Back to the main FAQ page.
Back to Max Galleries Homepage.
| This FAQ page added August 11, 2002. © Max
Galleries 2002, all rights reserved. Definitions - explanation of some terms used at Max Galleries:
Click on a question to find an answer. Do you have a question that is not listed here? Check our Site Notes page or send us your question via our E-mail Page.
1. How do I contact one of the stars? We do not give out contact information for the stars, but there are many other places where you can find that information. Going to a star's Official Website is a good place to start. Another good website to try is http://www.stararchive.com/. Most of the teen fan magazines usually have a page or two with addresses where you can write to popular and current stars. If you cannot find what you are looking for using those resources, please do not e-mail us asking for such information. 2. May I use some of the images from Max Galleries on my own web site? It's great that so many people like to set up fan websites for their favorite stars, and we are flattered that so many people wish to use our pictures on their websites. We think that it's always best when web site makers create their own content, but we understand that many people do not have the resources to make their own scans and video captures. You may NOT use any Original Photographs that are so designated and clearly marked with copyright information without first getting specific written permission from the webmaster or copyright holder. Here are a few rules that most of the best webmasters follow when using someone else's images:
3. What do I need to do for you to link to my web
site? Outbound links are selected by the Max Galleries webmaster and staff based on several criteria. First and foremost are links to a star's official web site, personal web site, official fan site, and widely recognized resources such as Fansites.com and IMDB.com. Secondly, outbound links to unofficial fan sites are selected based on these criteria:
4. So-and-so is my favorite star, would you please add
him/her to your site? There are MANY young stars in show biz and obviously it's impossible to have them all at this web site. There are many stars whom we will be adding in the future, and many whom we will not. To feature a star on the site, we need pictures and information. If a star is not featured in any printed material or does not have any CDs we can scan or DVDs we can capture, that really limits us in being able to add that star to the site. We do not use pictures from other web sites at Max Galleries. 5. I am an upcoming star. Can you please add me to your web site? Max Galleries is a great place to showcase new and rising talent. To add any star to our site, we need pictures and information. If you can provide us pictures and info, we can consider adding you to the site. Please note that Max Galleries features original pictures and information. If you already have your own web site we will not copy your pictures and info from there to put on our site, but we may consider adding a link from our site to yours. If you can provide us with original pictures that we can scan for the site, that gives us some original material we can use if we add you to the site. Keep in mind that additions to our site are based on how well a star or work fits in with the overall theme of our site (young teen or pre-teen male actors, athletes and musicians), and such decisions are always made at our own discretion. 6. Why don't you want people to link directly to your pictures? Here's the problem. It seems that some people who like the pictures here at Max Galleries want to show off our pictures on their websites, clubs, and message boards. Some people do this by linking directly to our images at Max Galleries. Then every time someone views that image at that site, club, or message board, Max Galleries' web host server must use some of its bandwidth and resources to present the image. In other words, people who create direct links to our images are expecting Max Galleries to function as their image server, at our own expense, for their websites, clubs, or message boards, because they do not have the space (or the smarts) to store the images themselves. PEOPLE WHO LINK DIRECTLY TO OUR IMAGES ARE STEALING OUR BANDWIDTH AND WEB SPACE FOR THEIR OWN USE! This theft of web space and bandwidth is not only a violation of our web host's Terms of Service, it is also a violation of FEDERAL LAW. Excessive theft could cause us to shut down our site. The staff at Max Galleries takes this theft of bandwidth and web space VERY SERIOUSLY. Max Galleries uses every method at our disposal, including our site's usage logs that show from where all our hits and visits originate, to find those people who are directly linked to our images and makes every effort to break those links, often without notice. 7. What do I need to know to put a link from my web
site to Max Galleries? The answer here is simple. The URLs (web addresses) to the Max Galleries Homepage and the Star's Homepages at Max Galleries stay constant. In other words, people who link to the Star's Homepages at Max Galleries will not have to worry that their links will soon become broken or outdated because the URL changed. On the other hand the addresses to individual Galleries may be changed at any time without notice. And in fact we DO change the addresses to the individual Galleries, Gallery Pages, and pictures on a fairly regular basis. People linking directly to internal Gallery pages may become frustrated when we make changes to our site that disable their links. 8. Can you please e-mail me more pictures and information about such-and-such star? All the pictures and info we have to share is already on the site. We do not generally e-mail pictures or information to people since all our stuff is already online, so please do not e-mail us asking for more. 9. How come some of the pages have "Right-click
disabled"? In our continuing efforts to stop people from linking from their web sites, fan clubs, and message boards directly to our images at Max Galleries, we have started to disable right-clicking on some of our pages. As a further effort, some of the publicity photos, studio stills, and other photographs presented on the site have been split into multiple parts with different URLs for each piece. We understand that this makes it difficult, if not impossible, for you to copy such photos to your own computer so you can enjoy them personally or post them to your own web site. We apologize for this, but you can thank the people who have been using our pictures in an unauthorized manner for making this limitation a necessity. 10. What kind of equipment do you use to make your scans? We currently use a Visioneer OneTouch 8100 scanner, USB. Before that we had a MicroTek SlimScan C3. The scanned images are imported to JASC Paint Shop Pro (currently version 6.02), to perform any necessary resizing, cropping, color adjustment, Gamma Correction, brightness and/or contrast adjustments. Links:
11. How do you make your DVD VidCaps? DVDs are played on one of our local PC's internal DVD players. A software program called PowerDVD is used to actually play the DVD. PowerDVD has a major advantage to the default software generally used to playback DVDs on PCs in that it has superior frame controls for backing up and moving forward until just the right frame is displayed. It also has better color quality and controls than most default software pieces. PowerDVD has the capability to do VidCaps while playing a DVD. However we have found HyperSnapDX to be far superior in making the VidCaps, as it gets its image directly from the video card. HyperSnapDX captures exactly the frame being shown on the screen, with all the colors and hues presented on screen being identical to those of the capture. We use JASC Paint Shop Pro (currently version 6.02), to perform any necessary resizing, cropping, color adjustment, Gamma Correction, brightness and/or contrast adjustments. Links:
12. Why don't you have many Video Captures from VHS? We have tried several methods and products for making VHS Video Captures, including an internal TV Tuner card made by Hauppauge, and the external devices Snappy (connects to LPT-1 port) and Dazzle (USB). Our VCRs are Super VHS machines made by JVC. Despite our best efforts, we have not been able to make VHS VidCaps that were high-quality enough to make us happy. We applaud our fellow webmasters who have found the best techniques for making outstanding VHS VidCaps. 13. How do you get your original photographs? We have professional photographers on staff at Max Galleries, and they have produced most of our original photographs. In some cases we have received photographs taken by fans, and have even received photos from the stars themselves. Our site also features some publicity photos and studio stills that we have purchased or received from some of the stars or their agents, but those are not considered to be "original photographs". 14. How come some of the images at Max Galleries look so bright that it looks like the colors are washed out? Excessive brightness may be most noticeable on some of our earlier magazine scans and captures, when we were less experienced and our equipment was not as good. We do color and brightness adjustments, if necessary, to our images before they go on the site. We compare our image to the original and try and match the colors and brightness. In our beginning days, admittedly we made some of our images a bit too bright due to the settings on some of our own monitors. Depending on the monitor on which you view images, and that monitor's quality, settings, colors, temperature, ambient lighting, resolution, and a whole variety of factors including personal preference, our images may look too bright, too dark, or just right.
|
Back to the main FAQ page.
Back to Max Galleries Homepage.