datafreq Posted February 19, 2004 Share Posted February 19, 2004 I searched for this to see it this was discussed, but i couldn't find it anywhere... just noticed this while boxing up my commons... very different statue of liberty on each cart apologies if this has been discussed a bazillion times Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Christophero Sly Posted February 19, 2004 Share Posted February 19, 2004 **Edit. Nevermind. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Random Terrain Posted February 19, 2004 Share Posted February 19, 2004 The Statue of Liberty is a spaceship? She can fly? You learn something new every day! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CPUWIZ Posted February 19, 2004 Share Posted February 19, 2004 The Statue of Liberty is a spaceship? She can fly? You learn something new every day! No offense but that is funny. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
privateers69 Posted February 19, 2004 Share Posted February 19, 2004 That wasnt a statue that is the spaceship. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bjk7382 Posted February 19, 2004 Share Posted February 19, 2004 You should look at the date codes and see what one was made first. There should be little number stamped into the end label. Something like 23 2R. The first two numbers is the week of the year it was made and the third number is the last number of the year. So my example would be the 23rd. week of 1982. and I imagine the letter is where it was made, such as a P or a D on a coin. My guess is that the one on the left with the lower resolution picture is the older one. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CincYnoTi Posted February 19, 2004 Share Posted February 19, 2004 large diamonds vs small diamonds on the spaceship. i thought that was listed in the big list of label variations. the end labels tend to be slightly different in color...red vs purple. date stamps on the end label vary also. i looked at about a dozen copies of ET once and noticed some of these differences. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Disco Scottie Posted February 19, 2004 Share Posted February 19, 2004 Is it just me or does the spaceship kinda look like a crazed Pac-Man with Jaws teeth? The teeth are more pronounced on the left label. Maybe there's a subliminal Spielberg film reference thing going on... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mindfield Posted February 19, 2004 Share Posted February 19, 2004 Actually the only difference that I can see is in the printing process. The E.T. on the left appears to have been printed from negatives that used a very coarse screen, while the E.T. on the right used a much finer screen. The screen in the offset printing process is almost directly analagous to the dot pitch on a monitor. The image to be printed is separated into its component colours (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black) and negatives are made of each colour proof. The negatives created from the proofs are what determine the quality of the final product as they have the screen. (In much the same way as monitors contain an overlay over the tube consisting of triads of red, green and blue, and much like looking at newsprint -- magnify any image, or even look really close and you'll see the halftoning that make up shades of grey, which are really just spaces between black dots) The negs are placed over photosensitive metal plates, which are then placed on a plate burner (really just a big empty machine that shines a really bright light on the negs), wiped clean with plate cleaner to reveal the areas where light was able to pass through the negatives (which is what the ink will stick to), put on the press and the printing begins. In the end, images printed from negatives with a coarse screen will end up having larger dots and will tend to display moire-like patterns on complex imagery (such as the diamonds in the space ship, which are much less defined in the left image due to the coarseness of the screen). Note that this has no real bearing on the smoothness of lines in the image, only in the colouration of the image -- specifically in shading, especially on very small objects that have shading, since a coarse screen wouldn't allow for small objects to contain much in the way of shading detail. Those diamonds are small enough that the shading just ends up looking like large, diamond-shaped blobs. Plus, the register (how accurately each colour plate is positioned -- the worse the register, the more separated one or more colours will be) seems a little off in the left image, which can worsen the image quality. Register drift can occur at any time during any print run, at which point the press will have to be stopped to correct it, so it's not surprising to see some labels appear blurrier than others because of this. (Yes, I did some time as an offset printer. :-) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
khryssun Posted February 20, 2004 Share Posted February 20, 2004 Yes, big vs small ship's diamonds was already known as a label variation. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Like us on Facebook
Follow us on Twitter
AtariAge on Instagram
Watch us on YouTube
Chat on Discord
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.