Blast from the past

[Espermaschine]

I bought a book, called the 'WOW Book 4' for 2€'s.
Its from 1998 and teaches how to use Photoshop. Included are some interesting effects and a CD with images, actions, goodies, etc.

Im very interested in this stuff, because of all my old electronic music record covers that i have from the mid-late 90ies.
A lot has changed since then.

Interesting fact: apparently PS had no layer effects back then. All the texteffects are done with 'Lighting Effects' which looks very similar to the same filter we have in Gimp.
Also with every lighting effects tutorial, there is a warning that you need a lot of RAM to use it

A lot of the images on the CD are quite small, by todays standards, which makes me wonder how they printed.
All the illustrations in the book are small. Sometimes it makes it hard to read.
Also all the steps for every tutorial are written for beginners.

Some of the shiny effects for crystal, chrome and metal are done with the Plastic Wrap filter (there are a few scripts on the net for doing that in Gimp...or G'MIC Relief Light).

[Ofnuts]

But these weren't meant to be printed... They were used to decorate GeoCities pages

[Espermaschine]

Heres the odd thing:
the texteffect on the cover is based on an image of a watersurface, which is included on the CD. But its only 768x512px.
Theres no way they printed the cover from such a small image, or is there ?
But if they had a larger size, why didnt they include it ?
Or did they need a cray supercomputer to render such a large image in 1998 ?

   

[Ofnuts]

May be they used a computer that most of their prospective buyers could not afford.

I remember the awe when learning that the AltaVista servers had just been upgraded to a whopping 4GB (this was a time when a 64MB computer made you the King Of The OpenSpace...)

[Espermaschine]

Im not a computer expert, but i can remember that i hardly knew what to do with my first 75 megahertz computer, 17 years ago...
That changed when i got internet

[Ofnuts]

Never used Bulletin Board Systems?

[sallyanne]

(11-07-2016, 01:13 PM)Ofnuts Wrote: Never used Bulletin Board Systems?

I never did, I don't think. But used Msn Chat Rooms and Groups when they were free to use. I didn't get into the whole computer/internet thing until the mid 90's and even then was probably waay behind.
I have however created a few groups of my own since (free ones and usually wysiwyg of course) I know enough html to barely get by.
I even created and maintain one for a friend.

[rich2005]

(11-07-2016, 01:13 PM)Ofnuts Wrote: Never used Bulletin Board Systems?

Oh..ansi bbs.. horribly expensive here in the UK where just about everywhere was a long-distance phone call. I still write mostly off-line and copy-paste.

Graphics Editors, pulled one from the archive. Not easy to use, only the text is mine.  Returned to archive never to be seen again.

   

[Espermaschine]

(11-07-2016, 01:13 PM)Ofnuts Wrote: Never used Bulletin Board Systems?

No, im not even sure what that is
I used yahoo groups and forums. Dogsonacid mainly.

(11-07-2016, 03:22 PM)rich2005 Wrote: Oh..ansi bbs.. horribly expensive here in the UK where just about everywhere was a long-distance phone call. I still write mostly off-line and copy-paste.

Yes, the internet was expensive, but unfortunately also very addictive 

[Ofnuts]

BBS were before the internet... Basically someone that let a computer running with one or more modems attached to it. You would call it, and upload/download files from it and read/answer messages. A bit like a forum, but with a phone number instead of an IP. Little cost for the owner (except the electricity bill) since the telecom companies charge the caller and not the callee. Compuserve and AOL were initially just BBS on steroids.