Does any of our scanners have Video Games: TUGM #73

[MkMoveList]

We are super close to completing Video Games: the Ultimate Gaming Magazine! I have issues 64 and 65 in mint condition and I'm thinking of grabbing #73 off ebay. I can complete the set with my efforts. But if one of our scanners already has 73 and is planning on scanning that I will refrain from buying it.

Also, is anyone already in the process of scanning or editing #64?

[Areala]

I do not have any of those issues myself, alas.

*huggles*
Areala

[dablais]

Unfortunately, I do not have issue 73, but I see issue 64 and 65 are on the VGHF list.  They have not been edited yet, but maybe your copies are better than these two...  I know MigJmz was working on a couple recently, I do not if he is working on these...

 

[Phillyman]

Let me see what I have....

and it looks like I have it.

[dablais]

@Phillyman do you think it would be possible to share your list with scanners?  For example, you share it on a Google drive so we all know what you currently own and we don’t need to look for these.  I can even suggest that each scanner own a tab with what they have in their possession so we can all focus on acquiring the right magazine.

Let us know, I think it could be very beneficial for all of us.  I’ll be the first one to go and my stuff in it.

[Phillyman]

1 minute ago, dablais said:

@Phillyman do you think it would be possible to share your list with scanners?  For example, you share it on a Google drive so we all know what you currently own and we don’t need to look for these.  I can even suggest that each scanner own a tab with what they have in their possession so we can all focus on acquiring the right magazine.

Let us know, I think it could be very beneficial for all of us.  I’ll be the first one to go and my stuff in it.

Yup was posting it in the Team Member section just now. Probably a good idea to make it in to a Google Sheets and then grant Team Members here the ability to edit it with what they have, etc

 

[dablais]

Super let’s do that!  I can take your sheet and create the Google Sheet if you want, I will add my stuff.  It would be nice if for example every scanner had their tab of stuff.

Edited January 12 by dablais

[Phillyman]

8 minutes ago, dablais said:

Super let’s do that!  I can take your sheet and created the Google Sheet if you want, I will add my stuff.  It would be nice if for example every scanner has their tab of stuff.

Sounds good!

[dablais]

Perfect!  I’ll do that this weekend!

[MkMoveList]

10 hours ago, dablais said:

Unfortunately, I do not have issue 73, but I see issue 64 and 65 are on the VGHF list.  They have not been edited yet, but maybe your copies are better than these two...  I know MigJmz was working on a couple recently, I do not if he is working on these...

 

How do I access the VGHF scans?

[kitsunebi]

3 hours ago, MkMoveList said:

How do I access the VGHF scans?

It's the folder in the QNAP called VGHF Dollarscans. 

I haven't looked at any of them since I'm allergic to PDFs.  How's the quality?  I'm currently operating under the assumption that if I have something in that folder, I'm still better off scanning it myself to get a better result, but maybe I'm wasting my time and their scans are awesome?  What's the verdict, y'all?

[kitsunebi]

8 hours ago, Phillyman said:

Yup was posting it in the Team Member section just now. Probably a good idea to make it in to a Google Sheets and then grant Team Members here the ability to edit it with what they have, etc

 

A nice idea, but would it also be possible to have a version of the list just for mags that have yet to be scanned?  If every issue of Nintendo Power is already available to download, I'm not sure anyone has a reason to care if I've got copies of them all in a box in my closet.

[JimJam78]

The PDFs are OK, varying quality and they often need work to clean up, but it is access to magazines we don't always have, and for cheap, discounting hosting costs. 

If you have the magazine already, then scanning it yourself likely will be better quality, but there's some odd stuff in there too worth going through.

 

[kitsunebi]

1 minute ago, JimJam78 said:

The PDFs are OK, varying quality and they often need work to clean up, but it is access to magazines we don't always have, and for cheap, discounting hosting costs. 

If you have the magazine already, then scanning it yourself likely will be better quality, but there's some odd stuff in there too worth going through.

 

Oh absolutely.  I'd never suggest turning down a usable scan.  It's just that I have no desire to keep boxes of mags moldering in my closet for the rest of my life, so scanning them is a way for me to throw them away without feeling guilty about it.  I used to plan to keep mags I own that have already been scanned, since I couldn't bring myself to just toss them in the trash, but the truth is I'm never gonna look at them again, so it's pretty pointless keeping them around.  So long as I feel I'm making a better scan than what's already out there, I'll do that, which allows me to toss the pages, guilt-free.  And on the rare chance I ever DO want to read the mag again, I'll have a digital copy I made myself that I'm 100% happy with.  Sometimes that means those scans might not show up here, since a different scan is already available, but I'm fine with that - that's why I upload my mags in multiple places.

 

There are tons (well, at least dozens) of businesses like DollarScans here in Japan that scan books/mags/manga for a fee.  It's actually an incredibly common thing for people to do.  Living space is at much more of a premium in Japan than a lot of countries, especially if you live in a big city, as most of the population does.  And collecting mags here takes up a lot more space anyway - just Famitsu alone is 1000+ pages per month, and it's typically on thicker paper than most Western mags.  One month of Famitsu takes up the same shelf space as an entire year of some Western mags.  There simply isn't room to accumulate tons of mags, so people send them off to various scanning services.  It's actually pretty amazing how compliant people are with the agreement you have to make to keep those scans for your own personal use only.  I reckon just about every Japanese mag ever printed has been scanned at some point by these services, and yet hardly any of the Japanese mags that show up online were scanned by Japanese people or those services.  Just no-good-thumbing-our-noses-at-the-law foreigners like ourselves.

I considered trying one of those services several years ago, and even went so far as creating an account at their site - I still get emails from them from time to time.  But I ultimately decided the risk of getting back scans I wasn't 100% happy with wasn't worth it, so I guess I'll just be scanning them myself until the end of time .  At least I won't be able to complain to anyone else about the results.

 

Every year for the past few years when I visit home, I grab a stack of mags out of my storage unit and bring them back in my luggage.  A couple of years ago, one of the suitcases I brought back was filled with nothing but mags.  The guy at Japanese customs opened the bag and asked what the deal was.  I told him I was going to scan them so I could throw them away and he just gave me a knowing nod like it was the most normal thing in the world LOL.

 

 

[dablais]

Their dpi is good.  But in term of quality, a lot of edit/cropping and realignment is required.  If someone use those, it’s very easy to spot them, they always look pink-ish and I think that is the biggest problem with the VGH scans.  I often readjust the color when someone post them.  But I think I found a good recipe to fix that it involves readjusting the contrast, brightness and saturation while giving a push in the red and orange section.  It’s not perfect but it gets close to the original.

All the Tips & Tricks that I’m posting at the moment are from the VGH.  So better to have those than nothing to fill those gap.

dablais

[MkMoveList]

I took a look at some scans from the VGH collection. Their dpi is okay, though for archival purposes I prefer higher dpi. There is some misalignment and the color balance is a tad warm - easy to fix though. The magazines I looked at seem to be in good shape in terms of condition. There is a subtle moire pattern in their scans, not too noticeable but if you pay attention you can see it - that means they downscaled their scans without using a downscaling option which incorporates sinc/lanczos kernels that eliminate that. If youre trying to downscale an image scan that has halftone, ie a magazine, then a linear or cubic downscaling interpolators are trash. I definitely recommend all scanners adopt a sinc/lanczos interpolator down scaling option as part of their editing routine when resizing scans so there is zero moire pattern. color casts, misalignments, blemishes can be fixed in editing, but you cant remove an ugly moire pattern once its there..I may scan my own remaining video games magazines.

[MkMoveList]

11 hours ago, dablais said:

Their dpi is good.  But in term of quality, a lot of edit/cropping and realignment is required.  If someone use those, it’s very easy to spot them, they always look pink-ish and I think that is the biggest problem with the VGH scans.  I often readjust the color when someone post them.  But I think I found a good recipe to fix that it involves readjusting the contrast, brightness and saturation while giving a push in the red and orange section.  It’s not perfect but it gets close to the original.

All the Tips & Tricks that I’m posting at the moment are from the VGH.  So better to have those than nothing to fill those gap.

dablais

I see what you mean, whatever scanner theyre using it renders reds to be pinkish. In addition to fixing the overall color cast to be neutral you would have to fix those colors as well for these scans.

[dablais]

I think I found why their scan are "pink"... on my scanner if I turn ON "bleed-though".  I get pretty much the same result as the one of VGH.... So definitely not an option for me.  I will check if I have sinc/lanczos interpolator option in Darktable.

Thanks for the tip.... & tricks! 

Edited January 13 by dablais