Digital Philatelic Workshop

Albert W. Starkweather, Philatelic Communicator

Author’s note: This is intended as an overview to this area and does not constitute legal advice. Writers and editors with specific questions about fair use and copyright should seek legal advice.

There are four major issues concerning the use of photographs and other images:

1. the right of privacy
2. libel
3. permitted and prohibited uses of stock images
4. the use of images from other sources.

In an increasingly litigious society, extreme caution should be exercised in using non-news pictures in which the subjects are clearly identifiable without express permission of those subjects. It is necessary to obtain model releases for all non-news usages. Minors cannot sign a model release, which must be signed by a parent or guardian.

Never use a photograph in any way that could be considered defamatory, libelous, pornographic, obscene, immoral, or fraudulent, nor should a caption imply any particular behavior to a model. Never use unidentified pictures to illustrate social or other conditions.

Stock images and graphics licensed from an agency, including that included with many software programs without charge, may carry specific permitted uses and prohibitions from agency to agency.

In general, permitted uses of images include their use in any electronic or print media, including advertising and editorial use, and consumer merchandise; their use for any items for resale, including book covers and consumer merchandise, provided these products are not intended to allow the redistribution or reuse of the images; and their modification or alteration as necessary for editorial use. However, any derivative work belongs to the agency.

Some of the prohibitions include their use in any way that could be considered defamatory, libelous, pornographic, obscene, immoral, or fraudulent; their use as part of a trademark, service mark, or logo; and removal of any copyright or trademark from any place where it appears on the image. Some images and graphics created specifically for trademarks, service marks, or logos may be subject to the other restrictions.

Copyrighted images and other artwork to be reproduced from newspapers, magazines, books, and other sources, including electronic, require approval from the copyright holder, which is usually the publisher. Larger publications have rights and permissions departments to handle such requests.

In some instances a publisher will grant reproduction rights without a fee or for a modest fee as a professional courtesy between publishers. Permissions approval must be in writing.

When permission is granted, the addition of a credit line usually is required:
By permission of Scott Publishing Co.; ©2006.

If there is an excessive fee or the request is denied, there is the option of creating a new piece of art that may convey the same information but must be substantially different in appearance

If permission is denied the material should be used under no circumstances.

Fran Adams

In page design and layout, we can do many things right, but we can do a lot of things wrong. The viewer will either not notice the layout (we did our job well), or they will feel something is not right. This often results in less comprehension when reading the information or an uncomfortable feeling as they know something’s wrong but can’t put their finger on it.

The First Big Issue

All pages should be laid out in a consistent manner unless the subject demands specific treatment.

To help achieve consistency, avoid too much information on one page. Additionally, horizontal scrolling to view content not in the window is undesirable. Vertical scrolling is fine. Remember the ‘Keep It Simple Stupid’ (KISS) theory of design. Some of the items to think about as you’re laying out your study include the following.

Header and Footer Placement

Ensure the viewer knows where they are in the document by including header/footer information. Headers, footers as well as the information (ie. page number) in them, will be located in the same place on every page.

Headers should appear at the top of the page and footers at the bottom. (I realize that might sound strange, but you never know how inventive someone might be in this new medium.) Lastly, allow for margins and white space around text in the header and footer.

Backgrounds

Overall illustrated backgrounds are often used in PowerPoint presentations. Using them can be useful under certain circumstances, but in the main, it’s simply a distraction for the reader. The same logic applies to using textured background patterns.

Therefore, overall illustrated or textured backgrounds should be approached with caution and we highly recommend thinking twice before incorporating them into your study. Maintain the same background (color or graphic) on all pages within sections.

Clean and Simple Layout

Color Schemes

Something to think about when determining a color scheme for your study is coordinating the color with the subject. All subjects have an associated color, so here’s an opportunity to be creative.

Harmony between text, graphics and page colors is a good thing. Subject schemes should match throughout the document and not change from page to page. PowerPoint has a series of built in color schemes we can use.

Black letters on a white sheet of paper are typically what we see in the print world. On a computer screen, black on white is also very common, but it’s quite harsh on the eyes if it’s read for any period of time. One of our goals is we’d like our viewers to view our study comfortably.

One way to minimize glare and retain contrast is to change the shades of the black text and/or white screen slightly. Muting the background color is the quickest way to reduce glare. Rather than pure white, use a light base color. We’ll use a very light gray color for our background.

The same idea goes for type, although that’s a little more difficult to define properly.

We’ll leave the text pure black for this exercise. Black on gray will not tire the eyes as quickly. We may also use red text, but it will be used very sparingly to point out a warning, caution or perhaps rarity information. Otherwise, only one additional color, red, will be used for text.

The Bottom Line
Visualizing what you want your study to look like – and documenting the details before assembling it, will allow you to build it with confidence and ease. Making sure your study is clean and presents your materials and information clearly is a key to ensuring viewers enjoy your work and get the most out of it.

Classic style, formatting and reference publications may be of assistance when building or publishing your digital philatelic reference or study. Three of the best, the The Chicago Manual of Style, Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary and the Random House Webster’s College Thesaurus will prove essential.

Al Gore, Compulatelist

PDF authoring programs historically have been expensive. Adobe’s Acrobat Pro costs $449 (upgrade $229). However, there are several free programs readily available that provide simple PDF creation capability. These are PDF Creator, an open source program from www.sourceforge.net and CutePDF from CutePDF at www.cutePDF.com. Neither program includes any annoying watermarks or pop up ads.

From a standard application, generating a PDF is the same process as printing to a regular printer. These programs install a special printer driver so you select the PDF printer rather than the normal printer when you want to create a PDF.

Once created, PDF files can still be modified. You can add, delete, or rearrange pages. You can add bookmarks to facilitate navigation, perform OCR as mentioned earlier, and include hyperlinks for internal or external (computer or Internet).

Software 995

Software995, www.pdf995.com offers a collection of three free programs, if you accept an ad that appears briefly when the program starts, that includes the printer driver but also a utilities that can perform most of the tasks above, no OCR, plus other features. However, since you use this program like an external utility (not executed while the file is viewed) some tasks like adding links is not very user friendly. You can eliminate the ads for $9.95 for each module or $19.95 for the entire suite.

Also, some programs such as OpenOffice and scanner utility software (like my Epson) include a save to PDF feature as well.

Adobe Acrobat, www.adobe.com, as one would expect from a program that costs $299, packs a lot of function and ease of use features. In addition to the printer driver with numerous options to control PDF file size, Acrobat can create and modify PDF’s real time. You see the results instantly such as adding or deleted pages. One of my favorite features is the ability to save multiple web pages.

For example, if there is a Web article that would span multiple web pages, you can open these from within Acrobat rather than the browser and and then follow the links to add the subsequent pages very quickly. The links on the Web page can be easily activated to allow navigation either internal to the document or to the Web.

The other advantage is the entire Web page is captured since Acrobat will shrink the Web page to the desired format like 8.5-in by 11-in or A4. If you wanted to print a Web page using Microsoft’s Internet Explorer (IE) and the web page exceeds the 8.5-in page/A4 width, IE will just let it run off the side of the page. Mozilla’s free Firefox, www.getfirefox.com, can shrink to fit that eliminates this problem as well.

Acrobat also supports converting scanned documents to text using a built-in OCR tool. This allows you to search for text in these files after the OCR process. PDF’s can be combined to have a number of documents from different sources in a single PDF. This would be handy for someone doing a research project since the information would be easier to find.

If you are serious about using the PDF particularly for digitizing printed documents, consider Nuance’s (formerly ScanSoft) PaperPort 10, www.nuance.com. This program has been around for some time but it recently adopted PDF as its primary storage format instead of its original proprietary format so the product is much more useful. The program’s primary mission is to capture hard copy documents using a scanner in PDF format and then organize them along with other digital documents on your hard drive in a single unified view using a built-in document management function. Documents are displayed by thumbnail images. The PDF creation aspects can be used independently for purposes stated earlier.

The program costs $99 for the basic version. If you were looking for a program to all your digitize documents, online or hardcopy, this could be applied to philatelic uses, this could be one worthy of consideration.

In summary, the PDF file has come of age. It is an essential tool in reducing the need for printing documents and archiving hard copy and digital documents. Many features can now be obtained without having to purchase any software.