NEW LOOK – Model Engineer & Workshop

[JasonBModerator @jasonb]

Michael, Neil did mention somewhere about not being able to use & in his email address and that he would likely stay with what he has now.

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

Some reactions.

Most people have reacted positively, a few after ‘sleeping on it’ and reading the magazine properly, which is welcome.

For this issue, unlike MEW and ME we actually had full proofreading (Diane and I proofed each other’s content). Clearly a few things still got through, presumably because it was such a huge task pulling the issue together. It may not seem like it, but almost everything was redesigned from the ground up, and many things went through several changes. Hopefully we will get more time for actual; editing and proofing in the future.

The Club News font, in particular, does seem faint. I will check this with the designer.

The paper is the same as for MEW and ME previously. It’s possible that a different designer led to pictures being printed more densely, again something we can look at.

Photo quality, we are beholden to what we are sent by contributors. Some of the material was not ideal, but I felt most images reproduced to a good or at least acceptable standard. This has always been a problem, and I have to accept we will never compete with the likes of National Geographic and BBC Wildlife Magazine…

The actual number of ‘feature pages’ depends on what you consider a ‘feature’ but it increased by at least 25%.

There was considerable overlap between the publications, so feature content could be ME or MEW – so for example, Casting Strakes, Depthing Tool and Comsol were all lined up for MEW in the near future but would not have looked out of place in ME, and hopefully have interested readers of both magazines (that was my intent).

Putting the ampersand in my email wasn’t possible, so meweditor@mortons.co.uk is the obvious choice. I know also get anything sent to meeditor@mortons.co.uk, use whichever you prefer, but replies will come from mew…

Anyway, it seems most readers think we are moving in the right direction and your feedback will mean a few tweaks in the next issue.

We will be sending out a survey soon, it will be based on articles in the issues of ME and MEW before the change, and will focus on the type of content you want, not design. This is deliberate, as we want to cover a wide range of ME and MEW content, not just what was in the first ME&W. Please look out for the survey.

Many thanks all,

Neil

[bernard towersParticipant @bernardtowers37738]

You are always going to be compromised with the images as file size restrictions are in place

[JasonBModerator @jasonb]

I’m not aware of any size restrictions for submission, the author pack suggests a minimum of 3MB but not a maximum. The ones I have been sending in lately have the camera set at 12M.

Still waiting for mine to arrive

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

Keep up the good work, Neil

I am, thus far, delighted with my change to ‘Digital’ which is very useable on the iPad.

Just out of interest [absolutely no offence intended to anyone] here’s a screen-shot of one small portion from the archived MEW 317 which nicely shows both text readability and the perils of using low-resolution images.

MichaelG.

Note: __ The forum software will presumably limit the effectiveness of this, so I shall eMail it to you as-is [hence my sudden interest in ampersands]

.

 

[Michael Gilligan]

On Michael Gilligan Said:

Keep up the good work, Neil

I am, thus far, delighted with my change to ‘Digital’ which is very useable on the iPad.

Just out of interest [absolutely no offence intended to anyone] here’s a screen-shot of one small portion from the archived MEW 317 which nicely shows both text readability and the perils of using low-resolution images.

MichaelG.

Note: __ The forum software will presumably limit the effectiveness of this, so I shall eMail it to you as-is [hence my sudden interest in ampersands]

.

Thanks Michael.

I’m not entirely sure what the issue is there… the picture is blown up about 600%  and looks fine in print. I think the text there is vector and can be blown up almost indefinitely and remain sharp.

[bernard towers]

On bernard towers Said:

You are always going to be compromised with the images as file size restrictions are in place

Print resolution is 300dpi,

The pages are just under 12 x 9″ across, so for a full portrait style page image you need 3,600 x 2,700 pixels.

That’s approximately 10 megapixels.

Most images we use are smaller, a typical large image is about 8 x 6″ landscape needing 2,400 x 1,800 pixels or 4 megapixels. Three megapixels is fine for most images we use.

It’s nice to have at least few larger images (especially for header shots of overall views of a project).

The worst is when we are sent thumbnails or images embedded in a document (word of pdf) that may have been automatically reduced in resolution and potentially over-compressed.

It’s easier to recover a low resolution, but sharp, image than recover an over-compressed high resolution image.

These days, most images straight off a phone are usable – the real bane of an editor’s life are people who switch off auto-exposure and auto-focus on ‘proper’ cameras because they think they can do better… not everyone can!

Neil

[Author]

Posts