Larkmetals, why was this guy banned?

The information should be posted twice, in The Gallery and in The Knifemaker's Gallery. If she gets in touch with us and promises not to spam any more we can see about reinstating her, but that may not be necessary -- if that's the only thing she wants to post somebody else could do it for her. Just don't try to spam every forum on the website with it.... :rolleyes:
 
SharpByCoop said:
Stephen F: I attached a link in post #5.

Anal? Look at the photo requirements they want. Slides are a preference. Right. That was about 10 years ago....... :rolleyes:

Coop
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I thought this odd too.
Why would they prefer slides over digital imagery? :confused:
 
I met this lady at Bladeshow. Her previous books are excellent and I'm really looking forward to what she'll do for the knife world. I'm very excited about this project.

This is part of elevating the knife out of the crude realm of "nasty weapon" and into the status of art, of classifying it with other types of Art Décoratif. There's an old saying, "You can judge a man by the company he keeps." This book will put us in very good company. This is part of "mainstreaming" the knife. It's about getting the people that some here look down their noses at and refer to as "sheeple" to look at knives in a new way, to see the knife not as an object of violence and fear but of beauty.

And, of course, she's working with John Jensen on this. I have long admired his very edgy (pun intended) knives. I'm sure he'll work to create a great book which will the be marketed not in the knife community but in the art community which is the key.
 
Kevin Jones said:
I thought this odd too.
Why would they prefer slides over digital imagery? :confused:
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Two reasons: First, there is a fear that digital images can be editted to make the knife look better than it is. This would be fraud and would discredit the book and its author and publisher.

Second: My own film scanner (not even a professional one) converts 35mm slides into 32MPixel files with twelve-bit-per-channel color depth. On my 2.5GHz PC with four GBytes of RAM, these files bring Photoshop to a crawl. The best common digital cameras do 16MPixels with 10 bit depth and most are not that good. A pro film scanner will be much better than my consumer-grade one. Digital photography has come a long way, but film is still the best.


Keep in mind that what she intends to produce is not a 2-inch picture in a magazine printed on crapy paper with cheap ink (don't get me started on the production quality of Blade, KI, TK, etc.), but a beautiful coffee-table type book with big pictures and quality printing.
 
Gollnick said:
Two reasons: First, there is a fear that digital images can be editted to make the knife look better than it is. This would be fraud and would discredit the book and its author and publisher.

Second: My own film scanner (not even a professional one) converts 35mm slides into 32MPixel files with twelve-bit-per-channel color depth. On my 2.5GHz PC with four GBytes of RAM, these files bring Photoshop to a crawl. The best common digital cameras do 16MPixels with 10 bit depth and most are not that good. A pro film scanner will be much better than my consumer-grade one. Digital photography has come a long way, but film is still the best.


Keep in mind that what she intends to produce is not a 2-inch picture in a magazine printed on crapy paper with cheap ink (don't get me started on the production quality of Blade, KI, TK, etc.), but a beautiful coffee-table type book with big pictures and quality printing.
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Thanks Gollnich, as that answers my question.
All I know about photography is that it and books and magazines with it SELLS knives. :thumbup:
 
Kevin Jones said:
All I know about photography is that it and books and magazines with it SELLS knives. :thumbup:
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EXACTLY! This book will introduce many new people to the world of custom knives, people who, right now, have no idea that these knives exist. It's going to be very good for the knife world.
 
So let me ask another, perhaps silly, question.
Aren't most all knife photographers using digital photography today?
I know my collection is digitally photographed.

And aren't the photos in all of David Darom's books digitally enhanced for the most part? And if that's so are their opinions that he's committing fraud?

I would venture a guess that some of the knives depicted in his books do not look as gorgeous as the beautiful photos represent.
 
I must throw in my two cents here........


I read the original post, thought it was spam......almost hit the "Report this post" buttom

BUT, as I thought about the objective, I realized this was a good thing for our industry and for all the people involved.........

AND, as it was pointed out....the OTHER book guy does the equivalent all the time.

I also understand the flag going up when said person posted the same thing all over the place, but lets give them a break here!


My opinion, for what its worth! Hi steve!!!! :)
 
Gollnick said:
Second: My own film scanner (not even a professional one) converts 35mm slides into 32MPixel files with twelve-bit-per-channel color depth. On my 2.5GHz PC with four GBytes of RAM, these files bring Photoshop to a crawl. The best common digital cameras do 16MPixels with 10 bit depth and most are not that good. A pro film scanner will be much better than my consumer-grade one. Digital photography has come a long way, but film is still the best.
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I wonder how many of those 32Mp are "useful" pixels. I've seen images from scanned film, and IMO the real resolution is lower than top grade digital camera images (12Mp). I'm not a pro and could be wrong, but I think digital cameras got better than film cameras.
For equal quality optics and reasonably large CCD, the image suffers less alterations in the light->CCD->memory process (assuming no compression) compared to the light->film->development->scanner->memory process
 
The advice given in their advisory are cautionary and conservative, but not unreal. They are only asking for minimum of a 4x6 print at 300DPI. That's only around a 4mp camera at most. I am sure they'd like larger, too.

There is a LOT of talk about losing data in anything but a JPG. Printer resolution will not show this data 'loss' even at an 8x10" size. I'm not printing posters....

I agree with them that an image gets saved ONCE and then left alone. Good advice.

Believe it, you can get a fine coffee-table book printed with images from even an 8mp camera. Magazine prints are comparing apples and oranges.

Coop
 
Requiring photos not be edited ala Photoshop is gonna eliminate the majority of the best knife images out there,,imho. While I don't consider myself to be a pro photographer, I do know how to use photoshop and I don't use it to falsify the appearance of a knife. The people I know that use it, use it to correct errors and as a tool to create a more accurate or interesting photograph.

Phillip :)
 
It is my opinion that on this occasion the moderator made a mistake in banning the poster. We (custom knife collectors, makers, and friends) are regularly complaining that this craft doesn't get the respect it deserves from the art & craft world. Here we have one example of someone trying to do something that could be very helpful. They are obviously not versed in our customs (online). What do we do in reaction? Do we calmly and carefully explain to them the ways things are done, in a constructive manner? No - we dismiss them and ban them, a gesture injurious and that cuts all communication channels, putting them along with jerks trying to sell penis enhancement devices.

Not smart.

In my opinion, Bladeforum should show wisdom and proper leadership and invite the person to come back, and post, and guide them on how to do that most effectively. To the extent that this action was so knee jerk dismissive and injurious, dignified apologies are not unwarranted.
 
Do we calmly and carefully explain to them the ways things are done, in a constructive manner? No - we dismiss them and ban them
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Damn right we do - stop the spamming first and then explain it to them. Before you criticize, you try cleaning up ten or twenty pieces of spam scattered all over the forums. She got in 7 before we banned her and that was quite enough to clean up, thank you.

We are quite willing to reinstate her if she promises not to spam any more. It was necessary to ban her while she was in the middle of spamming us, though, because that was the only way to stop it.

There have been a couple of times when I knew somebody was spamming out of ignorance rather than malice -- still had to ban them temporarily. It only takes a couple of mouse clicks to reinstate a banned user. That's a lot less than it takes to clean up spam all over the forums.
 
Kevin Jones said:
And aren't the photos in all of David Darom's books digitally enhanced for the most part? And if that's so are their opinions that he's committing fraud?
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Dr. Darom makes no secret of his techniques. One of his books even has an article revealing in some detail how he does it.

And that's the point. When you read one of Dr. Darom's most excellent books, you know that the pictures are heavily photoshopped; he tells you that.

Another author may wish to take a different approach.

Neither is right or wrong as long as both represent the true nature of their work.
 
notdos said:
Requiring photos not be edited ala Photoshop is gonna eliminate the majority of the best knife images out there,,imho.
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It sort of makes you wonder about the majority of the best knife images out there... doesn't it?
 
John is a friend.

I'll drop him a line tomorrow and we'll take care of this and get the info out the right way.
 
notdos said:
Requiring photos not be edited ala Photo-shop is gonna eliminate the majority of the best knife images out there,,imho. Phillip :)
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I agree, in that I would like submit several of my pieces, however my photos have been photo shopped.
The 500 Knives Book will no doubt suffer if they stick to the policy. In fact, it may end-up being a 250 Knives Book. ;):D


Gollnick said:
Dr. Darom makes no secret of his techniques. One of his books even has an article revealing in some detail how he does it.

And that's the point. When you read one of Dr. Darom's most excellent books, you know that the pictures are heavily photo-shopped; he tells you that.

Another author may wish to take a different approach.

Neither is right or wrong as long as both represent the true nature of their work.
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That's why I was surprised and confused upon reading Lark's submission rules as David actually seems proud of the fact that his book's photos are edited and heavily enhanced.
 
I have been in contact with Larkmetals via email and she will be re-instated.

It was a simple misunderstanding of the rules.

FWIW, I do very seriously consider giving infractions and banning people. Most of what I do as a Super Mod is warn people and try to get them familar with the rules. However, as I have stated, when a single post is copied and pasted over several forums, throughout several threads, it is Spam. The content of the post does not matter at this point, the Spammer must be stopped, the mess cleaned up, and then we can contact the individual to determine if it was accidental. Luckily this was.

I will be working with her and the other Mods to get her posts on the forums and in the appropriate locations.

For those reading this that think I am not smart or unreasonable, you are probably right ;). However, in this instance it was right to ban Larkmetals to stop the posts, until we could make sure she was aware of the rules and willing to abide by them. If we hadn't it would have been unfair to the others that post by the rules.

Eric
 
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