Any good techniques/hardware for scanning?

[PaulrusKeaton]

Howdy, folks.

I've been accumulating a large amount of magazines, kept from my childhood and bought/preserved for blogging, and I'm looking to add to the database, as well as The Internet Archive. I skimmed the Scanning Guides but didn't see much in the way of efficiency, outside of individually scanning each page with a typical office scanner. What are the better solutions for getting started?

[Phillyman]

I use the following items and they make short work of any magazines I have no attachment to.

 

Paper Cutter (Chop)

https://www.amazon.com/HFS-Heavy-Guillotine-Paper-Cutter/dp/B00NO7PYYI/

Fujitsu IX500 (Scan)

https://www.amazon.com/Fujitsu-ScanSnap-iX500-Sheetfed-Scanner/dp/B01LJUPPL8/

Magazine Poly Bags (Protect)

https://www.amazon.com/BCW-1-MAG-100-Magazine-Bags/dp/B002MRJTJW/

Plastic Banker Boxes (Store)

https://www.staples.com/Staples-Letter-Legal-File-Box-Gray-Frost-140087/product_749130

 

Oh and if you are going to join the club of people who scan magazines, may I suggest a case of this

 

https://www.amazon.com/Cocaine-Energy-Drink-Case-Cans/dp/B06XNL5GH3/

 

 

 

[kitsunebi]

I use the same Fujitsu scanner as Phillyman, but instead of a paper cutter, I use a heat gun for bound magazines:

https://www.amazon.co.jp/ウェイモール-WEIMALL-ヒートガン-強弱2段階切り替え可能-アタッチメント付き/dp/B00KBHC4FQ/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1505770356&sr=8-1&keywords=heat+gun

It isn't as instantaneously fast as a paper cutter, obviously, but it allows me to keep the entire page intact, wheras a paper cutter will cut off part of the page.  Since I like to join two-page advertisements into a single image, a heat gun is a necessity (a guillotine paper cutter cuts away too much of the image on each page to allow the two to be joined seamlessly.)

And I don't bother with any of that storage stuff.  Half the point of scanning something is being able to get it out of the house, in my opinion, so my scanned pages end up in the recycling.

[PaulrusKeaton]

22 hours ago, kitsunebi77 said:

I use the same Fujitsu scanner as Phillyman, but instead of a paper cutter, I use a heat gun for bound magazines:

https://www.amazon.co.jp/ウェイモール-WEIMALL-ヒートガン-強弱2段階切り替え可能-アタッチメント付き/dp/B00KBHC4FQ/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1505770356&sr=8-1&keywords=heat+gun

It isn't as instantaneously fast as a paper cutter, obviously, but it allows me to keep the entire page intact, wheras a paper cutter will cut off part of the page.  Since I like to join two-page advertisements into a single image, a heat gun is a necessity (a guillotine paper cutter cuts away too much of the image on each page to allow the two to be joined seamlessly.)

And I don't bother with any of that storage stuff.  Half the point of scanning something is being able to get it out of the house, in my opinion, so my scanned pages end up in the recycling.

I am very familiar with heat guns and I plan to make them my go to as well. I too also like to make seamless scans of spreads with no gutter cutoff when I can. However, I'm not up for disposing of magazines when I'm done unless they're in really bad condition afterwards; I've been been dropping mad cash on back issues of Famitsu and it would be painful if I wasn't able to put them back together.

On 9/18/2017 at 3:28 PM, Phillyman said:

Oh and if you are going to join the club of people who scan magazines, may I suggest a case of this

 

https://www.amazon.com/Cocaine-Energy-Drink-Case-Cans/dp/B06XNL5GH3/

 

I didn't think they even sold those anymore! I think I'll stick with my sour apple Rockstars.

 

Oh, and full disclosure. I've been using RM scans for my blog for over 3-4 years now, with proper scanner credits whenever I can.Thought it was time to repay the favor.

 

[kitsunebi]

12 hours ago, PaulrusKeaton said:

I am very familiar with heat guns and I plan to make them my go to as well. I too also like to make seamless scans of spreads with no gutter cutoff when I can. However, I'm not up for disposing of magazines when I'm done unless they're in really bad condition afterwards; I've been been dropping mad cash on back issues of Famitsu and it would be painful if I wasn't able to put them back together.

The only mags that you use a heat gun on would be a mag bound with glue.  I suppose it might be possible to have a professional service rebind those for you, but I couldn't tell you how well they do it or what it would cost.  Also, it's very hard to not damage the spine when debinding a mag, so even if the pages could be reglued, it probably wouldn't be in perfect condition anymore.  Doing it yourself is impossible, of course.

As for stapled mags (like most issues of Famitsu), there are only two ways to put them back together:

1 - Take out the staples, scan everything on a flatbed scanner, then get it professionally restapled (or try it yourself to likely less than perfect results.)  There are 2 downsides to this method.  First, a flatbed scanner simply isn't going to make scans that are as high in quality as a document scanner like the Fujitsu.  Second, scanning on a flatbed takes FOREVER.  OMG what a nightmare.  There's a reason no one here does it.

2 - Your second choice is to take out the staples and run the uncut pages through an A3-sized document scanner, then get it re-stapled afterwards.  The downside to this is that an A3 document scanner costs thousands of dollars.

The only way I could ever consider option #1 is if I was scanning something super rare/expensive.  Like one of the first dozen or so issues of Famitsu.  For anything in the first 100 issues (which could be obtained for $20 or less, it would be a judgement call on whether it was worth it or not.  Anything from issue 100 on, it would be far easier to just buy a second copy if you want to keep one intact, since you shouldn't have to pay more than $5 per issue, and if you buy in lots, you can usually find them for $1-2 per issue (all of these prices aren't taking shipping into account, so if you're in America it's likely the shipping cost will be higher than the price of the magazine.)

I've cut the pages of every issue I've ever scanned of Famitsu in order to scan it on my A4 Fujitsu document scanner.  Of course, I've never paid more than $1 per issue for the several hundred issues I have, so maybe I'd feel guiltier about it if I'd spent a fortune.  I could always keep the loose pages in a bag, but quickly selecting a quality scanned cbr from a folder on my hard drive is far easier than sifting through a box of thosands of loose magazine pages.  Once they're debound, they're garbage in my opinion.  People who feel differently usually don't go into the business of scanning magazines.   I could be wrong, but I think Philly might be the only scanner around here that keeps all of their debound pages. 

 

[KiwiArcader]

Yep. Mine are cannon fodder, er, recycling fodder after running them through my A3 document scanner.

[PaulrusKeaton]

12 hours ago, kitsunebi77 said:

The only way I could ever consider option #1 is if I was scanning something super rare/expensive.  Like one of the first dozen or so issues of Famitsu.  For anything in the first 100 issues (which could be obtained for $20 or less, it would be a judgement call on whether it was worth it or not.  Anything from issue 100 on, it would be far easier to just buy a second copy if you want to keep one intact, since you shouldn't have to pay more than $5 per issue, and if you buy in lots, you can usually find them for $1-2 per issue (all of these prices aren't taking shipping into account, so if you're in America it's likely the shipping cost will be higher than the price of the magazine.)

I've cut the pages of every issue I've ever scanned of Famitsu in order to scan it on my A4 Fujitsu document scanner.  Of course, I've never paid more than $1 per issue for the several hundred issues I have, so maybe I'd feel guiltier about it if I'd spent a fortune.

Ha! Not around here. If I'm not mistaken, you live in Japan, so I don't get to pay $1-2 for Famitsu! That said, based on what you told me and disregarding shipping prices, I've been getting scalped by most of these sellers! I'll be more careful in the future, or just leave the Japanese issues to locals; starting to sound like it's not worth the obscure mahjong game ads.

As for my American mags, like GamePro and EGM, they're mostly disposable due to age and the way we used to store our back issues growing up (see: flat, stacked up in a cardboard box) and the pages are easily falling out anyway.

[Ethereal Dragonz]

Thanks guys, I am going to buy the same scanner/chopper and contribute soon.

I just saw a video on YouTube showing how the process works, so I am ready to get started: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZFQQ1a_KY-Y

[kitsunebi]

On 9/21/2017 at 6:03 AM, PaulrusKeaton said:

Ha! Not around here. If I'm not mistaken, you live in Japan, so I don't get to pay $1-2 for Famitsu! That said, based on what you told me and disregarding shipping prices, I've been getting scalped by most of these sellers! I'll be more careful in the future, or just leave the Japanese issues to locals; starting to sound like it's not worth the obscure mahjong game ads.

Yeah, I just went on Yahoo auctions and did a search for Famitsu.  This is literally the entire first page of listings:

20 issues from 1990: $10

All issues from 1992 (49 issues): $10

43 issues from 2000: $10

37 issues from 1995: $10

34 issues from 2001: $10

all but 1 issue from 2002 (48): $10

all but 2 issues from 1996 (46): $10

All issues from 1998 (49): $10

All but one from 1999 (48): $10

24 issues from 1994: $10

38 issues from 1997: $10

49 issues from 2004: $10

49 issues from 2003: $10

49 issues from 2002: $10

all issues from 2004 (49): $10

32 issues from 2003: $10

 

Seriously.  Aside from a couple of non-magazine related items that also popped up, those are the listings that appear on the first page right now.  Famitsu is dirt cheap to collect (in Japan).  Getting an entire set from issue 1 on would be very difficult and expensive (and take up an enormous amount of space), but just getting a hold of a bunch of issues if you aren't overly particular about which ones is super cheap.  If you live in Japan, of course.  Because even if you bought 50 issues for $10, shipping that much weight to America would surely cost several hundred dollars at the least.

 

 

[PaulrusKeaton]

19 hours ago, kitsunebi77 said:

Yeah, I just went on Yahoo auctions and did a search for Famitsu.  This is literally the entire first page of listings:

20 issues from 1990: $10

All issues from 1992 (49 issues): $10

43 issues from 2000: $10

37 issues from 1995: $10

34 issues from 2001: $10

all but 1 issue from 2002 (48): $10

all but 2 issues from 1996 (46): $10

All issues from 1998 (49): $10

All but one from 1999 (48): $10

24 issues from 1994: $10

38 issues from 1997: $10

49 issues from 2004: $10

49 issues from 2003: $10

49 issues from 2002: $10

all issues from 2004 (49): $10

32 issues from 2003: $10

 

Seriously.  Aside from a couple of non-magazine related items that also popped up, those are the listings that appear on the first page right now.  Famitsu is dirt cheap to collect (in Japan).  Getting an entire set from issue 1 on would be very difficult and expensive (and take up an enormous amount of space), but just getting a hold of a bunch of issues if you aren't overly particular about which ones is super cheap.  If you live in Japan, of course.  Because even if you bought 50 issues for $10, shipping that much weight to America would surely cost several hundred dollars at the least.

 

 

Le sigh~

That sucks. Stupid damn Yankee prices... freaking shipping charges...

Oh well, guess It's just going to be GamePro and EGM from me! And Nintendo Power if we've been able to sort that whole mess out.

[kitsunebi]

4 hours ago, PaulrusKeaton said:

Le sigh~

That sucks. Stupid damn Yankee prices... freaking shipping charges...

Oh well, guess It's just going to be GamePro and EGM from me! And Nintendo Power if we've been able to sort that whole mess out.

Nothing much you can do about shipping costs.  If I ever move back to America, all of my magazines are going in the trash, since the only way I could afford to ship them with me would be to sell them on eBay at outrageous prices once I get there, and I hate the process of selling stuff on eBay.  I'd rather trash 'em.

It's all supply and demand, though.  Japanese mags are rare in America, so the prices are high.  I don't know if it's fair to say you're getting ripped off - you're just paying the American market value.

But here, a lot of print media is considered disposable.  As a huge comic book fan, imagine my shock (and temptation) when I first moved here and saw people leaving huge bound stacks of Weekly Shonen Jump comics outside to be collected with their recycling.  Japanese mags typically use thicker paper than American mags, so a 200 page Famitsu is the size of a 250 page American mag.  That's a 25% increase in size.  Also, instead of 12 issues per year, you're looking at 48/49.  That's a 300% increase.  So you're looking at a year's worth of mags taking up 325% more space.  And I don't know if you've heard this or not, but a lot of Japanese homes aren't all that big  So collecting tons of issues of Famitsu isn't practical for lots of people, and there's always a healthy amount of issues up for grabs at reasonable prices on Yahoo Auctions.

It sounds like you already acquired some issues, so if you should ever choose to scan those, I'm sure there will be a lot of happy people out there.  I may one day scan some Famitsus again, but I've stopped for now and decided to focus on other mags due to my previous Famitsu scans being taken and corrupted by a different site.

Of course, scanning Gamepro, EGM and Nintendo Power will be greatly appreciated, as well, so it's all good no matter what you decide.

[Sylphyre]

Holy crud I had no idea you guys are wrecking the magazines you scan! 

I've got one of these on order for the end of the year, and if it does what it says it will do, it digitally corrects for the natural curve of a non-flattened magazine while scanning and auto-fixing color/skewing.  I will post when I get it in to see how well it performs, but those poor poor magazines all getting shredded...

[Sylphyre]

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/pup-your-connected-pocket-scanner-home#/

(Now with 100% more link!)

[Areala]

On 9/23/2017 at 10:57 PM, Sylphyre said:

Holy crud I had no idea you guys are wrecking the magazines you scan! 

I've got one of these on order for the end of the year, and if it does what it says it will do, it digitally corrects for the natural curve of a non-flattened magazine while scanning and auto-fixing color/skewing.  I will post when I get it in to see how well it performs, but those poor poor magazines all getting shredded...

Look at it this way though: we sacrifice one physical copy to preserve it for the days when one physical copy might well cost a small fortune on eBay. It's a small price to pay in the grand scheme of things.

*huggles*
Areala

[kitsunebi]

On 9/24/2017 at 11:57 AM, Sylphyre said:

Holy crud I had no idea you guys are wrecking the magazines you scan! 

I've got one of these on order for the end of the year, and if it does what it says it will do, it digitally corrects for the natural curve of a non-flattened magazine while scanning and auto-fixing color/skewing.  I will post when I get it in to see how well it performs, but those poor poor magazines all getting shredded...

That looks pretty useful for certain applications.  Unfortunately I don't think doing full magazine scans would be one of them, unless you were only interested in capturing text.  Any color or skewing problems that would need correcting would only exist in the first place because it's a handheld scanner that would give different results based on how it was held and how the ambient lighting affected the page.  Way too random for consistently accurate results.  And even if it could accurately compensate for non-flat pages, it still couldn't scan the entire page, since part of every bound page is hidden in the gutter.  No matter how flat you make it, unless you remove the page from the spine, some of the image remains hidden.

No, sadly (for some), destroying the mag is going to remain the only way to get the best possible scans.  For me, two things help compensate for the loss of destroying a mag.

One: I get a little bit of extra space back in my closet.

Two: I like to think that every mag I scan is one less mag some scalper can overcharge for on eBay.  Books and magazines should be available for everyone to read and enjoy.  Leave eBay to the people who only want a physical collectible to put away somewhere and gather dust.

[KiwiArcader]

I like the nice edge to edge results of scanning using a document scanner compared to the blurred spine scans when using a flatbed scanner. That and the fact I can scan 100 pages a minute with one  :-)

[Sylphyre]

On 9/28/2017 at 4:17 AM, kitsunebi77 said:

That looks pretty useful for certain applications.  Unfortunately I don't think doing full magazine scans would be one of them, unless you were only interested in capturing text.  Any color or skewing problems that would need correcting would only exist in the first place because it's a handheld scanner that would give different results based on how it was held and how the ambient lighting affected the page.  Way too random for consistently accurate results.  And even if it could accurately compensate for non-flat pages, it still couldn't scan the entire page, since part of every bound page is hidden in the gutter.  No matter how flat you make it, unless you remove the page from the spine, some of the image remains hidden.

No, sadly (for some), destroying the mag is going to remain the only way to get the best possible scans.  For me, two things help compensate for the loss of destroying a mag.

One: I get a little bit of extra space back in my closet.

Two: I like to think that every mag I scan is one less mag some scalper can overcharge for on eBay.  Books and magazines should be available for everyone to read and enjoy.  Leave eBay to the people who only want a physical collectible to put away somewhere and gather dust.

With the mind that not all crowdfunded ideals come true, they seem to address all those issues.  It has a light built in, so the lighting is standard across the board (no accounting for glare) and the little bits on the edge don't do enough for me to tear through my collection.  I suppose if someone's doing it at least it's only one copy though, you're right.

Whenever the thing gets in I'll let you all know how it turns out either way

[kitsunebi]

12 hours ago, Sylphyre said:

With the mind that not all crowdfunded ideals come true, they seem to address all those issues.  It has a light built in, so the lighting is standard across the board (no accounting for glare) and the little bits on the edge don't do enough for me to tear through my collection.  I suppose if someone's doing it at least it's only one copy though, you're right.

Whenever the thing gets in I'll let you all know how it turns out either way

I don't want to sound like I'm crapping on their product, (especially since it sounds as if you've already ordered one), because it looks like a pretty handy upgrade to the various scanning apps available for mobile devices.  For personal use, I'm sure it is quite capable of creating readable scans if you feel like digitizing your collection.  I just don't see any indications from the information on their site that it was meant to be used for the kind of high-quality image scans we do here, so I'd caution anyone from rushing out and buying one with the intent of contributing scans here.  I'd love to be proven wrong though.  Good lord, even if the only thing it's capable of doing is taking a perfectly focused high resolution-scan quality photo without the need for any kind of tripod or stabilization, that alone would be tech worth its weight in gold.

Btw, I understand that it has a light, but that has nothing to do with eliminating ambient light, which is impossible using a device meant to be held some distance away from the object being scanned (in a presumably lit environment).

At any rate, it looks like they're scheduled to be delivered in the next week or two, so definitely post some samples if you get a chance!

[MkMoveList]

This pup hand scanner sounds interesting. I'm interested to know how well it works.