marktrade's work in progress

[KiwiArcader]

Don't get me wrong. If the page cut angle is bad like it was with Computer Gaming World #213 that I scanned recently I scan the whole page using an A3 full page template then run deskew on it and process it that way. It takes a whole lot longer though. At the end of the day though I am interested in the content and reading it without having to tip my head 10 degrees to do so and I think most people are the same. Losing a mm on the edge really doesn't impact the magazine in any overly negative way in that regard.

Everyone's entitled to their opinion and given the lack of people actually scanning I'd never try and be negative about how a person processes their scans. If someone gave up scanning because I took some moral high ground on it over at OGM that's one less person scanning and then everyone loses out. As marktrade said, there's no harm in getting everything scanned. At least then others may take on the editing side of things. May being the operative word as not many do that either. Most people are just here to leech and they will usually take anything you throw at them.

Edited May 18, 2016 by KiwiArcader

[Sean697]

Very true. I also don't think missing a millimeter here and there affects anything. I think every scan helps.

[kitsunebi]

The problem is that scanning is so quick and easy compared to editing, so if I scanned everything first I'd have very little motivation to ever edit anything. By forcing myself to finish an edit before moving on to a new scan, it makes the scanning process seem like a reward of sorts.

I think Sean and I are the same in regards to editing gutters. If it's just blank space on the edge I'll crop it, but if it's some sort of image, I break out the clone stamp and make sure I preserve all that's there (and then some). I'll never come close to finishing everything I've got at that rate, of course, but I'm personally more interested in sharing a few finished products I can be proud of than in just getting everything I own online as fast as possible regardless of quality. I've sunk a lot of money into buying a scanner and purchasing magazines for the sole purpose of sharing them with others, not to mention the (far greater) cost of my time, without asking for anything in return. It isn't a job, and my free time is limited, so the rest of the world may never get to see most of the stuff I've got, but I don't really see how the rest of the world has any room to complain about it, either.

Of course, if I was convinced that there was actually a large pool of people out there hankering to spend all their waking hours doing top-quality edits of other peoples' raw scans I'd jump at the chance to throw up a bunch of scans and just sit back and wait for the completed edits to roll in. The verdict is still out on that one, but to say I'm skeptical would be putting it extremely mildly.

[marktrade]

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

That's very sensible but I'm too much a fan of double page spreads. I want the whole page edge on the chance that it can be edited together seamlessly. It doesn't happen all the time, but it does on occasion. I currently have a double page ad I edited together as my desktop background and I'm just so danged proud of it.

You make a point that's worth reflecting on again, though. Magazines aren't unified spaces. Every page has content that's lost in the gutter. Even fold-out pages have something lost in the creases and the uneven reflections of light that result from a grid of material folding this way and that way. Reading a magazine involves a lot of mental piecing together what it would probably look like if it weren't so cut and glued up. That's why I'm convinced that scanning is transformative. "Preservation" is just not a word that does justice to the amount of value we're adding, but is really an exceedingly humble shorthand for something else.

[Sean697]

Well I, sure the whole images existed somewhere originally on a computer disk or hardrive or an actual piece of art.But these magazine renditions may be all that is left of some of them.

[KiwiArcader]

Well I, sure the whole images existed somewhere originally on a computer disk or hardrive or an actual piece of art.But these magazine renditions may be all that is left of some of them.

If it's a 1980's magazine then that's a negative as those days were pre-Mac and Quark Xpress so they were generally typeset. Even the screenshots were generally someone photographing the monitor screen. The publishers, sometimes, kept copies that were unsold separate from back issues so that they could quote from if needed. But by and large the only copies left from the 1980's, certainly from publishers long gone like Argus Press, are those in peoples collections. Sad but true I am afraid.

[marktrade]

So almost to the day that I complained iOS didn't have color management, and that iOS Safari didn't support color profiles, a new version of iOS was released that did. If you've updated to iOS 9.3 and go back to the previous page this thread, you should be able to see a difference in those Tomb Raider images I posted.

This was never advertised and I didn't bother to verify it until now because I had already resolved to convert to sRGB. Apparently it was added because the new 9.7" iPad Pro display has a wider color gamut (DCI-P3, the standard for digital cinema projection) and fancy color features like automated white point adjustment based on ambient lighting. My new iPhone even automatically switches to a warmer color profile in the evening because some psychology studies show it helps people get to sleep better, probably because it more closely resembles natural colors at dusk and sunset.

Seriously though iOS 9.3 came out almost the second I complained about iOS not having color management.

[Phillyman]

Man I keep forgetting that I have to mail you those Dreamcast magazines

How many of the other two boxes are left to scan thru? I may have to eye up a few more international auctions to fill the box for shipment.

[marktrade]

I have the Sega Pro and CDi magazines you sent me de-stapled and laying flat under pressure to get the center crease out so they can be scanned more smoothly. There are maybe a dozen or so. There are also a few Amiga magazines yet.

I've been debinding and scanning a lot of the early issues of PLAY in the meantime. I will have about 20 issues from the first two years uploaded and unedited soon. The early issues are extremely hard to find.

[Sean697]

So almost to the day that I complained iOS didn't have color management, and that iOS Safari didn't support color profiles, a new version of iOS was released that did. If you've updated to iOS 9.3 and go back to the previous page this thread, you should be able to see a difference in those Tomb Raider images I posted.

This was never advertised and I didn't bother to verify it until now because I had already resolved to convert to sRGB. Apparently it was added because the new 9.7" iPad Pro display has a wider color gamut (DCI-P3, the standard for digital cinema projection) and fancy color features like automated white point adjustment based on ambient lighting. My new iPhone even automatically switches to a warmer color profile in the evening because some psychology studies show it helps people get to sleep better, probably because it more closely resembles natural colors at dusk and sunset.

Seriously though iOS 9.3 came out almost the second I complained about iOS not having color management.

Well your right I went back and looked at my original post on my iPad Pro and now looks different. How do you enable the Adobe 98 color profile on your scanner?

[marktrade]

Woo! I finally made a profile for my ADF. The targets I ordered from Germany arrived yesterday and, because they have a lower dmax than the one I was using before, my profiling software accepted the scan.

The first thing that jumped out at me about the profile is that it made everything brighter, as if the page was being viewed under very strong light. I suppose that's closer to what it would look like if you were Ant-Man stood behind the scanner glass and watch the page pass over the light. So after assigning the profile I lowered the brightness and raised the contrast by about 50 pts each to maintain what I consider a typical luminosity. Have a look.

Here is the raw color scan from before:

And here is the same image with brightness/contrast adjusted by -/+50 and assigned the calibrated profile:

If you're viewing this in a program that does not support color management, then the second picture will just look like the brightness and contrast were adjusted, but if your browser does support color management, then you should see some significant color differences.

It's not perfect and never will be. In the end this is just another option people have when viewing my scans. I even made a separate profile for the backside scanner as well.

The backside is always a little bit different from the front, but I'm concerned at just how different the backside profile is from the front profile. Also I'm concerning myself with how different profiles are when they're made with the same scan but with different software. I could end up making and sharing a lot of different profiles. I'll have to write a guide explaining what each one is. There are even programs that allow you make a profile from multiple scans, which I'll look into. But boy it sure is nicer having a profile than not having one.

Well your right I went back and looked at my original post on my iPad Pro and now looks different. How do you enable the Adobe 98 color profile on your scanner?

You can assign any color profile to any image using Photoshop by going to the Edit menu and selecting Assign Profile. This won't alter the image itself, just how it's displayed. But adding Adobe RGB is a really crude way of looking for results. It's preferable to make a custom profile for your scanner, which is what I did here. Edited June 1, 2016 by marktrade

[marktrade]

Hah! I just looked at the post above in Firefox and Chrome and they really don't like my profile. It looks almost completely whited out. I wonder why that is. If you're having trouble, try saving the image and opening it in an offline image viewer.

It looks great in Safari and iOS 9.3, honestly.

Edit: That's right, you have to enable color management in Firefox manually.

http://ntown.at/2013/12/28/firefox-color-management/

But I thought I already had it enabled? I guess one of the updates reset it to default or something.

Edited June 1, 2016 by marktrade

[marktrade]

Well, lately I've been scanning stapled magazines by removing the staples and scanning the entire uncut sheet, but I've been unsatisfied with the glare that appears near the gutter in some pages. I thought I could reduce this by laying the magazines out flat under presser to remove the crease or at least lessen its effect, and while I did have a measure of success, it wasn't that much. So I think I'll go back to just cutting the magazine straight down the center, unless it's one I really like in which case I'll destaple and cut the pages by hand with a razor. That's what I'm doing now with the remaining UK magazines I have. It's going to take hours.

The existing scans I've uploaded that contain some glare can be edited still. There are probably some out there who like it because it makes it more "magazine-like." Maybe?

Edited June 10, 2016 by marktrade

[Sean697]

I've had great success editing stapled mags. The black construction paper I uses flattens it pretty good. I slide it up to the edge of the scanner then apply slight pressure on the lid while scanning.

[marktrade]

I just finished slicing and scanning a bunch of magazines and am preparing them for upload. They're gonna look good!

[marktrade]

Most of the UK magazines are up now. There's a couple random ones left I set aside because they didn't fit with the rest. Will get to them eventually. Right now I'm working on de-binding about 60 issues of PLAY and PC Gamer to get them off my shelves and make room for all the other magazines I've been silly enough to buy. >_<

The PLAY issues are particularly troublesome because they once included posters and the original owners decided to best way to remove the posters was to slice into the pages with a knife, so many of the pages are not separating cleanly at the spine. I have multiple copies of several issues and will choose the best one but they're not easy to filter out before-hand because the cuts are in the gutter. Would be nice to find issues with posters but based on what I've seen from eBay this past year it's both rare and expensive.

[gwmac223]

I hope we get more PC oriented magazines

[marktrade]

I am sorry for the delay but I have been playing massive amounts of Pokémon Go and getting into better physical shape as well! Sitting around scanning and editing magazines is a lot of physical inactivity and that can take its toll.

I will do some work tonight.

[kitsunebi]

I feel like I'm missing a chromosome that allows me to understand Pokemon.  I haven't tried Go, but when I tried playing Pokemon Yellow, all I could see was a generic JRPG, albeit one with virtually no story.  On the one hand, I assume they must get better in later iterations, so perhaps I should have tried those instead, but on the other hand I remember what a phenomenal success the original games were (the IGN review gives Yellow a 10/10, calling it a "masterpiece"), so clearly even those early games have an appeal that I just can't see. 

[marktrade]

I've added thirteen more issues (2,500 pages) of PC Gamer for editing.

https://archive.org/details/UneditedPCGamer_marktrade

They were a real pain to scan because they had sooo many fold out pages. One of the reasons it took so long. I've got a big batch of PLAY coming up next.

[marktrade]

22 more issues (about 2,500 pages) of PLAY have been uploaded unedited.

https://archive.org/details/UneditedPLAY_marktrade

A few of them had posters that I will get to later but tbh you’re not missing much. I have yet to find a magazine poster that impressed me and thought was worth the trouble of scanning. Maybe I’ll take a photo. >_>

There is an issue with a couple of the back cover pages where the glue would catch on the scanner glass and result in a distortion in the lower portion of the page. This can’t be helped. I ran the pages through multiple times with the same results. The good news however is that the distortion is not that large and does not destroy any real information. A skilled person could correct it in Photoshop.

[marktrade]

Going to clean out my "back burner" folder, which is filled with scans I was going to edit but didn't because I started doing something else. Should take a couple weeks.

[aloram]

Awesome, always looking forward to your generous uploads.

[marktrade]

Issue 115 of the Japanese Sega Saturn Magazine is up on ADO in 300 DPI.

https://archive.org/details/SegaSaturnMagazine115Oct301998

This was on my back burner for over a year because I stopped editing it when I realized a lower quality version was already available on Sega Retro. Oh well. Here's a higher quality version of one issue.

[marktrade]

Currently experiencing problems uploading to Retromags. Here's a hi-res scan of Video Games and Computer Entertainment issue 27 from my ADO page for now.

 

https://archive.org/details/VGCE27Apr1991