marktrade's work in progress

[marktrade]

These two images look identical to me in Safari on my iPad.

They look different to me in Firefox, but I prefer the top one lol.

edit: Yeah, just confirmed that they look identical in Safari on my iphone

[EDIT: As of iOS 9.3, which was released with the 9.7" iPad Pro, iOS now supports color management. You should be able to see a difference in those two images when using the updated version of iOS. Original post follows.]

Thank you both for letting me know. Your eyes are not deceiving you. I just looked it up and color management is indeed absent from Safari for iOS. Darn Apple! I just assumed that would have been a consistent feature between the two platforms, but one blog post I found said there don't appear to be any apps that use color management on iOS. That means in order to get the effects of the profile, it has to be converted to sRGB from within Photoshop.

Here, try looking at these images in iOS Safari:

sRGB color profile

Adobe RGB 1998 converted to sRGB color profile

Edited May 31, 2016 by marktrade

[kitsunebi]

Yep now they look the same to me in Safari as in Firefox. Still prefer the more muted colors to the toilet-bowl-cleaner-blue water on the bottom, but maybe that's how it looks in the actual mag, so I can't fault it.

[marktrade]

Yep now they look the same to me in Safari as in Firefox. Still prefer the more muted colors to the toilet-bowl-cleaner-blue water on the bottom, but maybe that's how it looks in the actual mag, so I can't fault it.

I actually prefer the blue water of the original as well, which is why I like using this image as an example, but I don't forget the color of Lara's shirt.

Edited March 29, 2016 by marktrade

[Sean697]

Ya the second picture looks much more vibrant now on my iPad.

[marktrade]

Well one of my color targets arrived but I haven't been able to make a profile from the scan, which I guess is no surprise because it was printed on cardboard instead of paper and I can't even get it to go through my scanner properly. Looks like it was made for flatbeds and cameras, not ADFs.

That guy I talked to says he's never even heard of magazine paper color targets because magazine printing is so inconsistent to begin with. Two copies of the same issue of the same magazine will have greater differences than two photo prints. So, if you try to print color targets the same way, you won't get consistent color targets, or at least not consistent enough to be useful.

Getting multiple scans of the same magazine is more useful than people think.

My other target will arrive next week, but after eyeballing the target I have, I already have a pretty good idea of my scanner's faults. It doesn't get the very darkest of colors or the darkest grays, registering them as black. Technically this is referred to has having a limited "Dmax" or a limited dynamic range and is very typical for ADFs from what I hear, probably because you need to have a lot of exposure to get dark colors and the speed of the paper going past the scanner doesn't allow much time for those colors to be exposed. And although flatbeds are a little better in this area, it's still where most of their color faults are too. Apparently the most advanced scanner target is made by HutchColor and it's precisely because it has many different kinds of dark grays and dark colors. That's where scanners need correcting.

I was able to buy a used HutchColor off eBay. We'll see how it works next week, if at all. I'll have some other projects to report on. I bought a long reach stapler so I can put magazines like those rare Game Player's PC magazines back together after I scan them, and I my book press and gluing materials arrived so I can try to put glued magazines back together. Seriously! But I really should get back to scanning.

[marktrade]

The guy who sold me the HutchColor has not shipped it and is not responding to my emails. Just one of many annoying things recently, but I have a lot of time off now and will get back to scanning.

Here are 20 unedited scans of Game Player's at 300 DPI. If I drop out of existence, it'll give people something to do.

https://archive.org/details/UneditedGPScans

I'll edit two more on my own.

[Sean697]

I like that you post those up to edit. Honestly if I ever run out of my own scanning stuff to do and complete the EGM collection I'd be jumping all over that.

[aloram]

The guy who sold me the HutchColor has not shipped it and is not responding to my emails. Just one of many annoying things recently, but I have a lot of time off now and will get back to scanning.

Here are 20 unedited scans of Game Player's at 300 DPI. If I drop out of existence, it'll give people something to do.

https://archive.org/details/UneditedGPScans

I'll edit two more on my own.

Thanks a lot for scanning them.

[kitsunebi]

Here are 20 unedited scans of Game Player's at 300 DPI. If I drop out of existence, it'll give people something to do.

https://archive.org/details/UneditedGPScans

I'll edit two more on my own.

If anybody decides to take you up on this they should probably post their intentions. I despise editing my own scans, though, so unless someone else steps forward, I'll just stick with the raws, thanks.

[marktrade]

I missed Ultra Game Players #103 before. It's been scanned and uploaded to the previous link now.

I've also edited two of the old stapled Game Player's Sega Genesis Strategy Guides (later simply called Game Player's Sega Guide).

Edited April 12, 2016 by marktrade

[marktrade]

I have had a really shitty past few weeks. eBay gave me a refund for my HutchColor target that never came, so at least there's that. I managed to scan the other target by cutting the thick cardboard backing away so it would go through the scanner, but the profile software can't make a profile because the dmax is so bad (some of the dark blacks came through looking the same as black). That's not a showstopper for scanning magazines because the dmax of magazine printing is also pretty low, but not as low as the dmax of my scanner.

For the most part a lower dmax is only noticeable when scanning dark ad pages with space ships or shadowy medieval art. Brightly-colored magazines and anime style ads with no shadow gradients still look fantastic. Even magazines that aren't so brightly-colored can still come through with solid blacks that make for a pleasing contrast. Not every extremely dark gray needs to be preserved, especially when magazine printing is inconsistent and some pages come out looking grayer than others. Still there are a few pages here and there I know would look better scanned on a flatbed with a higher dmax. Just one of the little trade-offs when prioritizing speed.

I think it's acceptable, just as long as there are one or two people out there still using flatbeds.

[kitsunebi]

Don't get too down about it. I realize this is important to you, but I don't think I'm alone in saying that your scans were fine before all this worry over color profiles surfaced, so I've never felt you had anything that needed fixing.

[KiwiArcader]

Agreed. Totally and utterly!!!

If you are doing the whole color thing for yourself that's great. Don't go beating yourself up over what anyone else thinks or even over what you think they think.

I have a line through my scans due to dirt inside the scanning element. I could spend a LOT of money getting the scanner serviced but donations don't cover 10% of what it would probably cost and I am not going to spend food money just so people can say "his scans are really clean". My wife would divorce me if I did that anyway. I think you need to take the same attitude with the color thing. Will people look at your scans and say thanks for getting color calibrated when their tablets etc probably aren't up to the level to see the difference anyway?

My advice is just take it easy and go with the flow.

[Sean697]

Ya but most of that stuff can be fixed in Photoshop anyway. And once you have settings for a magazine it's easy right. I just think trying to forgo that step by scanning straight with no editing is not gonna happen. But you certainly get good results using image editing software.

[marktrade]

Thank you for the moral support. I continue to work on these things because it is challenging and stimulating, if a little expensive, but hobbies are sometimes.

Because I failed to profile my ADF, I bought a new flatbed with a higher dmax to see if I could profile that one and look at what kind of results I could get. I needed a new flatbed anyway to replace my cheapo wide format Mustek which started streaking mere months after I bought it. The CIS was also terrible at fluorescent colors. You get what you pay for, I guess. Never, ever buy a Mustek! I ended up going with a $160 Epson "Perfection" V550 knowing obviously it wouldn't be perfect but the dmax was good and that's what I wanted. I profiled it with the older scanner target I bought off eBay and started scanning.

Here is a comparison of an ad where there's a lot of shadow. On the left is the V550 scan assigned my profile and converted to sRGB for display on the web with auto contrast. On the right is my ADF assigned with the Adobe RGB profile and converted to sRGB for the web and auto contrast.

There are some general tonal differences like in the purples and reds. Probably the largest general difference is in shadow detail. The stone structure in the background on the far left has three-dimensional shape elements that are entirely lost on the right. The spires in the other structure are more easily visible. There are very fine shadow details in the woman's hair that are lost on the right and there are more details in the shadow the woman casts on the stone floor, giving the stones more dimension. The whole scene has a little more dimension. When the screenshots are zoomed in upon, they look better too. Because they are so small and lacking in so much detail already, a little correction can go a long way. The area which I personally think benefited the most from color correction is the translucent fabric on the woman's clothing. The light going through it looks so much more natural, combined with the shadow detail of all the folds in the fabric, really brings life to the image that my ADF couldn't capture.

Now I still think the ADF is great and will still use it for the majority of my scanning because most pages in game magazines don't have these kinds of details. I think that even pages that contain a lot of screenshots that could benefit from this treatment significantly aren't really worth it in general because screenshots in magazines are so bad anyways it ends up being an exercise in making them a little less bad instead of good. It's just that there are a small handful of pages for every issue that I think could use a better scan, and one page spread out of every few issues for which I want the scan to be superb.

As for people who use flatbeds for everything, I would certainly recommend you profile your scanner. It's not necessary, but you spend so much time scanning that taking a few minutes to scan a color target and making a profile could be a simple way to improve all your scans.

Edited April 27, 2016 by marktrade

[kitsunebi]

Well on one hand, when I first glanced at the images, I thought they were identical. After realizing they were supposed to look different and carefully scrutinizing them further, I could see the very subtle difference and concluded that I preferred the left pic (without having biased myself by reading the following paragraph and knowing which was which), so...congratulations, I guess? Not that I'll ever again be able to directly compare pics from both scanners side by side like that, so such subtleties will be lost on me and I'll be just as happy with the results of whichever scanner you use. But as you said, it's a hobby, so as long as it makes you more pleased with the results, go for it.

[marktrade]

If I used an anime or comic style ad, then the differences would be much harder to spot, making ADFs excellent for magazines like Famitsu. It's really only in very shadowy pages with subtle light reflections do the differences stand out to me.

[Sean697]

I considered buying the Epson. It was highly rated along with the Canon Canoscan I got. It does look better. Although your ADF looks fine as well.

[marktrade]

Patreon update

https://www.patreon.com/marktrade

I have switched back from a per unit model to a monthly format to reflect the more complex work that I do. I don't just scan and edit magazines, I do magazine coverdisc preservation along with continuous research. It's also because I've been focusing more on scanning rather than editing. I enjoy editing because it means I get to mark that "preserved" box in the Retromags database and put points on the board, but editing is time-consuming enough that if I continue editing everything as I scan then it will be many years before I get through everything I own. The priority should be to get good scans. Good edits can always come later.

I've also rewritten my patreon profile page to be less cagey about profit. The US Supreme Court ruled that scanning books and book-like materials to create a searchable database is transformative and therefore protected commerce, as in the case of GoogleBooks. DMCA exemptions have also been tested for preservation of electronic material that is no longer available. There's nothing stopping me from making my preservation activities a legitimate business as far as I can see. Except of course paying customers. If anyone could have profited from this work the publishers would have done it already.

Edited May 17, 2016 by marktrade

[kitsunebi]

I'm not gonna say I've researched specific court cases or anything, and I'd frankly be surprised if there even were any strictly relevant cases, life Ziff-Davis v. magscanner49 or something. But it would take a lot to convince me that anything we're doing here couldn't be shut down legally if the content owners decided to push it (the lucky stroke being that they generally have no financial incentive to do so.)

[marktrade]

Not anything. Have a little more confidence in your free speech rights. The database and forum aren't owned by any magazine publisher. And I know it might sound unusual but the legal direction is that the edited scans we make are transformative.

Consider especially the work that VGBounceHouse does. He's taking magazines and producing images that have never been seen before. It's not a simple copy or reproduction.

Worst case legal scenario is that collections go a little bit more private, as in libraries, or we only display a few images at a time, like GoogleBooks.

Edited May 18, 2016 by marktrade

[Sean697]

I think the mistake is trying to get through everything that you own. It kind of a Herculean goal (I'm assuming you have a huge collection.) you don't have to take the world on your shoulders. But if completing your whole collection is your goal, scanning everything first does make sense. If only to remove the the physical magazines and take up less space. Editing can a,ways come later. I'd just be reluctant to ever release something unedited. Well at least not cropped and straightened. But I'm sure there are people who would rather have something than nothing.

[marktrade]

Honestly the quality of some of the mags when I got here made me think that they didn't even need to be cropped or straightened. I personally don't see anything wrong with preserving the edges of the page. Especially since they are seldom perpendicular.

[KiwiArcader]

I just create a scanning template for the Fujitsu that gets slightly in from the edges of the page and then go for it. I'm pretty sure losing approx 1mm off the edges of the page in the interests of not having to crop isn't detracting much if anything from the finished product, especially when you consider anyone using a flatbed and pressing a bound magazine is likely losing more than that from the spine anyway

[Sean697]

Honestly the quality of some of the mags when I got here made me think that they didn't even need to be cropped or straightened. I personally don't see anything wrong with preserving the edges of the page. Especially since they are seldom perpendicular.

I Would probrably change that to NEVER perpendicular. I just try to be content aware. I have no problem cropping when it doesn't contain relevant content. More often than not I'll choose content over straightness when there is something in the image worth preserving. I just like being able to make that choice. Is why I don't automate it like Kiwiarcader. On pages with art next to the border I want to get all of it. On pages with black edges or meaningless background pattern I crop it away. Sometimes there is no good choice and I end up having to choose to keep the most intact side with the most interesting detail. Like if one side has a face or something on one edge and some random vegetation on the other. I'll choose to keep the face side and crop some of the vegetation as an example. Other times I've rebuilt the edge with data not there. Eighter from another source, or extrapolating and drawing it in.

The most editeding page I ever did, was an early EGM CES section cover page. It listed the games they covered across the page diagonally but the page was so crooked it was missing a ton of lettering on the side. I literally used the clone brush to find other letters on the page to repair the names going down the right side that were cut off. You would never be able to tell but the whole right side of the page was missing maybe 1/2 inch that I filled in what it was supposed to look like before being mangled by the printing press. Too much work? Probrably.

It's like you said you enjoy editing. I don't really enjoy it, but I enjoy putting out the best possible product. I've come to terms that it means I won't get the magazines I have to scan out as quickly as I want. I'd rather take longer and put out a quality scan. Which does. Not mean I'm not open to to reducing the time it takes to do that as much as possible. I just refuse to sacrifice quality for quantity.