The problem I personally have with color correction is that someone is making a choice of what they THINK the page should look like, as opposed to accurately depicting what the page DID look like when the book was new. Regardless of whether or not a choice in color correction is better or worse, the images would not accurately reflect how they looked when they were printed because a person is just guessing that they're getting close unless they have a Near-Mint copy right next to them for comparison (and odds are that with Golden Age books, that simply isn't happening).
Even IF everyone had the perfect copy to scan and refer to, bchat, we're still dealing with quality of the scanners involved. I have three scanners: an HP and two Epsons. I bought my first Epson, a 15000 with a 11½"x17½" scanning bed, and planned on retiring my HP 7400C, but then I found that the HP did a much better job of capturing high resolution line art that I was scanning at 1600 ppi. The HP was rated at 2400 ppi (optical resolution) while the Espon GT-15000 was only 600 x 1200 ppi optical - though it did interpolation up to 9600 x 9600 ppi. I discovered that the "interpolation" wasn't all it was cracked up to be and kept the HP up and running. It's since been replaced by an Epson V500 with native 6400 x 6400 optical. Works great.
But the lens quality, optical resolution and, it must be stated, the skills of the scanner all come into play in your "accurately reflect how they looked when they were printed" criteria. Add to that the individual skills in assessing how closely your monitor image reflects the comic, and how well calibrated your monitor is, etc. ad infinitum and it's nearly impossible to be anything BUT subjective about ANY scanned comics page. So having access to the raw scans with ZERO interference and "fixing" is, as you say below, the best alternative.
As far as I'm concerned, the less changes that someone makes to a scanned page, the better. If I don't like what I see, I can always change it myself to suit my tastes ... and that's what's really being talked about regarding color correction: personal taste. What someone else thinks looks excellent might look like garbage to me or someone else. So, as far as I'm concerned, take the guess-work out & focus on preserving the books as they are for future generations, allowing them the choice to "fix" whatever they want in any way they prefer.
When it comes to scanning pulps, I agree with Citaltris about leaving the page-color alone. If someone thinks that there is no value in the pages themselves, then why bother scanning them at all? Why not just type the stories into the computer and eliminate the risk of destroying the book altogether?
I know I'm a minority of one here, too, but as far as I am concerned, the text is all that has ANY value in a pulp page - with the exception of any illustrations (it goes without saying). YES, type the damn things into the computer or let The Gutenberg Project OCR them. I am seriously bemused as to why people are taken with page-color in comics, but when you bring pulps into the discussion, bemused becomes seriously bewildered. Sorry, but there is something about being attracted to the LOOK of old paper that I just don't GET. I didn't grow up with them nor did I collect them or read them as a kid, so any nostalgia I'd be "feeling" would be contrived and wishful thinking. I guess I'm too much of a pragmatic realist. If I wanted to read a story, why would I care what medium it first appeared in?
? I SO don't get it.
Peace, Jim (|:{>
