The most recent 20 comments posted to Making Light by Cassandra:

I'd also like to say that a good way to sharpen up not-very-good-quality-originals before you even use the "unsharp mask" filter is to use the "levels" command (under the Image--->Adjust menu).

Essentially, what you do with the levels command is to tell the computer to make the whites whiter, the darks darker, and the midtones more defined as grades between those two extremes.

This works especially well on things like black-and-white lineart on white paper, but can also work wonders on any image. You drag the black slider to the right to make the darks darker, the white slider to the left to make the lights lighter, and when you've got those two in place, sometimes the middle slider needs to be adjusted a little. Try it on a few images. By using this command, I've successfully convinced sketches that were originally done on brown industrial napkins to look like they came from a sketchbook.

It emphasizes what your eye knows: that faint line is acutally a line, and that erasure mark is light enough that it should be ignored.

I can't overestimate the importance of a good-quality scan to begin with, but since we don't live in a perfect world where scans are always high-quality, Photoshop makes it better.

Clark: I'm not sure if that particular story is true or not, but in that time period most people were still expected to make their own corrections. I've just finished reading a great book about it: Print, Manuscript, and the Search for Order.

I never knew reading about catalouging processes could be engrossing.

I wonder if they're using Google to generate the spam, somehow.

So this means that I should be able to achieve my childhood goal of reading everything ever written if I simply keep reading, as the act of reading each book has the potential to extend my lifespan by the amount I'd need to finish the next.
Right?

There's a real estate firm here called "Fox and Roach." Really instills confidence.

May I suggest Omniglot to those interested in learning more about all these writing systems?

Rachel, what a delicate poem.

Andrew: I thought that the participants in the "Skin" project would get a copy of the story?
A friend of mine is thinking of doing that and I think that's what she told me would happen.

The joy of writing.
The power of preserving.
Revenge of a mortal hand.
- from The Joy of Writing, Wislawa Szymborska

This is great. Possibly even better than it would be normally, because I'm writing my thesis and it's so true.

Chip wrote: (And there are people like my wife, who can't read in a moving vehicle; I could plotz thinking about the amount of reading time she had before she went freelance....)


I read a lot less now when I commute from college to home, or on a trip--I used to be able to read quite happily in the car or any moving vehicle when I was about 10. I first read Lord of the Rings in the car on a four-day trek to Florida. However, I can't read for five minutes now in a car without getting queasy or headachy. So goes life.

I was, and continue to be, traumatized with great delight by the little visuals in League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.

I always knew my love of and deep reading in the genre of Victorian Children's Literature would come back to get me. I just can't get over what he did to poor Jemima Puiddle-Duck.

How to be a Villain: Evil Laughs, Secret Lairs, Master Plans, and More! is an excellent companion volume to Jones' already-mentioned The Tough Guide to Fantasyland.

Christina wrote: Garth Nix's Sabriel/Lirael books are lovely and intricate and scary; his new Keys to the Kingdom series isn't as good, but shows promise.

While I fell in love with the world, magic system, and characters in Sabriel when I first read it three years ago, I have to say that I was disappointed by some of the characters in the other two books in that series, Lirael and Abhorsen. The world remained as richly and fully drawn as ever, and many of the characters--Mogget, for example--gained a wonderful depth. Many of his male characters, though, seemed to me rather like clones of each other. Touchstone had an excuse, having been trapped where he was for nigh-on 200 years, to be confused and constantly complaining. But--especially in Lirael--the other male characters seemed like rehashes of Touchstone for no particular reason.
That's not to say they're not excellent books--I love them, was horrendously upset at missing the Nix panel at Worldcon a few years ago, and admire their author, who once took the time to write me a long email. And I still want to open up an inn called "The Three Lemons".

But I don't think they're as good as Mister Monday. Here, he's created a world and magic system just as interesting as that found in the Sabriel books, but I feel that the characters we've met so far in that series already seem less like cyphers of a type and more like real people.

A side nots, for those of you who are interested: there's a fiendishly hard little game involving necromancer's bells over at the website for the UK edition of Sabriel. You'll need Flash to play it, though.

Xopher wrote: Not that I exonerate the school, not by a long shot. And what about all the people who could have called Child Protective Services or the equivalent? No one knew about the conditions he was living in?

Not to excuse her behavior, but to provide clarification: Child Protective Services varies from state to state, but as I know it the Child Protective Services people can only start work on cases when they know there's something up already--a neighbor or friend tips them off.

If the mother was working a full and part-time job, she probably didn't have many friends over. If the kid was being bullied every day at school, he probably didn't have any friends to invite home. If the outside of the house was kept clean, and it's anything like the suburb I live in, the only thing that would ever have stopped daily at the house would be the mail delivery truck, 15 feet away from the living room. No one would have noticed.

It is very probable that no one could have known.
The teachers, maybe, would have thought it odd that he had ill-fitting clothes that smelled. But they wouldn't have done anything about it. Ill-fitting clothes and faint odors don't concern teachers if someone could have bullied the boy in front of them and it didn't make them bat an eye. Most of the time they would probably have forgotten his existance as one of those quiet children who cling to the wall.

Simon: as far as I can tell (and I don't know too much about this topic) that's a past tense of "owned." It's become a verb among those who play video and computer games: to "own" something or someone is to control it in some way (usually you've just blown it up, and are exulting over the fact).

I'd say to pronounce it like it looks. The 0 is supposed to be an O.

Side comment: thanks for the info about Bookchecks, Mr. Mcdonald.

I was Sam - I'd rather be CJ.

This is a very strange request, but does anyone know where to buy 'BookChecks' online? I've searched Google, Amazon, and the Barnes and Noble website, but to no avail.

They're really the only thing I'll ever need in my library apart from a comfy chair, a cup of tea, and good light.

Basically they're a way of letting you know who has what book you've borrowed; a combination of check and bookmark.

Any ideas?

Alison: I don't think Photoshop has killed them. They've just gone online. Photoshop geeks love doing that kind of thing.

I think we do know what Bush thinks about us: he's made pretty clear from his actions that he thinks we are idiots.

And the ones who aren't idiots are dangerous to his agenda.

Possibly in the same way that ants are annoying at a picnic.

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