2017 IPY Calendar

the Cover of the 2017 IP Calendar

Today I released my 14th annual Island Packet Calendar. This year I am a little later than normal because of the one month of refit work we have been doing here on the mooring ball in Stuart, Florida. We worked at the Paul and Julie Cummings branch of the Martin County Public Library and took over a nice quiet study room where Radeen and I set up our own 4G router via my Verizon cell phone. Then we connected our two HP laptops to the net and scoured through 5,500+ photos to select these 16 pictures. With the collection selected, we sharpened and color balanced each photo, saving as a new image. These images are then resized to the proper dimensions and are placed onto a new layer on the calendar page built of many layers. The photo is placed onto the bottom layer of the frame with the frame having a mat cutout in the center with a 5 pixel white border around the solid black frame. Captions are added next. This new compiled image is then saved as a new file. This process is repeated for all 13 pages. Once created, the next step is to compile and compress each photo into a PNG graphic for printing and uploading to Cafe Press. The 13 PNG files are uploaded and then assigned to each page of the calendar. The description is written and the price set and the item is saved and added to the store. At that point, I go into the store and order 6 calendars to proof and share. They arrive back to me in about 3-4 days.

The next task is to create the web graphics because these PNG printer files are very large and are at a high resolution and are much too large to share online as they are only good for printing. To create web graphics, each page needs to be opened and then resized down to 1024 pixels wide. This file is exported and compressed 20% into a JPG web graphics file and saved as a new file. This is repeated 13 times, once for each page. These JPG files now can be shared via email, Facebook, IPYOA and here on our blog. So I go into the IPYOA photo section and upload the 13 images for everyone to see and enjoy. The calendar is announced in our Facebook group, in the IPYOA forum and the IP email server.

This explains the process I go through to create the annual calendar. On average, we sell about 50 to 75. The proceeds of $5 per calendar go to offset the fees we pay to maintain and upgrade the IPYOA.com community web site. Thank you in advance for supporting our community. Radeen and I really appreciate your support.

To order your own calendar, please see our store here:
www.Cafepress.com/ipphotos
NOTE: VERY IMPORTANT:
When ordering, make sure you SET your START MONTH to "January 2017"!











Here are the 13 pages of the 2017 Island Packet Calendar

Jan 2017 Rudder Cut Cay

Feb 2017 Powering the Gulf Stream

Mar 2017 Reaching in Biscayne Bay

Apr 2017 Whale Cay Passage

May 2017 Thunderball Grotto

June 2017 Anchoring for the night

Jul 2017 Land of the midnight sun

Aug 2017 Above the Arctic Circle

Sep 2017 Black Point Exumas heading to Austrailia

Oct 2017 Boca Chita Mini-vous

Nov 2017 Our Best IP Sailor

Dec 2017 Full sail offshore

Thank you for taking a look, we are very proud of this product.

To order your own, please us our store here:
www.Cafepress.com/ipphotos
NOTE: VERY IMPORTANT:
When ordering, make sure you SET your START MONTH to January!