cracked - it still works, but THAT is not what I expected of an expensive apple/mac hardware bit - and a replacement would be AUD$119 ... doh)
I have no need for 'Avatar'-type movie creation software (I loved the movie, btw), or games that involve half the cyber planet (nothing against any game) - I'm an old-fashioned visual artist first - pencil drawings, acrylic on canvas or wood (good old-fashioned floral folkart, for example), etc, but since my hands no longer want to function properly, digital has become the mode of necessity - and with each 'space ship console' version, I have to first go to school again and learn to understand the new gadget, and make it work for me again, to get the effects as close as possible again on the painting of a rose, for example - I cannot simply hop in and expect that the new thing works exactly like the previous one - it never does.
And that's not just apple/mac - I expect that, when (if) I obtain a PC (from whoever), a six-year old will first have to explain to me the new terminology and what's what and where, since my last non-apple/mac-PC-encounter was 14 years ago. ........... as I said - no continuity for us who specialize, and thus are using only a very small number of features of any given computer - just enough tools to do what we want to do. And outlaying another AUD$600+ for a new version of a software, when the other on the old computer still does exactly what I need it to do, is highway robbery.
Having the option when purchasing a new computer, to choose the old tools to reload onto that new computer would be real continuity in my humble opinion - so far, each new computer, PC or mac, has become more alien, with the loss of tools that I used every day on the computer that preceded the new one. Sigh ... so now I have a new computer that is 'internetworthy' (as in 'seaworthy' - fit to work safely with new protocols online as its software is again 'auto updated'), and the other three serve my artistic tools that are 'obsolete', yet some of my favourites. But at some stage, even these computers will die, and then my old tools will be gone.
That's what I mean with 'continuity'. Like in my kitchen - I still use utensils, or tools, that I obtained 50 years ago, because they did exactly what I needed them to do - and they still do (mind you, some have died, and the new replacements were pure rubbish, and quality alternatives are few and far between). Call me outmoded ... Cheers Marlies
|
|
