Digital Album - Presenting Stamps On Digital Album Pages

Another reason I really like Digital Pages is that I can design them to MY stamps. Sometimes I might find that I have a specific variety or color variation that isn't normally in an album, I will make the page to include a place for the stamp. Other times I might have multiples, a block or a stamp with selvege. I can make the boxes fit my stamps, and it makes for a much better display, than just sticking it off to the side somewhere.

Here are a couple of examples of what I mean.

Exactly! Or if you happen to find several obvious unlisted shades, overprint errors, inverts, perfs, specimen or whatever - it's done in a wink to include spaces for them in a digital album

Michael - As always, I adore your pages!

Fascinating subject!

I also think that a certain percentage of younger "digital age" collectors are likely to move toward "all-digital" collections. Many traditional collectors make efforts to collect only mint stamps so that the visual graphics are not marred or covered by cancellations.

I happen to love enlarged images of beautiful stamp graphics and might consider creating a large format calendar or poster to show off some of my favorite stamps. So we'll have to see if future collectors move away from mounting actual paper stamps into albums.

dcaraz,


I am confident that will be an interesting album - and it will be very easy to share - do not hesitate to post on this thread I am glad you like the concept of presenting stamps on digital pages, enjoy!

Blaamand, Two thumbs up on your page layouts! Very nicely done, my man.
I understand your motivation to design digital album pages that illustrate your own custom collection. Unfortunately, I'm too lazy to invest the required time to scan all my actual stamps and then design digital page layouts. But I think it would be fun to design a digital stamp collector's 12-month calendar. The most beautiful classic stamps are engraved and often printed in rich colors. These visuals appeal to me since my first career was as a graphic designer and advertising art director. Beautiful stamp designs are very impressive when enlarged to a poster size. Just check out many of the shared images on this forum.

My latest addition is a nice example of gorgeous engraved artwork

Being capable of manipulating our stamps using digital tools is opening up a whole new direction for the future of stamp collecting.

I sometimes cringe when I hear the phrase "manipulating our stamps using digital tools"

For artistic purposes - have at it as long as it is clear what you are doing.

But for displaying a stamp from my collection, I limit my "manipulating" to removing scanner artifacts like color correcting, darkening or lightening, and sometimes sharpening. (sometimes I remove a stupid hair or dust speck that got caught in a scan).

But actually changing the image such as removing faults or other issues, I don't do.

Interested in what others think.
Michael

Gee whiz DCStamps! Now you have me thinking. Is that really Columbus in dcaraz1949's scan, or is that his head superimposed on the image! :)

It's along the same lines of the discussion a few pages back about including stamps you don't own. Pretty soon it stops being a collection display and turns into a history lesson or a contemporary art project.

Personally, I don't care whether you add images that aren't your own to the Dead Countries blog, for example, because the stamps enhance your history and culture lessons. I read it to learn rather than keep up on the progress of your collection.

But if you're doing contemporary art, go all the way. Your post got me thinking about the movie Zelig and what would happen if I inserted myself into the vignette of classic stamps. Way in the background, waving at the viewer.

Or a new wave of propaganda stamps done in photoshop. That could be interesting.

But all that starts veering far away from the realm of "posting your collection digitally."


Mark

Mark --- Ha, I guess I could add all kinds of things to DCStamps. (insert evil laugh).

But, honestly I had three purposes in starting DCStamps a few years ago. The first was to put together histories of dead countries for me and other stamp collectors, the second was to help me organize my collection around those histories, and thirdly, was to share my collection with others.

There is also a great side benefit as well, as I use my pages (on my ipad) to take to stamp shows to make sure I am not buying something I already have. Lists are fine, but I just sometimes want to see the pages to validate the need (I don't know how many times in the past I have bought things, only to find I already have them when I got back home).

Michael

I completely support the way you do things, Michael!

It may be useful and satisfying for you, but the way you do things is also an extremely generous gift for other collectors (like me!)

Don't ever change. :)

Mark

Thanks a lot dcaraz - I hope it inspires someone to give it a try!



The digital route opens up for countless options - of which many have already been discussed in this thread. Some positive - and others more controversial, like 'stealing' an image of stamp that is not in your own collection - or manipulating the image. Further to that I guess it would be quite easy to digitally add a surcharge or overprint to a 'plain' stamp, making it appear like something it is not.

I think folks can do whatever they like on their computers as long as it does no harm to others - and how could it possibly do any harm? People are different - let them. There is nothing right or wrong, after all this is nothing but a hobby for own pleasure.

Personally my intention is only to present MY stamps in digital format, and try to make them appear like in real life and on custom made pages. Sometimes the images from the scanner appears a bit greyish or simply less fresh than the real stamp. Mostly I do not bother, but if the difference is significant I do try to play gently with the images. Besides that, my pages often "turns into a history lesson" - which I do not expect anyone to like but myself

While, yes, it is true that people can do whatever they want, what it will mean, however, is that people looking at digital collections will have to take it "with a grain of salt"

The good think with Digital is you can put your real stamps in Stock Book or Vario , but more importantly, you can group the most expensive one in few Stock Book and place them in a safe. A $ 300 safe can old few stock book.

I guess the alternative is never really seeing other peoples stamps (unless you live nearby). I don't know why anyone would want to fake a collection, what is the fun in that. While I am competitive in many things, stamps isn't one of them.

In reality, if you want to share stamps with others outside your close circle of friends, using digital albums is a great way of doing it. If we want to expand the hobby, we have to break out of the mold of a bunch of old folks with stamps sitting in tomes on a shelf where very few people have access. In today's world, sharing images is everywhere (think Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, SnapChat --- etc.) Time for the hobby to expand into the modern world!

Michael - - spot on!


That's understandable - and I am lazy to - so I do only scan and make pages for the relatively small portion of stamps from the 19th century or thereabouts. The remaining 90% of my collection will have to do with stockbooks only.

Making digital pages is a bit time consuming, so it's probably most suited if one is e.g. collecting only selected countries - or for making pages dedicated for only a narrow part of a larger collection.