Parish Pump Photos

1 June, 2010 - 20:16 by Scribbler
I see the Team at PP are asking for our opinion on having phot's for covers? I think its an excellent idea. The line drawings are great and I have used them for a long time but now we have a better quality printing I am starting to use photo's more. Sometimes just a scenic one (like PP has this month) or some parish event. But I say to all involved, great and go for it.
‹ Photographs on front covers Thanks to Revd Paul Judson ›
Submitted by Crispi-ed on 2 June, 2010 - 16:37.
I use a photo for the front page most months using pictures I have taken of the church and its more important contents. Until last month I converted these to line-art (two tone) but we have just upgraded to a printer that gives good levels of grey (no colour) - so now the pictures are printed with full grey levels.
Submitted by Tanzmeister on 9 June, 2010 - 16:33.
I would support the availability of photos in Parish Pump, but not at the expense of the line stuff. Whether you can use photos depends on how well your reproduction system can handle them. In our case we have problems to avoid them coming our as just a 'blocky' blur. For us to use them they would need to be well defined and of quite high contrast. It is unlikely that we could use landscape types. However, the version of our magazine that goes up on the website could use them quite easily as it does already with the colour covers.
Submitted by Peter Doores on 17 June, 2010 - 20:16.
On behalf of St Lawrence, Alton, I think that the idea of colour photographs is a great idea. We are in the process of making our magazine bigger, brighter with a fresh feel to it. The front cover will really help. Please keep them coming.
Submitted by Paul Allan on 21 June, 2010 - 14:00.
Colour covers? Yes! Definitely! They have made a great difference to the appearance of our magazine. But keep the line ones as well.
Submitted by Jaki Brown on 27 June, 2010 - 11:39.
Like Scribbler above, I use photos for the cover, mainly of church events or places within the parish. So, I would say that they are a definate welcome edition, unfortunately, we don't have colour facilities, so it will be in good old b&w, but it still makes a difference to the overall "look" of the magazine. Thanks
Submitted by st mary on 28 June, 2010 - 18:01.
We have used B&W photographs in the body of the magazine for some years now. Usually starting with a colour JPEG, sharpening it and then converting to B&W, results vary depending on contrast and "busy" photographs tend to give the worst results. As with other comments I would like to keep the line drawings.
Submitted by OHils on 10 July, 2010 - 15:31.
Since two very talented artists left our church and moved 4 counties away, I've used various pieces of Christian clip art, the PP line drawings and have invited children in the church to deisgn a cover suitable for the time of issue (eg Christmas, Easter, Summer holidays). I'm looking forward to using the PP photos, although like may others, I have to print in greyscale. I wonder whether other editors prefer to have a unique cover picture each month or use the same image on the front issue after issue? I guess there are pros and cons for both.
Submitted by Scribbler on 14 July, 2010 - 20:57.
When I took over many moons ago, at first I used the same cover. Then I subscribed to PP and used their covers. Now I use photo's, either my own or PP - or others. Think its good to try to be 'seasonal' whether photo or illustration.
Submitted by Marilyn Barraclough on 18 November, 2011 - 09:00.
I'm afraid I'm not a fan of the photo idea. Because the name of our magazine is 'News', incorporated in a design using the words 'We've got NEWS for you!' this uses the top left quarter of the cover, so photographs don't fit well. I prefer to use line drawings which are topical and have some reference to the current content. Because we stick to printing in monochrome to save cost (we produce 170 copies 10 times a year) we use a different colour paper for the cover each month, so that each edition is easily distinguished from the others and always looks bright and cheerful.