People buy computers for many reasons. To play games. To surf the Internet. To do their taxes. To replace their aging typewriters and word-processors. Perhaps some buyers discover they can do other things with their computers, but most have no idea that they can do crafts with their systems and color inkjet printers. The Color Printer Idea Book by Kay Hall introduces home users to the world of computer crafts, and discusses a great deal more besides.

While most users are aware in this day and age that they can purchase transfer paper for T-shirts from CompUSA, Wal-Mart, Best Buy and other hardware and software retailers, The Color Printer Idea Book provides 39 other projects for the average computer craftsperson. Projects in The Color Printer Idea Book are intended for friends and family, and some can even be used by small businesses. Many of the projects are geared toward pleasing children; my wife, a home day care provider, would find many of the projects in this book useful around our home and in promoting her business:

1. Giftwrap
2. Stationery
3. Photo Prints
4. Marker Boards
5. Kids Stickers
6. Do-It-Yourself Envelopes
7. Color Change Hidden Messages
8. Game Targets
9. Oversized Posters
10. Tape Measures
11. Sticky Notes
12. Bookmarks
13. Checkbook Covers
14. Traditional Greeting Cards
15. Metallic-Look Plaques
16. Holographic Business Cards
17. Faux Embroidery
18. No-Sew Pillows
19. Custom Folders
20. Notepads
21. Die-Cut Gift Tags
22. White-on-Black Designs
23. Custom Confetti
24. Aprons
25. Bottle Labels
26. Refrigerator Magnets
27. Candy Jars
28. Matchbook Notepads
29. Cut-and-Fold Baskets
30. Photo Calendars
31. Clocks
32. Antique Photo Pin
33. Imitation Stained Glass
34. Photo Standup Paper Dolls
35. Round Autograph Books
36. Shaped Mouse Pads
37. Paper Tole Cards
38. Shaker Cards
39. Paperback Books

Each project has five or six parts in its recipe: A list of the materials needed for the project; a recommendation for which software type(s) to use for the project; clear step-by-step instructions to lead users through the project; a black-and-white photo of the finished product; screenshots of the project as it is being created; and artwork showing how a project is folded, assembled, and etc. A paragraph at the end of each project briefly describes particular aspects of the project and its color "plate" or photo which appears in a glossy full-color 8-page photo gallery between pages 82 and 83. These color plates provide the best guide to how each project should appear when completed. As long as users follow the step-by-step instructions, they can expect a successful project. Just like a recipe.

Though the word "crafts" may imply "inexpensive" or "easy" to the uninitiated, many of the projects are perhaps more expensive and involved than most people may realize. Many of the projects require special printing stocks such as transfer paper, shrinkable media (of shrinky dinks fame), two-sided adhesive paper, pre-printed papers, metallic papers, printable presentation folders, and other stocks, not to mention special supplies such as fixative spray, fusible webbing, photo mat, transparency film, adhesive-backed holographic film, glossy-finish acrylic spray, laminating sheets (self-adhesive or hot), hole punch, removable adhesive, paper trimmer, cling film, magnetic sheets, and other supplies. Several of these stocks and supplies are hard to come by, and will set new users back more than they might expect, or more than they might like to spend. Experienced craftspeople, on the other hand, may know exactly where to find these specialty items, and will likely know the expenses involved in any given project.

Written for users new to computer crafts, The Color Printer Idea Book provides 19 pages to help users find the special supplies and materials they will need, organized both by type and by vendor. A helpful 2-page chart makes locating sources for these supplies more convenient, but the sources are spread across the country and some supplies may be so specialized that they will require special ordering by mail or Internet, and paying shipping and handling charges on top of the cost of the supplies themselves.

Despite special stocks and supplies, many of the projects in this book are well worth the expense and trouble. Many are simply wonderful and fun, for the craftsperson and for the final recipient. For example, the clock project is one that I will complete for my two-year-old son's next Christmas; he's a great fan of Casper the Ghost and Star Wars, and just such a clock would make him very happy for years. I even believe I'll recycle his birth month from the poster-sized Star Wars: The Phantom Menace calendar that he received this past Christmas. Of course, with the clock project, I can rotate out the background as he grows older and his interests change. He can even change the backgrounds out himself once he is able.

Another interesting project is the paperback book project. For years, my family has been telling stories that have become family legends, told over and over. For example, my brother Stan tells the story about the time that I nearly set the Mulvane City Park on fire during one of our taekwondo demonstrations. And I tell the story about my nephew, Chuck, driving our small, yellow 80cc Yamaha motorcycle over a small cliff, leaping from the cycle at the last moment. Of course, there are many, many family stories that should be preserved before my mother and father pass away, before their stories are forgotten. The paperback book project is perfect for this sort of family history, to be amended and passed out each Christmas. Each volume is sure to become a family heirloom, treasured for as long as the paper in the books themselves are supple.

Yet another project that interests me is the shape mouse pad, or a variation of it. My family has a tradition of having photos taken about Christmas every year, at least while all the children are young and still at home. Since my son is young, we've joined this tradition, and for the past two years have handed out family photos at Christmas to brothers and sisters, aunts and uncles, nieces and nephews, etc. Due to the boom in digital photography, many studios provide these photos on floppy disk or CD for a nominal fee in addition to photographic prints. These digital photographs, then, can be used to create personalized mouse pads for members of our family. Those that have computers anyway. The mouse pads will be especially appreciated by grandparents and brothers and sisters. A side benefit to this use of the mouse pad project is that we will save money by ordering fewer photographic prints from the photographer.

The Color Printer Idea Book, however, is more than a collection of computer crafts projects. The first six chapters are devoted to familiarizing new and average computer users to the world of computers and computer crafts, perhaps the most important chapters in the book since the projects that follow rely heavily on these first six chapters. These first six chapters discuss hardware, software, design elements, printable materials, crafting tools, and additional techniques for computer crafting.

In the first chapter alone, Ms. Hall differentiates between inkjet and laser printers; advocates that users experiment with their printers to become confident predicting their results; recommends that users be familiar with their printer's particular options; encourages investigating 3rd party ink cartridges and refills; suggests that special ink cartridges such as neon may be available for various models of printers; defines paper path, printable area, printer speed, and maximum resolution for the layman; describes common printer settings and their results; and discusses how to match a specific color, as one might find in a logo.

Tips are sprinkled throughout these introductory chapters. In Chapter 1, Ms. Hall notes that users of Sierra Print Artist (PC version) can print a sample of every color in the color palette by simply choosing Swatch from the Print Selection list in the Print Preview window. For users who own or purchase Sierra Print Artist, this tip alone saves tens or hundreds of hours and frustration trying to match colors.

The next five chapters are no less informative than the first. In Chapter 2, Ms. Hall adeptly and succinctly differentiates between different types of consumer software, including creative publishing suites; drawing software; photo editing software; desktop publishing software; and specialty software options for creating greeting cards, labels, calendars, T-shirts, and complete computer crafting kits. Creative publishing suites, writes Ms. Hall, are most closely associated with the computer crafts industry because they contain predesigned layouts for a variety of projects, bulge with computerized images (clip art), and include fonts and photos more often than not. In creative publishing suites, users choose the type of project first and customize the project with their clip art, fonts and photo selections. Creative publishing suites include software such as Broderbund's Print Shop, Sierra's Print Artist, Corel Print House, Micrografx's Windows Draw Print Studio, and the Learning Company's PrintMaster software. Ms. Hall clearly feels Sierra Print Artist is a strong package, noting that the software comes with with hundreds of layouts for unusual projects.

When it comes time for users to modify clip art and/or create their own images for their projects, Ms. Hall recommends drawing software such as Corel Draw and Deneba Canvas, for their flexibility to alter artwork, create artwork, color black-and-white artwork, design logos, and combine clip art images to greater effect. Corel Draw and Deneba Canvas feature capabilities similar to page layout software. Some illustration packages allow only one page to a file, but Draw and Canvas both provide multi-page layout capability.

Closely related to drawing software, photo editing packages such as Adobe PhotoDeluxe and Kai's Power Goo allow users to manipulate and enhance digital images, including photos bundled with creative publishing suites and photos users have scanned themselves. Adobe PhotoDeluxe, Ms. Hall notes, comes bundled with many scanners and digital cameras, or can be purchased inexpensively. Wal-Mart's photo studios, I might note, have provided free copies of Adobe PhotoDeluxe for Windows when we've had family portraits taken; I think I even still have it around the house somewhere. Photo editing software makes it possible for the average computer user to merge snapshots, create interesting photo frames; correct color, balance, and tone in poorly lighted or badly developed photographs; and colorize old black-and-white family photos. In addition to these capabilities, electronic filters in these packages make it incredibly easy to create special effects, such as simulating paint strokes, creating a mosaic, softening focus, feathering edges, and more.

The capabilities of page layout software packages such as Adobe PageMaker and Microsoft Publisher, Ms. Hall writes, often overlap with those of creative publishing suites. Unlike creative publishing suites, however, page layout software (or desktop publishing [DTP] software) allows users to work with multi-page documents, place clip art, illustrations, photos and text precisely, and provide fine typographic control. Such DTP packages are ideal for text-heavy projects such as books, newsletters, and brochures. Lately, Ms. Hall notes, the distinctions between software packages have begun to blur, making the deciding factor for a user's choice of software simply price and/or personal preference.

Many of the above software packages create graphics to be used in creative publishing suites or page layout software, but Ms. Hall understands that there's more to good crafting (and good design) than simply dropping elements into a piece of software and printing the results. For this reason, Ms. Hall includes a complete chapter about design elements, though she points readers to books by Robin Williams, Roger Parker and Chuck Green for a more complete discussion of design principles. Ms. Hall defines and describes the uses for a template, some bundled with page layout software or creative publishing suites, some available for purchase, and some available on the Internet from software publishers or posted freely by other computer crafters. Ms. Hall, unfortunately, does not provide any Internet URLs where any templates can be found.

Ms. Hall also discusses fonts, describes their classification into either text or display, including novelty fonts, notes that TrueType fonts are the preferred font format for inkjet printers, and reports that fonts are available online as freeware or shareware, as well as available commercially from companies such as Broderbund and Inspire Graphics (among others). She also notes the universal design precept that no more than two or three fonts should be used on a page, unless the user is attempting a particular effect such as the appearance of a "ransom note."

Clip art is another important design element in any craft project, notes Ms. Hall. These images are bundled with draw or photo editing software, and sold in collections from mere hundreds of images to hundreds of thousands of images. The former sometimes come in a proprietary format and can only be used by the software it accompanies; the latter, on the other hand, often comes in standard formats that can be used with many software packages. Ms. Hall rightly notes that the right or wrong clip art can make or break a design. The style and content contribute to the effecitveness of projects. Ms. Hall also confesses that she sometimes selects a single piece of clipart first and then designs the entire project around this single image. Ms. Hall defines and discusses the two types of clipart, vector and raster, and notes that while WMF, CGM and EPS are popular vector formats, or images defined by mathematical equations (vectors), EPS images don't print well to inkjet printers. In contrast, raster images, commonly BMP, GIF, JPG and TIF, print well to any printer at reasonable resolution, but don't enlarge well because they're made up of pixels, or tiny dots.

In addition to templates, fonts and clip art, Chapter 3 also discusses capturing images through scanning, faxing, PhotoCD, digital cameras and video captures. Ms. Hall defines and describes the common flatbed scanner, suggesting that users compare maximum optical resolution, the size of the scan area, and the quality and type of bundled software when shopping for a scanner. Higher optical resolutions and greater scan areas are useful for any computer craftsperson, or any desktop publisher or graphic designer, for that matter. Of course, if a user buys a scanner with capable photo editing software included in the package, he or she won't need to purchase additional software with this capability.

But scanners aren't the only means to capture a digital image. Many photo developing companies can also provide a user's photos on CD in PhotoCD format or on floppy disk for a small fee, and some companies will even post them to the Internet and provide users with passwords so the images can be downloaded. Seattle FilmWorks is one such company. The software to work with images provided by photo developers is usually included in the price of the photo processing (recall the Wal-Mart and Adobe PhotoDeluxe note above).

Ms. Hall notes, however, that users can eliminate photo developing and take advantage of the latest technology: digital cameras. Digital cameras are surging in popularity, and are available in many computer and electronic stores. With a digital camera, an image is captured and stored in the camera or to floppy disk or other small storage device, where it can then be downloaded or copied to the user's computer and edited in any photo editing software package. With digital cameras, users skip film and developing altogether, as well as the costs associated with them.

Ms. Hall makes an important point about scanning in this chapter. A graphic designer by trade, I see many incorrectly scanned images as I surf the Internet or accept digital images from clients. Many are poor quality and/or difficult to work with because of the way they've been scanned or improper color correction, for one reason or another. Ms. Hall notes correctly that line art (images made up only of solid black areas) needs to be scanned differently than photos, paintings, or drawings brought home from school.

As far as the craftsperson is concerned, Ms. Hall is correct when she suggests that line art should be scanned at the final resolution at which it will be printed (dpi dots per inch is used to describe resolution), since many inkjet printers print at 300 or 360 or greater dpi. But this rule does not hold true for projects which will be printed on a printing press (or high-quality inkjet printers for that matter), as some projects or some portions of the projects in this book could be. When a project is printed to film at 1270 dpi, it is wasteful to produce line art with a resolution greater than 600 dpi at the size the image will be printed, for the human eye cannot effectively determine the difference between 600 dpi and 1270 dpi. Any image, not just line art, scanned at 1270 dpi will produce no additional benefits for the project and will only make the size of the resulting file significantly larger than it needs to be and unnecessarily cumbersome.

Ms. Hall also takes time to explain important scanning and copyright issues. Just because users can scan photos, artwork, nearly anything, this does not make it legal to do so. Professional photographers retain copyrights to their work, even portrat studios, and their photos can be duplicated or copied without permission. When in doubt, copyrights should be checked and usage rights paid for when necessary. To avoid these (often expensive) purchases, stock photo companies such as PhotoDisc offer an entire CD of high-quality images that can be freely used for the most part. Many professional design studios use PhotoDisc and similar companies for stock photography for their projects, when possible, due to the savings over custom photography.

No computer crafts book would be complete without a chapter discussing printable media, and I had no idea how many different materials are available for computer crafts. Naturally, Ms. Hall defines and discusses paper - bond, text and cover-weights but notes that only text and cover weight produce acceptable results for crafts because they hold up better to the demands of a project. Ms. Hall also notes that, though something can run through an inkjet printer, this doesn't mean that the results will be good. Some media may be too slick, too absorbent, etc., and may damage a user's printer or void the warranty. Inkjet printers, however, can safely print on a variety of media, including colored paper, textured paper, predesigned paper, exotic papers (such as Virtual Reality Paper from Micro Format which creates the illusion that, when viewed with 3D glasses, the image hovers over the page), envelopes, labels, film-based media (such as transparencies), fabric, heat transfer paper, and more. Ms. Hall discusses printing with each of these types of media at some length, noting pitfalls, dangers and advantages of each.

As with other crafts, computer crafts utilize an assortment of tools to shape and embellish projects. The right tools make the difference, notes Ms. Hall in Chapter 5. There are cutting and punching tools, scoring tools, perforating tools, decorative blade scissors ("must have tools" according to Ms. Hall), paper trimmers (including personal and desktop trimmers), handheld rotary cutters, circle cutters, decorative punches, and corner rounders. These tools help give computer projects their final shapes, but Ms. Hall also discusses embellishments that provide additional dimension and depth to projects, including embossing; paper toling (the art of making 3D scenes from layered paper cutouts); flocking (a fuzzy coating); Liquid Appliqué (paint that puffs when heated); paper corrugators; household items such as sand, adhesive bandages, buttons, and more; and glitter, foil and sparkles. As with any craft, there are many tools to create the desired effects demanded of a project.

A project may not be completed, however, until it is sealed, bound, laminated, sprayed, or otherwise "finished," a term possibly borrowed from printing. The finishing department is where binding, trimming, folding, scoring etc. occurs. For computer crafts, however, finishing also includes applying adhesives or adhesive backed materials; insertion into pre-made products such as button shells, keyrings, mugs, pencil holders, coasters, clocks, CD jewel cases, VHS videocassette cases and more; or any number of other activities that finally make a project ready to hang, display or giveaway.

Or sell. Just as other craftspeople sell their products, so can computer craftspeople. For users interested in selling their computer crafts, Ms. Hall spends several pages telling them how to calculate the right price for completed projects by computing ink costs, equipment depreciation, materials, labor, and design costs for custom orders. But there's more to selling wares than simply calculating a price. Ms. Hall briefly discusses these additional considerations, which include establishing a legal business and marketing, and then directs users to several other books which discuss at length the details of running a crafts or desktop publishing business.

The Color Printer Idea Book offers much to the average and seasoned user, but as a graphic designer I find several small items perplexing. At no point does Ms. Hall explain why TrueType fonts are best for inkjet printers, or why EPS images don't print well to those same printers. Of course, the reasons are the same. The average inkjet printer is not PostScript capable. PostScript, the page description language of Type 1, 2 and 3 PostScript fonts, and EPS (encapsulated PostScript) graphics, cannot be properly interpreted by inkjet printers without PostScript capabilities. They may print, but their edges are often particularly jagged.

I also find it curious that Ms. Hall fails to mention software packages such as Adobe Photoshop, Corel PhotoPaint, Adobe Illustrator, Macromedia Freehand, and QuarkXPress at all in her book. Though Photoshop and XPress are pricey ($500-$700), Illustrator and Freehand cost little more than Draw or Canvas, and Freehand provides multi-page capability in a drawing package. Neither does Ms. Hall note that Corel PhotoPaint, a capable photo editing application, is bundled with Draw, or that Canvas also includes photo editing capabilities comparable to Photoshop.

Despite these omissions, which only a graphic designer or other computer professional might notice, The Color Printer Idea Book is an excellent resource for the novice and average computer user and computer craftsperson. In addition to more than three dozen step-by-step projects, The Color Printer Idea Book discusses important issues concerning hardware, software, layout, and scanning, in addition to crafts-specific issues of tools, media and techniques, all in a friendly, journalistic style, using plain, simple language that the average user will understand. This book should be on the reading list of all home computer users, if not on their bookshelves.

02/00

Mike Swope is publisher of inetreviews.com, a site that will shortly be launched and also the vice-president of MacWichita Macintosh User Group in Wichita, KS. He runs his own graphics design business, Swope Design, that provides professional and affordable graphic design, printing, and consultation services/training to businesses, organizations and individuals.