My god, have I been swamped by email and work. I never seem to have time to do anything anymore, including go online and surf forums. Oh well. At least I’m being productive, especially since I’ve picked up some illustration work. When I’m done with it, I’ll put it up. I also seem to get alot of email these days…so much that I accidently delete some of them. Infact, if you sent an email to me from the 1st May – 12th May, I suggest you send it again if you haven’t gotten a reply. These things happen at times.
Third Print Run: “The Dreaming” is in it’s THIRD printing, because of Scholastic ordering 45,000 copies for their book club readers. It was originally 30,000 copies, but then they increased it for some reason. On the other hand, the second printing of “The Dreaming” is for 7,000 books, and because of the smaller print size, there won’t be any paper dolls in this version. There will be an artist’s bio and a section called “Praise for The Dreaming” instead. That said, it’s too bad about the paper dolls, but the Scholastic version will have them.
Cover for Volume 2: I’m not sure whether it’s been approved or not. I haven’t been told that there’s anything wrong with it, but until it becomes “official”, I’ll just say that the art isn’t final. That said, there’s been an oddity happening with the colours. This is the second time I’ve used Photoshop to do a picture, and I must say I’m starting to get used to the “brush” function in Photoshop. I’m wondering whether the airbrush function is better in Painter though… definately it feels smoother, but Photoshop seems to work fine though. What IS certain is that while the picture was done in Photoshop, the colours look better when they’re opened in Painter. The one below is the Painter version.
This is the Painter version, which I like better, though these weren't the colours I originally picked.
The colours were different, even though both are CYMK. Is it because Painter has a different palette or something? I have NO idea. All I’m doing now is exporting the file from Painter into Photoshop format, and I find that embedding the colours into the picture works. As long as the user chooses the “embedded colours” option when opening it in photoshop, the file shows up with the correct colours. I’m just puzzled at why the colours can be so different.
Update: Many thanks, I’ve got the answer to the mystery Painter/PS question! I’m using Photoshop 7 and Painter 9, and the reason for the colour changes is the difference between colour preferences, namely “Adobe 1998” and “SRGB”. I think Painter 9 uses “SRGB” whereas Photoshop 7 uses “Adobe 1998”. This explains why the contrast levels in the Painter 9 picture was higher, because “SRGB” has a high level of contrast, but apparently duller colours. I haven’t messed around with either to know, but you can change the colours in Photoshop 7 to “SRGB”, though because I’m doing another illustration in Photoshop right now, I’m keeping them that way.