Confederate
Member
Sam, you have some valid points. It's always dangerous to go back too far in the past without good reason. It used to be that color photos were just too expensive to print, for example. So publishers early on had to set up their contracts in one of two ways. First, they could set up their publications to have no color or, two, they could opt for some color--and some publishers decided on one or the other. If a publication had color options, they could opt for so many photos in any given month being in color. Black and white pubs generally had one color page, front and back, as the cover. This would give you a front and back and front inside and back inside, folded down the middle. This would be stapled over the rest of the publication, where the rear outside and inside would generally be ads and the front outside would be the magazine cover. The front inside was usually negotiable. Those with the color option could opt for some inside photos and they would generally have to commit to having a certain amount of color photos per issue.
Now I'm not advocating black and white photos because they're inexpensive, but because they look good and add diversity to the publication. But even if people love color all the time, present mags still use it too much. There's also too much of a waste of space, as I said. Instead of monster photos, I'd rather see smaller photos. Most good magazines use anywhere from 2-4 columns, and can juggle between them when certain rules are followed. For maximum photo utilization, three columns works well for horizontal or vertical photos. Two columns work better with vertical photos. Four columns work better with horizontal photos. Horizontals can stretch across all columns regardless of column number, but verticals are sometimes hard to fit because of proportion. Thus, regardless of photos in a story, they can usually be fitted to the story conveniently and large enough for readers to see clearly what they're looking for. So why do we have entire color pages when they're clearly not needed? Getting back to black and white photos, I think they break up the monotony of all color and, like b&w movies, they actually make magazines look better in places. (If some of you people who take videos outdoors of your family and kids, try to use the b&w feature sometimes.) As someone who has one foot in b&w TV and the other in color TV, I appreciate the strengths of both. Even so, I'll completely give up b&w if magazines would give me smaller photos and make photos on the covering pages of reviews smaller and please, no more lights down the barrels.
By freeing up pages, more text and more (smaller) photos can be used.
Like I said, too much space is being wasted by color Photoshopped photos. Less flash and more sizzle will make for a better steak!
Now I'm not advocating black and white photos because they're inexpensive, but because they look good and add diversity to the publication. But even if people love color all the time, present mags still use it too much. There's also too much of a waste of space, as I said. Instead of monster photos, I'd rather see smaller photos. Most good magazines use anywhere from 2-4 columns, and can juggle between them when certain rules are followed. For maximum photo utilization, three columns works well for horizontal or vertical photos. Two columns work better with vertical photos. Four columns work better with horizontal photos. Horizontals can stretch across all columns regardless of column number, but verticals are sometimes hard to fit because of proportion. Thus, regardless of photos in a story, they can usually be fitted to the story conveniently and large enough for readers to see clearly what they're looking for. So why do we have entire color pages when they're clearly not needed? Getting back to black and white photos, I think they break up the monotony of all color and, like b&w movies, they actually make magazines look better in places. (If some of you people who take videos outdoors of your family and kids, try to use the b&w feature sometimes.) As someone who has one foot in b&w TV and the other in color TV, I appreciate the strengths of both. Even so, I'll completely give up b&w if magazines would give me smaller photos and make photos on the covering pages of reviews smaller and please, no more lights down the barrels.
By freeing up pages, more text and more (smaller) photos can be used.
Like I said, too much space is being wasted by color Photoshopped photos. Less flash and more sizzle will make for a better steak!