Sternosaur's Work in Progress

[Sternosaur]

So far I have debinded my official guide of paper mario thousand year door and am currently scanning all pages.  I'm following the guides in the how to.  Just posting this to let others know this is currently in progress.

[Sean697]

Sounds great! Fell free to ask questions. Can't wait to see how it comes out. Was thinking of doing a strategy guide myself.

[Sternosaur]

Everything is cropped/straightened correctly, all that's left are fixing any blemishes.  If anyone wants to take a look at it so far let me know.

[Sternosaur]

Okay I know it's a  year later but I moved back to my home state and I just found my USB stick with all my scans yesterday.  I would have just rescanned but I don't have access to a copier/printer as of yet.  Here are my results, if anyone is familiar with the process of how I can help get this added to the site I'd be more than happy to contribute this.  It took me roughly 10 hours total for all the work put into it, as initially some of the pages were pretty beat up.  This guide goes for around 90 brand new and I got a used copy last year for $25 so I think I got a pretty good deal, most of the pages were in decent enough condition and I worked hard on it, I'm proud of the results.  Enjoy.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=15zBOgetXf7RWTe7msRwVw-diRoMINqAa

 

[Sternosaur]

I don't know how to put the pages in WIP or PDF format btw but I put it in CBR format and have the pages uploaded separately but provided them in one 7zip file.
If there are any changes that I need to make please let me know.  I'm sure I could clean up the cover a bit more digitally but I don't know if that's frowned upon if I have to digitally remove any blemishes since this wasn't a brand new guide I debinded.

[MigJmz]

Looking great! All that needs to be fixed is the scuffs on the front and back covers. Also the alignment on mario on the second page.

[kitsunebi]

12 hours ago, Sternosaur said:

I'm sure I could clean up the cover a bit more digitally but I don't know if that's frowned upon if I have to digitally remove any blemishes since this wasn't a brand new guide I debinded.

Digitally cleaning up mags is the business we are in.  Anyone who tells you that your goal should be to preserve the magazine in exactly the same condition as the physical pages are in is someone who is trying to avoid doing the hard work that actual preservation entails.  Because perhaps "preservation" isn't even the right word.  What we're aiming for is "restoration."  Was the mag originally published with creases, scratches, and a big price sticker from Books-R-Us on the cover?  No?  Well then, our scanned copy should have all of those things removed, restoring it to the bet of our ability to the condition in which it looked hot off the presses.

[Sternosaur]

Okay good to know, there's another thing that bothered me btw, when I scanned them perfectly against the corner of my scanner it still looked like the image was at a slight tilt or angle due to the pages or where I took the pages out of the binding, it's left with these frill looking things sticking out where it was in the binding.  I did a ton of touch up on the actual pages themselves I just haven't for the cover, I just became super self conscience about mine after looking at the latest magazines that got scanned.  I'll clean up the top a bit more, but I should probably hold off on declaring this thing complete until I can rescan the back of the cover with the sticker off.  Rookie mistake.  I peeled off the sticker carefully and it of course uplifted a tiny bit of the yellow background but nothing I can't digitally fix.

Currently my digital version looks a lot better than the actual condition it's in, recreating some of the corners where a page was torn was a pain but rewarding.  I didn't know if it would get accepted but glad to know you guys also put in the time to do that.  If I may ask, is there a specific copier you suggest for the best results, as I need to get a new one anyway.

[kitsunebi]

Digital manipulation is a tricky thing because it can definitely be taken too far.  Overly adjusting levels in an attempt to get an unrealistically perfect white page, for example, or oversaturating the colors are mistakes I see people make quite often.

18 minutes ago, Sternosaur said:

If I may ask, is there a specific copier you suggest for the best results, as I need to get a new one anyway.

If you mean an all-in-one scanner/printer like you mentioned earlier, I don't think anyone here would recommend one at all.  Flatbed scanners have their uses, but scanning entire magazines that way isn't something that anyone in the magazine scanning scene would ever do unless they had no other choice.

Everything I've released on this site was scanned by a Fujitsu Scansnap ix500 and edited with Photoshop.  I'm pleased with it, and it seems to have a pretty good reputation based on online reviews and whatnot.  It's only drawback is that it's an A4 scanner and therefore can't scan oversized British mags - but I only own a couple of those, anyway, and getting an A3 ADF scanner usually means paying MUCH more.

[MigJmz]

any updates?