I might have titled this post “Centerfold Problems,” for that’s what I want to explain. Those problems often occur in transferring a centerfold from Mandate, Honcho, or Playguy to the computer screen. The two media are often incompatible and uncooperative — for me at least.
Today’s art feature, “Lens or Brush,” features the work of Jim Leff. In the April 1983 issue of Mandate, it occupied four pages: two centerfolds on pages 50, 51, 52, 53. When I laid down the magazine on my scanner, however, pages 50 and 51 proved recalcitrant. More to the point, the recalcitrance began when I transferred the scan to a Microsoft Word template designed for me by my IT professional, Ron Pyatt.
At that stage it is usually necessary to crop a few millimeters from the right-hand side of the first page and an equal amount from the left hand side of the second. Exhibit 2 below is an example of the easy part: in the magazine, and on my screen, those two centerfold pages are independent of each other.
But look at Exhibit 3. I cropped as usual but the two pages refused to blend. They came maddeningly close, but no matter how minutely I cropped and adjusted, the image remained jarring.
“Dammit, I won’t be defeated!” I said to Francesca the cat, who was looking on with supervisory interest. The result: Exhibit 1, which almost creates the illusion of two magazine pages separated by a gutter (i.e., the space where two pages meet at the binding).
PS: The jet flying across the tropical sky that I refer to in the Jim Leff article is a tiny speck in the upper left-hand corner of “Bush Pilot on the Beach.”
Too much information? Jump to Exhibit 4, a two-page centerfold from Playguy (January 1985), which is self-explanatory and which caused no headache in the transfer.
1st—there's no shame in perfectionism, but these scans are fine for the use intended. No 2 You may want to start using your cell phone camera as a scanner. I use Genius--its an app that is practically intuitive. Check out some videos on Youtube. Upgrade to the pay level you need—thank me later.
Enjoyed the explanation of the efforts made to layout the images.