TIME'S four-color picture stories are the product of long, painstaking research and planning by editors, correspondents and photographers. This week's color story in Art on Libya's lost city of Leptis Magna started as usual--but did not end that way. The editors decided that Leptis Magna would be a good color subject, gathered a fat file of material on the lost city, considered what photographer would be best for the job, asked the Rome bureau to check whether any photographer there had taken any color pictures of the place that might serve for guidance. Back came Rome Bureau Chief Walter Guzzardi with the word that, while covering a political story in Libya, he took a day off to visit Leptis Magna, and was so impressed that he took some of his own color pictures. He sent along his take, thinking that it "might help show what the place looks like."

That was where this particular color story took a different turn. To their surprise, the editors found that Reporter Guzzardi's pictures had no technical faults, were as good as any specialist could be expected to take. No professional photographer, Guzzardi reported that he had used a seven-year-old camera. His three pages of color pictures are an amateur's professional triumph.

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THIS week's other color story, in National Affairs, followed a more usual pattern. TIME'S editors decided that they wanted a spread that would get behind the familiar scenes of Diamond Head and Waikiki Beach, chose for the job the skilled Werner Stoy, who, after 19 years in the islands, is recognized as Hawaii's top photographer. With Associate Editor Alvin Josephy, Stoy traveled to every one of the major islands, concentrated on getting pictures that show how Hawaiians live. The result: a fresh, close look at the people of the U.S.'s 50th state.

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