[thelist] Request for critique, small commercial farm site

[aardvark]

> From: "H. G. Quinn" <hgquinn at attglobal.net>
[...] 
> The text is the farmer's, will discuss possible confusion, etc.  Lots
> of people saw the dark blue-green of the signboards as navy blue; my
> monitor is very saturated, so colors appear more intense to me, even

if possible, you might wanna load up some custom color profiles in 
PS... or just turn your contrast way down when doing this stuff...

[...]
> to everyone; that needs adjusting, too.  Why scan lines on photos?  I
> need better photos, want the texture the photos will provide to the
> page, but the quality of what I have to work with right now is just
> not there.  Since there's no guarantee I'll be able to get better
> source material (farmer was once a photographer, these are his), maybe
> I'll use the PS facet filter I used on the main signboard photomontage
> for texturing, instead.  The non-integral border -- I agree 100%.

i'd reconsider using the facet filter... many PS users can smell a 
filter a billion miles away... perhaps mess around a bit... do a 
gradient blur coupled with a color shift, or a depth-of-field effect... 
could be cool, and can be a lifesaver on bad images...

> There's something wrong with main page.  The signboards dominate and
> are too trompe l'oile, but the farmer is going to have a sign carved
> from the signboard layout, so they'll stay for now.  I was trying to
> provide some balance w/o adding any more graphics (;->) to the page. I
> have some thinking to do on that.

it's just heavy... the dark blue (it looked navy to me as well) 
expanses and the width of the overall element is what's so strong... 
in a smaller window, the sign takes up the entire screen...

> Off-topic reply to aardvark: the only venison recipes I have are the
> standard three -- grilled chops, grilled steaks, and the marinate-
> shoulder-or-haunch-for-3-days-w/wine-and-juniper-berries-then-
> roast-it one -- another area where some future research awaits.  If I
> come up with anything new and good, I'll forward it.  (If anyone knows
> of any good recipes for lamb, goat or venison and you feel like
> sharing them, that would be greatly appreciated -- you'd be credited
> and your site referenced, and maybe aardvark can thaw out his
> block-o-meat.)

i made a kick-ass meatloaf with a mix of ground beef and ground 
venison... not at all gamey, came out much better than i expected 
for not having a recipe... wish i could tell you how i made it...

btw, a great venison chili recipe can be found at cooking light:
http://www.recipefinder.cookinglight.com/?product=recipes,cookingli
ght,food&nextPage-=overviewContent&idItem=2739

(this is the shortest i can get the URL, and in order to get one this 
short, i had to use the 'mail this recipe to a friend' feature and chop 
off some variables...)