HEAVEN'S METAL MAGAZINE PROJECT COMPLETE

Could it be true ??    

This crazy guy who decided to scan (with lots of help) and edit over 2,400 pages including front and back covers, 
FINISHED the last page today !        

All I need to do now is find a standard to compress the images (which are currently in high quality TIFF extensions) into smaller sized PDFs. It would be ideal to fit all 54 issues plus extras on no more than 2 DVD-Rs.
 
 
 

 
After I mess with different possibilities of PDF compressions, I will be contacting Doug Van Pelt to find out what he thinks I should do with this project. I personally believe there is a market for this, and after all my countless hours of donated work on this project, I pray that God can make a way for it to be made available to the masses and be a blessing in multiple ways.
I think the ideal time to release such a product would be 2015 as that marks 30 years of HM and would be a cool way to celebrate. But that's up to the big guys who own it now. We'll see.

...good job GF...I look forward to checking them all out....

I would absolutely buy!

wow that is quite epic

That is awesome and you donated all of that time... that shows that there is still some good people on this earth... nice job. I am definitely gonna get this.

It will be mine! Can't wait!

Nice job man!

Thank you all for the kind words. I could NOT have done this project without DVP's approval and for the donation of scanned pages from:

Phil Valentine (Trouble72) for scanning the majority of the project
Ryan Jennings (stevegarveyfan) for allowing me to scan his private collection of the first 17.
Darth Creek and Bruce Harapcio (Rawk84) for saving the day by filling in missing issues.
And Mike Nair for providing higher quality scans of pages that were too damaged to edit.

Without them, I wouldn't have every page from issue 1 thru 54 to even edit.

Can't wait to get this!

Huzzah!!!

Nice indeed!

Great job, I know this was a labor of love for you.  Glad to see you are still married now that it's over.  

  ha ! trust me, it took a LOT longer than I expected. My wife is a saint for putting up with my countless hours staring at my laptop fussing over every little detail... then complaining that this project was a crazy idea I should've never volunteered for (she'd encourage me though - keep it up, you're too far in to give up now)

I can't wait. I will buy it. I got it for a few years

That Is Awesome \M/

Jim, looking forward to seeing this. The stuff you had previously sent me is fantastic.

Awesome! I've been eager to see this completed all along. Thanks for all the time you've poured into it. What are you going to do with all that spare time now?    

Hopefully DVP and the current owners of HM find a way to get this out to the masses. I'd definitely buy a copy.

All told, how much space did the scans take up in their uncompressed state? Hope you have many backups.  

I will purchase these ONLY if it is offered on a thumb drive, CDs/DVDs are not for me anymore, plus it is easier for the CD/DVD to get scuffed while in transit.

STATS:
From 10-2012 to 7-2014 I edited over 2,400 pages, removing "image noise", straitening pages, repairing blurred portions - folds - tears - any marks that aren't on the originals, some pictures were enhanced and all were fixed of any damage.
In that time I took about 5 months off of the project due to life experiences like back surgery, family issues, etc.
The total size in it's RAW TIFF state comes to 24.9 GB. In it's final compressed PDF, under 5 GB. It should fit comfortably on a 4.7GB DVD-R complete with a menu and programs to run it and perhaps some extras (yet to be determined). A flash drive is an option, but again, I do not own the rights, nor can I do anything with this project without the owner's permission. It will be up to them as to what they do with it.
I just hope it doesn't get shelved.  

Well, but since you worked hard on this, your opinion should matter to the owners of the content, and letting them know that people wants it in a thumb drive is doable, just my opinion

Good point. Also those thumb drives are just as cheap in bulk, and more reliable than discs.

I use flash drives whenever I trade music now, rather than Cds or Dvds (wait, was I suppose to say that out loud)  

thanks to you and wife and family for all the time you spent on it. it Your sacrifice does not go unnoticed.

for me it doesn't matter what format it's on. i'll buy it.

Thank you very much. The response is actually overwhelming me. My joy will be found in everyone who is blessed by the final product. I look forward to what becomes of it.

Currently I'm having trouble with the program that I was using to convert the RAW TIFF files over to combined PDF files. I got all the way up to issue #41 and the program will no longer work.
I tried 5 other programs, all of which were very inferior and either left a watermark or couldn't handle more than 20 pages at a time.

So close to finishing this and my freeware programs are failing me. Grrrrrr  

Killer! I would buy this for sure! Good Job man.