Single in January Book Editor needed

Luke

Legend
Location
Milwaukee, WI USA
Name
Luke
I'm taking the initiative from Stillshunter's suggestion to get the ball rolling. The further we get from the month, the more likely it is that it won't get done. But first and foremost, we need someone to edit the book. I'd be happy to do the work and follow the learning curve, but there's enough people involved who have created some wonderful artwork and I'd rather have someone who has done one before do it to get it right.

So we need someone to take the bull by the horns. Are you our editor? Give us a holler.
 
OK everyone. I've been playing with the cover layout for several hours now and just can't seem to get it anywhere resembling a proper piece of work. I think I'm not artistic enough to lay out something with all these diverse aspect ratios and orientations.

Otto made some great headway, but his cancer treatments have been wreaking havoc on his energy levels and he also wrestled with the same issues I'm running into now.

We have a PSD file with all 30 shots on different layers. I've tried putting all the pieces in different places like a jigsaw puzzle. I can kind of get them to fit, but it never really looks right. Does anyone else want to give it a go? There are no expectations, you can just give it a try for fun. Or maybe you're secretly a design professional, but didn't want to be bothered with this vanity project.

I can almost see the finish line from here, but this cover layout has both Otto and myself flummoxed. Let me know if you can be of any assistance and I can send you the PSD file to play around with. This is open call to all. Don't be shy.
 
If you have no takers I might be able to give it a go. I only have photoshop elements though. What size is the book cover, 30 shots sounds a bit crazy or is it 15 front and 15 back?
 
Hi Armando,
The book is pretty well done....and one photo per page.

What we need a hand with is the cover. It is going to be one shot from each of us. I've got it kind of laid out very roughly......the front a little closer to finished than the back, but it just looks "wrong". a PSD file is a Photoshop format file that retains the "layers" info. So basically there are like 31 layers.....there is the background layer of gray and then each other layer has one photo on it so you can move them around freely without interfering with the other shots. I'm at work now and the file is at my computer at home. I'll send the file to you tonight and you can fee free to play around with it.
 
Karen, I'll send you the file as well.....it's 30 for the whole cover (front and back) .....and they can be split up and organized in any way that you see fit. Maybe someone has a "new" approach to this....they way I am seeing it (and I assume Otto, too) it is hard to make it look balanced, but maybe I'm trying too hard.

You can definitely use Elements to maneuver stuff around. This isn't rocket science, but I'm afraid it is still one or two pay grades higher than I'm at. I'll send the file when I get home from work (around 6 hours or so). Feel free to give me a shout with any questions. I'll include some brief directions, but we're quite open for the finished product.
 
I'm so glad that you've gotten some good takers to help with this Luke - and I appreciate your letting us know about Otto's treatments. I haven't been around much but have been thinking about Otto and hoping that he is battling things well.
 
Bob and Antonio...thanks a bunch. I'll send you the file tonight along with a brief description of what I need. Hopefully with all these talents we'll have something tangible in hand soon.

BB, Otto seems like he has some good days and some bad days. I'm sure he'll appreciate your kind words when he sees them here. I don't know him anymore than I know all of you other folks, but judging from his humor and grace exchanging emails with him, he'll get through this rough stretch.
 
OK volunteers......you should have a pretty massive file hitting your inbox shortly.....how big is 24,423K ?
Give me a shout-out if it doesn't come through for you (or if your email can;t handle a file that big)
 
I still haven't had any luck with a pleasing layout for the cover and I haven't heard back from any of the members here who volunteered to take a look at it, so I can only assume that they were stymied as well.

So I'm a bit flummoxed on how to proceed. I have 3 ideas, and I'm sure there are more. Let me know if you think one sounds better than the other or if you have any other ideas that may work. I'm pretty sure I'm overthinking it since I see Ray has already put out a book from his month in New York, but that's what I do.

1 - A plain cover.....solid color with title.....minimalist to the max.
2 - a smaller scale layout using just half of the images. I think this would be much easier to layout and look balanced (although this might not be true either). Also, it would be simple to do 2 different ones so people could choose whichever they prefer (or whichever layout featured their shot ;))
3 - set up a poll......anyone who wants to submit one of their images for the cover could so and then we simply vote on our favorites.....the top 2 would be featured......one front and one back. (This one seems like it could be a bit of a headache and maybe more trouble than it's worth)

Let me know what you all think, or if you have any other ideas and then I can get this thing done and we can move on.
 
Sorry Luke. I wish I could have helped -- but I don't have Photoshop ... :(

My vote goes for minimalistic as well. Solid color sounds good -- perhaps all black with a small white print centered on the cover with the following "SeriousCompacts.com - Single in January 2012".
 
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