AN ELECTRONIC UNIVERSE
The digital age makes Hellbent possible
Hellbent was a global effort spanning almost two years. Author  Geoffrey Lee Martin wrote the book from his home in Sydney after visiting Kiwi designer/photographer Basil Williams in Tucson, Arizona. Here picture editing was done and the general layout decided. Later digital scanning of photographs was done in Sydney and sent to Arizona for preparation.
Both author and designer later flew to New Zealand to meet with Random House, the principal publisher. Efforts by London literary agent Caspian Dennis led to the addition of Australian publisher, Allen & Unwin.
Main pre press production was done in Arizona with files emailed to the author in Sydney for checking and proofing. Final files were sent to the New Zealand publisher where last minute changes were made before going to the printer in China.

RESTORING OLD PHOTOGRAPHS
Bringing images back from the dead
It's only a few year since we have been able to restore old colour transparencies. Before digital imaging came along the only way was to make a negative from the original, do a colour print and retouch by hand. During the process there was a significant loss of colour and quality.
Most of the photographs used in Hellbent had to be colour corrected to remove a strong blue cast commonly found in Antarctic conditions, then sharpened and retouched. Transparencies not stored in a controlled environment can easily get a fungus that grows in the film emulsion, showing up as tiny cracks. Once this fungus takes hold it slowly destroys the image. Fungus destruction and other blemishes were retouched out to restore images to their original quality. Cleaning up spots around such areas as ship's rigging took extra care as to not take out fine rigging wires.