We added a new section in MAKE a few volumes ago and I wanted to introduce it here… Here’s Charles the section editor –
The projects in MAKE encourage us to transcend our default role as passive consumers. Armed with screwdrivers and soldering irons, we boldly go into basement workshops, creating new gadgets or ripping open old ones, sometimes achieving mixed results but always enjoying ourselves.
Earlier this year, it occurred to me that the magazine could extend its interests from the physical world into an area that I think of as “digital arts and crafts”: photographs, videos, music, text, computer code, and animations. The snag is that the software involved is increasingly diverse and complex. Almost anyone knows how to use a hammer, but how many of us have the time and patience to enhance a video with Adobe After Effects — and retrain ourselves each time an upgrade is published?
Numerous magazines are dedicated to specialty tasks such as photo retouching or sound synthesis, but what I want is a broader view of the whole digital-arts spectrum, featuring small-scale, specific projects that will be fun, quick, and easy to complete.
Because I was unable to find such an overview, I was excited by the opportunity to assemble it in this new section. Under the broad title of Upload (meaning anything digital that can be uploaded via email or to web pages) you’ll find projects ranging from chroma key video to infrared photography to online book publishing. In the future I hope this section continues on a regular basis — but this, of course, will depend on you. Do you have a new and clever application of a digital tool, to achieve an unexpectedly creative product? Be sure to let me know. Anyone interested in contributing should send a short summary of his or her idea to me at platt@makezine.com.
—Charles Platt, Upload Section Editor
And, here are some of the article to check out…
As a special treat we’ve published one of the articles here on the MAKE blog – Go Green! Greenscreen effects are available to anyone with a camcorder and $25 of software. By Bill Barminski. You can view it here or in your digital edition (subscribers).
Looking at the Low End by Richard Kadrey. Infrared photography reveals a world invisible to the naked eye. MAKE 12 Page 50.
Book Yourself by Kevin Kelly. Innovative options enable you to publish your own text and pictures. MAKE 12 Page 50.
Seeing Red by Charles Platt. Shifting the spectrum can transform a landscape and create dramatic artistic effects. MAKE 12 Page 50.
Go Green! by Bill Barminski. Special video effects are available to anyone with a cheap camcorder and $25 of software. Greenscreen is the most powerful of these. MAKE 12 Page 50.
Quick Bits by Mark Frauenfelder, Charles Platt. Tips and tools for digital diversions. MAKE 12 Page 50.
The Family Photo Archive by Brian O’Heir. Use simple, powerful tools to rescue your photos from stored obscurity and turn them into a DVD slideshow. MAKE 12 Page 50.
Gnarly CAs: Cellular Automata for Pattern Creation by Rudy Rucker. Autonomous software bots can create complex, colorful digital patterns. You just have to tell them what to do. MAKE 12 Page 50.
Remake Your Own Hollywood Movie by Richard Kadrey. Dissatisfied with the director’s cut? Direct it yourself! MAKE 12 Page 50.
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