The future & Scanning

[Olivier]

Hi everyone!

(Warning: this message is pretty dull-- theoretical pondering
in the first part, technical considerations in the second)

Daniel:
>>I'm wondering if there are theories about time being the 4th dimension
>>(or higher). I once read in a magazine that a round 3 dimensional ball
>>going through a flat 2 dimensional universe [...] Creatures living in this
>>2 dimensional world, won't have the slightest idea to explain that
>>strange miracle. Maybe time does the same with us?

Right. I hate it when people talk of  something as "the fourth dimension"
(that's the way "The Twilight Zone" is called in France).
*Time* is the fourth dimension.
Dimension: a measure in one direction; a parameter or coordinate variable
(Merriam/Webster: http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary )
An object is located by means of  its coordinates in an x-dimension system
of  reference.
For a line, there's one dimension. You can move right or left.
Add a second dimension and you can have waves.
A third, and it's the world we live in.
All these are *spatial* dimensions.
But in all these worlds, the object is (albeit implicitly) loacted in time as well:
it's at coordinates (a,b) at a certain moment. That's how we have movement.
In my opinion, time is always the (x+1)th dimension of  any (x)-dimensional universe.
For a line, it's the second dimension.
In our world, it is the fourht dimension.
Even if  you're considering a static object-- says, the drawing of  a table on a piece
of  paper (2 dimensions), time' is a factor: "static" is defined in opposition to "moving",
which implies time. It remains there throughout time.
Just as a point on a line (1D) can't imagine the possibility of  a circle (or anything that
requires a second spatial dimension to exist), we cannot imagine what another fourth
(spatial or other, bar time) dimension might be.
Maybe this 4th dimension would make time travel or teleportation possible.

Corollary (which will connect this discussion to comics): is there really any such thing
as true 1D or 2D?
A sheet of  paper or a line has a certain thickness.
That's something that intrigued me when I was a kid: the notion of  contour-- and it still does.
There's no such thing as contour. Everything blends into everything else.
A knife cuts through an apple because it's thinner and stronger and sharper. But when you
think of  it from a microscopic point of  view, it's all particles and a lot of  void, and what
really
gets cut is nothing but void (the bonds).
As for drawings, all the lines are just convenient representations. But what I got to call "ultimate
black"-- this line that delinetates objects-- does not exist.
I wonder how the animated films' use of  a lighter shade for contour lines came to be,
but it's closer to the right thing.

On scanning:
I'm aware of  what you said, Daniel, but thanks anyway.

>>If a scan of b/w (monographic) or greyscale art looks slightly yellowish,
>>it might be useful to turn the scan into greyscale with the software. In
>>the result, the yellowish paper will look white, while the b/w or
>>greyscale art still looks the same.

Doesn't solve the problem. What I called yellowish will be greyish instead of  white
as it should be. That's what I want to correct.
I *love* old paper which is brown-yellowed by age. And it can have its charm
when scanned. But prefer having something that is as close as possible as what
the artist intended / drew, and clean up the scan so that the image is as truly
b&w as possible-- and as sharp as possible. Also, the drawing / text on the other side
of  the page shows through, so I try to adjust the contrast / color / you-name-it
in order to get rid of  it so that it doesn't come in the way. But there are some limits
to what can be done, technically and "ethically": a little tweaking of  a few parameters
usually does the job and the art isn't affected; if  it takes more and the art / colors suffer
from it, I leave it as it is.
I'll look for a nice example to put online so you can compare my clean-up job with
the original scan.
I said doing all this was the reason I didn't have more images of  the Mickey strips online yet.
Actually, I have several panels which have been cleaned up for quite a while but have
been experimenting with the number of  colors and the size of  these panels.
That's how I managed to have this nice large scan of  MM's first strip
(http://members.nbci.com/mouse_ducks/tc/mdl/md3001st.gif).
As you can see, I left all the little white specks on the dialogue and art. that's how it came out
on the paper. I just blacked out a few ones on Mickey's face when they really got in the way
and were really flaws. But you'll notice I left the white dots in the lines-- Mickey's hand
and shoes in panel 1, for instance. Or on panel 4, those two white specks on Mickey's back.
In this case, they are printing flaws but I left them because I don't intend to restore the strip
to its pristine state (right when the artist finished it). In the former (specks on the shoe's
contour
line in panel 1), they're dust specks that were left on the scanner's glass (I do clean it, but they
must have resisted). Checking whether all these specks are dust on the glass or part of  the
printed image would be too long. And in this case, it doesn't spoil the art; it even seems like
part of  the shoe (I don't know how to call it: a "white band" as on the other, between the top
and the sole).
Conclusion:
Don't worry. I make a point of  doing my best to provide clean scans *and* respecting
the art.


Olivier