Putting Back the Story

I finished my article and I'm rather pleased with it - let's hope they are!

Since I'm referring to specific aspects of my illustrations, there need to be images alongside the text, and I'm told I can have 4 or 5, which is great. I have all my illustrations saved digitally (I always make sure I get a copy of the publisher's scans - very handy), so providing these is no problem.

Except... as the article is aimed at writers, I want to show how I've interpreted the text, so I need the story to appear on the illustrations, as in the actual books. Even more so with the image above from Class Two at the Zoo: an example to demonstrate how a more adventurous designer might incorporate text (great job Claire!).

But the words are obviously not on the original scans, and scanning the actual printed page gives poor quality illustrations. So to get the images you see here, I've had to fiddle about, scanning the books, then lifting off the text in Photoshop and pasting it on top of my original illustration scans: a bit of a pain.

I suppose I shouldn't grumble: it is fantastic to have the means to do this so easily. I still remember when the dizzy heights of repro technology were letraset and a photocopier!