Comic Cleaning

[Admiral Jim]

I happen to be an expert with Photoshop due to my career in the printing business. I love these old comics but am a little bothered by the poor printing standards used to produce them. I have been downloading some of these scans and polishing them up. I can fix out of register colors, clean up dirt and tears, and make it look as though it were printed by an art house.

My question is, would anyone like to see the results? Can I just add them to the original file? Or can I create a new place for altered scans?

I would have liked to include an example, but the insert image button doesn't seem to allow me.

[Yoc]

Hi Jim,
This is a tricky subject.  Some scanners out there would rather you not adjust the scans as they feel a book should be as close to 'as-is' as possible.  To share them as an museum artefact if you will.  While some others would say feel free to use the scans as you may.  I always suggest contacting the scanner if know here in a Private Message (the word balloon icon beside the envelope icon below their name) and see what they say.
If you see a book that says 'raw' in the title those are posted with the hopes someone might someday edit them so feel free to work on any of those.
Finally, when sharing your finished results please share them in the same section as the original and add (AJ edit) or (re-edit) to the file name.  And always give the original scanner full credit in the description section.  Adding what you did to the edit is always interesting to know as well.

Good luck with your project,
-Yoc

btw, if you hit Preview in your message you can show jpgs (please, keep them in the 800 pixel height range) by clicking on 'Additional options'.

[srca1941]

You can count me in both camps. Feel free to edit my books, just so long as the original scans remain. I leave mine unedited so that whoever uses them has a pristine copy to work with on whatever project they need them for.

-Eric

[Yoc]

Right.  DCM would NOT remove the original versions of any re-edits.

[tilliban]

As a scanner I like my scans the way they are.
And I like them a bit grubby, because they were printed that miserably.
Please do not alter them.
But anyone is invited to USE them and create special photoshopped versions THEY like.

Why not upload "cleaned-up" versions of books?

Ah, by the way, I keep files of RAW scans.
You can order them from me. My uploads are size-diminished and slightly photoshopped versions...

[Admiral Jim]

I agree with the policy of keeping raw original scans for historical reasons. When cleaning up I tend to remove numbers, dates, distributor tags, and anything else that clutters up the original art.

My first contribution will be a set of Wow Comics covers. I'll post a notice here after uploading. May be a while.

[churnworks]

Jim, I'm glad you posted your question! While I like the RAW scans and keep them in specific folders for "archival scans," I also like READING the comics, which in some cases is next to impossible. So put me in the camp of those who would like both RAW and "art house" versions. I don't have a bank of servers, but would happily provide a TB or more of space for storage!

[Yoc]

Sharing a set of covers only sounds like an interesting idea.
GL on this Jim.