Stencil Patterns (Shikosha Design Library)

great book

I absolutely agree with the previous reviewer. I found this book for 4.98 at Daedalus and thought the images were beautiful and the price reasonable. I intended to use the designs in my quilting.On page 7 it says under How to Use This Book: "Many of the images are available for free download at lower resolution for hobbyists and home users {that's me}. High-resolution, high-quality versions that are intended for graphic arts professionals can be downloaded from the site for a nominal fee."So I went to the website looking for my free images. Found 2. All others cost to download. $1.99 (hi-res) - that's their idea of nominal? the book contains at least 120 images (based on page count; many pages have multiple images), that's more than $240!. The low-resolution "free" images are downloadable at $0.99 each. Wow, what a bargain! {NOT} Perhaps if I searched through every image, I might find free low-res images where the hi-res still cost to download, but the ones I checked weren't free. And a search on "free" didn't find even the TWO images offered for free download.Copying from the book isn't very feasible. Unless I were to break the book's spine, I couldn't scan or photograph an image without distortion.And did I mention that you can't find the images from this specific book in one search? They've combined all their images (three books' worth, I think?) in one database. You have to know/use a description of the image you want to find it via search.totally disgusted with this publisher; "bait and switch" is exactly the right description of their marketing.Check out the Pepin Press releases; they include their images on cd with the book. Although I don't have a copy of this book and therefore cannot compare the images to those in the book under review, the subject matter is related:  Japanese Patterns (Agile Rabbit Editions)

I bought a copy of this book to use the actual designs, not just as an idea book. It even says on the back: All the images in this book can be reproduced from the printed page or downloaded and used royalty free.When you go to the website, however, only a handful of designs are available to download, and only then for a fee! There are exactly TWO designs available to download for free. I am so steamed at this bait and switch routine. I don't care how nice the patterns are, I will not be buying anything else from this publisher.

I was expecting much more specially on history.