Sean697 work in progress?

[Sean697]

So I decided to help get our EGM collection complete, I acquired a lot of stuff and sent a lot to E-Day. But I am going to try and scan some of this stuff myself. And try my hand at editing. I purchased a Canon LiDE 220 scanner. It doesn't have a huge bed. But big enough for magazines.mbut it outputs excellent color and is fast. Uses LED lamp so no warmup times.

My first issue I'm scanning is EGM 07 the Top Score issue with the codes. I've completed scanning. Now on to editing. I've messed around a it and found straightening and cropping to be pretty fast. And the clone stamp has been working well for fixing blemishes. The colors came out so good I'm not sure if I'll have to color correct much if at all. I'll probrably go through and crop and fix blemishes and straighten first. Then I'll post some images here to get some opinions on color correction options and contrast adjustments before app,using them. Any advice on photoshop corrections would be appreciated ahead of time to get me started. Or just wait till I post some screenshots and give me some feed back.

I'm scanning in 500 dpi because it's fairly quick with this scanner. When I'm done editing I plan to resize the images to 1600 pixels wide. Is this still a good standard to use. Should I do more or less. Files sizes maybe could get bigger with the times. But let me know what the site still reccomend and I'll go with that.

[Leathco]

Looking forward to some new EGMs! Love getting the holes in the collection filled and reading them.

[RetroDefense]

Thanks for joining the scanning ranks here at RetroMags, Sean697!

I'm relatively new to actual preservation work myself, but in answer to your questions, I would scan at the best possible resolution in a lossless format, then resize, convert and compress to something suitable for today's displays. But as E-Day discussed at some point, if you have the storage capacity, you may want to save your original scans for future re-archiving. 1600 is the (unofficial?) standard today but this may change as display tech improves.

As for blemishes, my personal policy is to correct anything introduced by the scanning process but otherwise retain the original page. Doing so, the preserved magazine feels more like a magazine to me. So I'll correct for dust, lines, spine or staple removal, color - along with cropping and straightening, of course. But if some blemish already existed - either through the printing process or general wear from use - I'll usually maintain it.

[Sean697]

I've been correcting some of the mistakes in the actual print like ink splatters and stuff. Only because the sites editing guide recommended it. I may change that with later scans. Some of the stuff is like obvious dust particles fr the originals famine scans. Others like a page has a yellow streak from the printing process I removed that at have only been on a small run of issues.

[Sean697]

Ok I was messing around with some levels stuff. And adjusting things myself. I took two images from my scan and the first one is default from scanner. Second is using levels to get a nice image by sampling black and white and adjusting the midtones. 3rd is me just adjusting the hue brightness and contrast. Let me know what you think looks best. Option 1: No corrections Option 2: Levels only Option 3: custom manual adjustments. Also let me know if I should be doing something else or applying another filter.

Image 1: The two non color corrected pages.

Image 2: Level adjustments only

Image 3: Custom adjustments

Personally I prefer the level adjustments in 2. I would be happy just publishing it with the simple level adjustment and nothing else. But Id like some opinions before I apply the adjustment layer to all the pages and submit this.

[E-Day]

I tend to agree with you though three is also good. Your call

[RetroDefense]

They all look good but I like options 1 and 2 the best.

[Sean697]

Ok so I finalize all the pages by applying the leveling settings in 2. But doing a finally quality check, I wasn't really happy with it. Some of the pages lost all the detail in dark scenes. So I read some more tutorials, redid my leveling, changed my absolute RGB values from 0-255 to 10-245. Adjusted the levels, and set the mid tone slider to about .85 instead of .68. Now it looks much better and not as dark and testing the details are not washed out in a lot of the dark advertisements. Have to go through and apply my image settings again and make new Jpegs. Should be fast. It's all macroed. And then we'll see how it turns out. Possibly may release this today. I still need to know where to post to get it uploaded to the site.

[Sean697]

Egm issue seven is now available. Ill make a post right after this. But on the upload file form, is there a way to link the gallery picture instead of uploading a new one? Also on the database page I put the link to the download page. But I don't know how to add the official download button graphic. Anyway could somebody check out I did everything correctly. And enjoy the issue. Its mostly just codes but the ads are interesting. I haven't decided what I'm doing next. But for sure it will be another early EGM.

Database Entry!

Download Directly!

[Sean697]

Ok Im actually waiting on EGM 8,9 in the mail. Until then I'll start on EGM 11. Im debinding this (Staples only. To see if I can get better scans and go faster. We'll see how hard it is to rebind later. IF not no big loss.

[RetroDefense]

I'm glad to see these early EGM preserved - thanks for all the scan work, Sean697!

[Sean697]

Man one thing I noticed, All the page cutting on these old mags are horribly crooked. It makes getting a standardized cropping size pretty much impossible. Requiring a lot of use of the clone stamp to fill in straight edges after rotating. Even some of the layouts are are just done really crooked. Like you have to decide which element you want to straiten because they all can't be perfect. Is this typical of all magazines? It's not a huge deal cropping stuff off on bordered pages. But I really hate have to do that with artwork so I spend way to much time aganozing where to crop to get the most image and be able to fill in with the clone stamp without changing anything. Debinding definetly helps get more of the image in situations like this. The EGM 7 I did not debind and just weighted it down while scanning.

[RetroDefense]

I think the difficulties with straightening pages - using page elements to gauge what is and isn't straight - is a more prominent problem with older magazines. I wouldn't be surprised if some literal cutting and pasting was going on when these magazines were originally created.

And I've struggled with crop vs. straight myself. Sometimes to the point where I'll rescan a page. And if that won't solve the problem, I'll err on the side of straight unless the crop will seriously hurt the actual content of the page. I'm not as strict with advertisements (which often have no real margin to play with).

[Sean697]

Well I've been getting older issues coming in. I got issues 68 and 71 in the mail today. But I thought I'd share this. The seller golfinelle on eBay offered free shipping on these issues. And it was first class shipping. The seller marked the issues shipped first class and provided a tracking number. Well it took 20 days to get here because they sent them both together via media mail. (Which is technically against post office rules,)

The package was damaged and issue 68 was a total loss. Issue 71 was shielded and was fine.

The magazines were not wrapped in anything to protect them in the envelope except a piece of cardboard behind issue 71 that saved it.

I'm asking for a refund based on item received damaged. I think I'm pretty justified as it was bad packing and they lied and shipped it the most economy shipping possible. Plus it took 20 days. The first 20 pages or so are shredded but after that, it's pretty good. Am I justified in asking for a refund? The seller has a no refund policy, but you can always ask for a refund if item not as described, as this is far from it.

[Sean697]

Anyway as far as what is upcoming. After I'm done editing issue 11, between what I sent to eday and what I have we will be getting scans for every missing EGM at least through issue 100. Plus the entire year of 2000. With the exception of issue 68,69, 10 that I have yet to aquire. After issue 11 I'll probrably do issue 8,9,13,19. Unless I aquire EGM 10 I'll throw that in.

[Areala]

Well I've been getting older issues coming in. I got issues 68 and 71 in the mail today. But I thought I'd share this. The seller golfinelle on eBay offered free shipping on these issues. And it was first class shipping. The seller marked the issues shipped first class and provided a tracking number. Well it took 20 days to get here because they sent them both together via media mail. (Which is technically against post office rules,)

The package was damaged and issue 68 was a total loss. Issue 71 was shielded and was fine.

The magazines were not wrapped in anything to protect them in the envelope except a piece of cardboard behind issue 71 that saved it.

I'm asking for a refund based on item received damaged. I think I'm pretty justified as it was bad packing and they lied and shipped it the most economy shipping possible. Plus it took 20 days. The first 20 pages or so are shredded but after that, it's pretty good. Am I justified in asking for a refund? The seller has a no refund policy, but you can always ask for a refund if item not as described, as this is far from it.

If they promised to ship first-class and shipped Media Mail, that's a violation of eBay terms of service. The items you received were not in the condition stated in the auction, that's a violation of eBay terms of service. You're due for a refund, bottom line.

*huggles*

Areala

[RetroDefense]

Areala's right. And even if the magazines didn't cost much, I'd be inclined to file a complaint on principle alone. Ebay will probably ask you resolve the issue with the seller directly, though. Which is why many sellers get by with this kind of thing - other buyers never see the damage done.

Coincidentally, I purchased a magazine from this seller back in March. I can't recall exactly how it was shipped (media or whatever) but I do remember not being impressed with the packaging. I did leave positive feedback as it arrived intact & in relatively good shape but this was just as likely by chance than effort.

I'm actually selling some items on Ebay at the moment - figured it was time to get rid of my video game box & docs collection. I go out of my way to properly package everything - the idea of something arriving damaged is almost sickening to me. Seriously - I get crazy anxious about shipping sometimes.

[Sean697]

Ya it was shoddy. Two mags shoved naked against each other against a piece of carboard. The one on the carboard side was OK.

Incidentally I received two mags yesterday from Billmarioman. He's selling off all his mags right now. I got the August 89 Top score and the EGM 65 in damn near mint condition. Seriously they both looked like they never even saw the newsstand and have all inserts, trading cards etc. And his packaging was phenomenal. I'm not buying anymore from him because he doesn't do Hawaii shipping. But great seller.

[twiztor]

definitely get a refund, or at least a partial one. it is 100% the seller's fault that the mags were not packaged properly to protect against damage. also, 20 days? come on.

[Sean697]

Uploaded EGM number 11. Ought to mention that the cover gallery names for the EGM's are one month off from the database names. So the gallery image for EGM 11 is listed as July 1990. While the database lists it as June 1990. I went with the database and renamed all my files to June 1990. Which can be found here.

Database Entry!

Download Directly!

Also I updated my EGM 7 to have a fixed height of 2100 instead of fixed width of 1600. So if anyone wants a constant height version who already downloaded it, its available on the download page.

My next scan will be EGM 8.

[parallaxscroll]

Wow, nice! EGM issue 11, and especially issue 8, are rare.

I'd also be looking forward to EGM #9 and #10 if you have them to scan.

[Sean697]

Wow, nice! EGM issue 11, and especially issue 8, are rare.

I'd also be looking forward to EGM #9 and #10 if you have them to scan.

Still looking for #10. And issue 68 and 69. If you want an idea what is upcoming check the EGM database. All the issues marked acquired should be on deck. I'm going roughly in release order for the ones I have.

[E-Day]

I am hoping there is a way to fix the gallery names with a script rather than manually. l'd hate to fix them all manually again.

[parallaxscroll]

Still looking for #10. And issue 68 and 69. If you want an idea what is upcoming check the EGM database. All the issues marked acquired should be on deck. I'm going roughly in release order for the ones I have.

Thanks Sean, I see that now, what has been acquired and what's being scanned. Best of luck finding those three issues.

Also guys, I'm still looking out for Mega Play issue 2 - January/February 1991.

The last page of that magazine has some screenshots of upcoming MD games, some of which are the arcade versions. I managed to find a low res picture of it:

Would be delighted to have a high resolution scan of that.

[VGBounceHouse]

Still looking for #10. And issue 68 and 69. If you want an idea what is upcoming check the EGM database. All the issues marked acquired should be on deck. I'm going roughly in release order for the ones I have.

I own both 68 and 69, they weren't high on my scan list (trying to do all the first console war mags pre-1985 first) but I can always bump them up.