scan size

[JVJ (RIP)]

Help me out here, Citaltras,
I posted four scans labeled
#1
#ii
#C
#IV

To cut to the chase and bypass my Monty Python ianity, let's call the #1, 2, 3, and 4.

Am I right in considering your post to be:

#1 = maximum
#2 = minimum
#3 = medium
and (assumption here on my part)
#4 (no entry) being no sharpening

just checking?

Another question: why WOULDN'T you apply a sharpening in Photoshop? One small rotation in PS to straighten the page and you have resampled your scan and interfered with the sharpening done on the scanner. Change the dimensions/resolution of the scan and you've totally eliminated the "Sharp" portion of the sharpening. ANY resampling negates a large part of the effect of the scanner sharpening and introduces blurriness from extrapolation of pixels.

You have FAR more control of sharpening in Photoshop, with nearly infinite gradations and, I'm nearly positive, a much more sophisticated algorithm than you'll find in any scanning software. I see scanner sharpening as a "lowest common denominator" approach to the problem. It's also "lossy" in that you're letting the scanner software "decide" which pixels it's actually going to capture.

Granted, it's faster and requires less thought and involvement with the scans, and, like I've said before, I'm examining the task in the abstract not as a part of day to day workflow.

The clarity of the final jpeg that is inherent in the initial scan is all that is really important, IMHO. I guess I don't see a great value in comparing the raw files since it's the POTENTIAL for a great final product that matters.

I was positive that NO ONE was going to agree with my approach to color correction, and your comments are not unanticipated. I'll counter with two questions:

1. Did the pulp writers find any added value to their prose because it was printed on cheap paper? I think "the text" is all they really cared about. Current fascination with the "artifacts" of pulps has absolutely nothing to do with their content and everything to do with modern perceptions and nostalgic colored glasses.

2. You READ comics?
   In all serious, though, there has been an inordinate amount of money spent on trying to create a digital technology that emulates black ink on white paper and your statement that "A yellow background, like that of the original paper is more comfortable and less harmful for the eyes." sounds like a rationalization that flies in the face of BILLIONS of research dollars. I'm sure it reflects your personal opinion, but for me to categorically accept it as a fact would require a bit more reference to the science.

At this point I give in because I know that I'm a minority of ONE on this. The yellow is still in the faces, it just isn't as obvious, as you point out. But, then, it isn't so obvious on the printed comics either.

 FWIW.

(|:{>

[John C]

Two thoughts:

- I don't have any specific information, but it seems to me that the sharpening algorithm onboard the scanner IS probably of lower quality overall, but on the other hand, it may well be tuned to the quirks of the scanning hardware.  It'd be a waste of money, after all, to add software that didn't specifically redress the hardware flaws, and nobody hires programmers because we're so much fun.  (Actually, that's not entirely true, but that was a terrible place to work.)

[Sidenote, with the talk about rotating the scanned image, why are scanners still using those crawling motorized mechanisms?  Can't they just mount a good digital camera to the bottom to get instant and reliable scans?]

- I'm also in the "as-is is better" camp with scans.  Maybe I'm too much a post-modernist, but to me, the artifacts of the medium are just as important (or can be, at least) as the writing and art.  A fair amount of ideas in art, after all, come from overcoming the physical limitations.  As an example off the top of my head, would the Hulk have been green if Jack Kirby drew on a Wacom tablet or 1960s Marvel printed with modern technology?

But, then, I also own very old copies of many books that I can get in clean, modern paperback or (in many cases) download for free from Project Gutenberg.  Because on top of the aforementioned issues, I just like the physical products, probably much more than the art itself.

[JVJ (RIP)]

That's a great idea about the digital camera rather than a moving scan head, John,
but I think that the resolution would be limited. Getting a 6400 x 6400 ppi scan of an 1" x 1" original would require a 40 Megapixel array, but the notion would work perfectly for a 300 x 300 ppi 7" x 10" scan of a comic book page - an easy job for a 7 Mpixel camera.

You could be right about the scanner sharpening being tuned to the hardware, but I will also say that I doubt it. If you ask any graphics professional, they will tell you that scanner sharpening is ideal only for effects production and not for best quality work. i.e. if you are trying to get a specific "sharpened look" over a lot of scans and don't care to mess with the final scan.

To quote Richard Romano in "The Scanning Workshop" (and just about every other book/tutorial on scanning I've encountered) "It's generally a good idea, if you are ultimately going to be editing an image in an image editing application after scanning, to save all special effects, sharpening, and other such enhancements for that stage. As good as scanning software can be, it's still no substitute for the features and capabilities of a good image manipulation program."

Granted, that was back in 2001, but I'm pretty certain that the sharpening tools in Photoshop have outpaced the development of the "sharpen" button in CanonScan or EpsonScan or HP ScanPro. I could be wrong on this, but it's still what I think.

Your "Hulk" example was ill-chosen, as the character was originally gray and Kirby had little to do with the choice. Still, I understand and agree with your point that technology has its effect on creativity.

On the other hand, the price of a comic book is astronomically increased if there are NO defects and NO yellowing of the paper, so I think that most serious collectors (i.e. those with more dollars than sense) agree more with my values than with the "old is good" attitude that is being touted by most scanners.

I like the physical comics DESPITE their flaws. Primarily because I take in the full range of the medium with a glance and the whole page has its own impact upon the eye while the flow of the story asserts itself upon focus and examination. Literally, it's EASIER for me to assimilate the story in book form than it is on a computer screen. And I think that Kirby did a pretty decent job of "overcoming the physical limitations" of the medium and I GUARANTEE you that when I was reading FF #50 for the first time, after I bought in on the stands, I was NOT looking at the paper or the pulp pieces floating therein. I was, quite unconsciously I assure you, factoring them OUT of the experience and just looking at the art and the story and the words. To bring them to my attention in a scan is tantamount to assault and battery, IMHO.

Peace, JIm (|:{>

[Yoc]

Hi guys,
I'm very much enjoying this topic.
I hope other scanners will join in on it.
While not known for my scans my own opinion mostly mirrors John's but I certainly can see the logic is Jim's points as well.

-Yoc

[builderboy]

Yep, Yoc...I can see both sides of it.  I have done a little of my own artwork, though, and I am solidly with JVJ when he says that the artists who were creating the work were not in love with the medium.  By that I mean the inexpensive paper, the sometimes sloppy printhouse work, the difficulties in getting blacks to cover in overprint color areas.

They were in love with the final product, yes, but had you asked them if they wanted higher standards in printing, better quality paper, I can't imagine that they would have said anything but YES! YES! YES!  You see it today when publishers have sufficient market to go to a prestige format.

So, do I love a yellowed page of comic book? Yes, but not for the artifacts of age that were imposed on the final product because of industry condition.  Would I prefer to have the artists original art over the comic book page, with all its sharpness and no yellowing? Yessirree Bob.

[JVJ (RIP)]

So, do I love a yellowed page of comic book? Yes, but not for the artifacts of age that were imposed on the final product because of industry condition.  Would I prefer to have the artists original art over the comic book page, with all its sharpness and no yellowing? Yessirree Bob.

I can easily accept that someone LIKES one scanning style over another, bb.
That's a subjective preference. Sort of like someone saying "I like creamed corn" and someone else saying "I like corn on the cob." Okay. No prob. But to argue that creamed corn is somehow better or more preferable or more "right" than corn on the cob is hogwash.

No one in this or any other thread has really done much more than state a preference for tanned backgrounds on their scans, going to varying lengths to claim that's better, preferable and more "right" than eliminating the tanned paper background. Citaltras argues against the lack of yellow in the faces, so at least he's making an effort to be objective. I respect that. It's a little true, but the yellow has never been all that visible even in the comics and once you compress them into a jpeg/cbr file, it's even less noticeable.

Other than that, you say tomaytoes and I say tomahtoes. So what?

I'll reiterate and reinforce citaltras' admonition to make initial high res scans and to store and archive them for possible reuse when technology advances can better reproduce the pages. To my mind, that's all the more reason to make those scans as pure and unmanipulated as possible.

When you turn "sharpening" on in your scanning software, you are ceding control of the output pixels to the decision that some programmer made as a "best compromise" back when he/she wrote that software algorithm. Personally, I don't believe that anyone but me should make that decision and, even then, only on a copy of the scan. Give me ALL of my pixels as faithfully captured as possible and allow me to decide what to do with them.

Tha sall msayin.

Peace, Jim (|:{>

[John C]

That's a great idea about the digital camera rather than a moving scan head, John,
but I think that the resolution would be limited. Getting a 6400 x 6400 ppi scan of an 1" x 1" original would require a 40 Megapixel array, but the notion would work perfectly for a 300 x 300 ppi 7" x 10" scan of a comic book page - an easy job for a 7 Mpixel camera.

To clarify, I didn't mean taking the hundred-buck model from Best Buy and mounting it under glass (unless one is a do-it-yourselfer).  The optics stink and there are other serious flaws with the point-and-shoot gadgets.  I meant the high-end professional digital cameras, or at least their guts.  And if there aren't enough pixels, mount a few, right?

You could be right about the scanner sharpening being tuned to the hardware, but I will also say that I doubt it.

I agree with that, but the idea doesn't necessarily contradict my reasoning.  After all, you, the user, know what the page is supposed to look like better than the scanning bed does, and you're looking right at both.  At best, the shipped, automatic software can overcome systematic defects like lens aberrations on the fringes or an odd CCD configuration.

Your "Hulk" example was ill-chosen, as the character was originally gray and Kirby had little to do with the choice.

That's why I chose the example, actually  If Jack and Stan had developed the Hulk in the post-Baxter era, he'd have remained gray, because the gray would have printed correctly.  I think the character's profile would have suffered strongly had it not been for lousy color separation, in other words.

(Now that I think about it, I wonder if the Silver Streak's terrifying purple costume was intended to be, y'know, silver.)

I like the physical comics DESPITE their flaws. Primarily because I take in the full range of the medium with a glance and the whole page has its own impact upon the eye while the flow of the story asserts itself upon focus and examination.

And that's fine.  We definitely approach the medium from different angles, too, where you put a much stronger emphasis on the artists themselves and their art than I do.  So interruptions in that would presumably be more jarring.  Personally, I don't care what the artist "intended," except to the extent that he's carrying the narrative, so there's less interest for me in having the artist's vision translate as intended.

And to echo your comments, yes, this is all about preference and interest.  If the paper is extra-pulpy, it says something about the historical circumstances (of the company or the country as a whole) at that time, but detracts from the art.  So it's a matter of who the scan is "really" for, and so it's literally nothing more than opinion.

[bchat]

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).  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?

[citaltras]

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).  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 think Bchat's conclusion summarizes well the situation. All the points of view are valid as personal
preferences for the kind of correction to be presented in the screen (I know many people who prefer the
re-colored Marvel Masterworks editions better than the original comics).
Then the raw scan is the only format with the potential to fit every taste, since It can be corrected
later in each computer with Photoshop. Since some readers will not want or not be able to make the
corrections for themselves, the "raw" scan should be pre-processed  with a minimum set of "raw"
corrections: at least it should be sharp (from the scanner software or photoshop) and with only a bit of
yellow correction if too old.
   
JVJ: post-sharpening will not be needed if you start with the book properly placed in the scan bed,
the long-sides parallel to the long-sides, and you skip the rotation that breaks sharpening.
This  can be done with error less than 1 deg. In fact now I never rotate my scanned images.
I prefer to slightly bend the head.

I understand that the  digital technology you mentioned that emulates black ink on white paper
is the e-ink used in  ebook readers. I own one of these readers and the background is not white,
but GRAY.
 

[builderboy]

bchat,

I don't think that I am making arbitrary choices when making color corrections.  All I am doing is removing an age artifact of the paper.  I think I can confidently say that these books were not printed on yellow or pink stock, and yet that tonality is what has invaded the image over the years.  It is my opinion, and I understand and accept that you and citaltras don't see it this way, that to leave the image uncorrected is in effect not un-doing the modifications to the image that aging has induced.

It's just an opinion, and I don't imagine that I will sway you with the argument.  I just wanted to give you the basis of the position.

[builderboy]

p.s. - fascinating discussion on rotation and sharpening.  I wish my ability to struggle with getting the piece flat on the platen didn't leave me with disturbing degrees of angularity.  But a contributing factor is the fact that many print jobs leave the image askew on the page (I don't know if it was the guy printing or the guy cropping, but ONE of them screwed up).

I do not use software sharpening as I doesn't suit my eye.  I should compare a rotated vs. a non-rotated image side-by-side to see firsthand the loss of sharpness.

[Snard]

p.s. - fascinating discussion on rotation and sharpening.  I wish my ability to struggle with getting the piece flat on the platen didn't leave me with disturbing degrees of angularity.  But a contributing factor is the fact that many print jobs leave the image askew on the page (I don't know if it was the guy printing or the guy cropping, but ONE of them screwed up).

I do not use software sharpening as I doesn't suit my eye.  I should compare a rotated vs. a non-rotated image side-by-side to see firsthand the loss of sharpness.

My initial 2 cents: I find that if I scan at a higher resolution (i.e. 600 pixels/inch), I'm able to straighten (i.e. micro-rotate) the image without making it look "less sharp".

I realize that for some, the right & wrong ways of editing scans approach a religion, so I'm certain that in some peoples' eyes I'm clearly going to hell But anyway, just for reference, here is what I do for my golden age scans:

1. Do the raw scan at 600dpi, save the raw scan as an uncompressed TIFF. All sharpening/gamma correction/etc. is turned off in the scanner driver.
2. Straighten the image along a major vertical or horizontal feature in the artwork. This can be tricky when the page doesn't have any long horizontal/vertical lines, or if the left & right side aren't parallel. If the latter occurs, I go with the straight line that's closest to the edge of the paper.
3. Crop the image to preserve as much of the paper as possible, excluding the staple holes (did I mention that I usually remove the staples from my books before I scan them? HORRORS!)
4. If there are tears, small pieces missing, or other post-printing defects or defacing, I will try to fix/remove them (I won't go into how I do this because it would take another post or two
5. Depending on the paper/ink color, I will perform some adjustment of the color balance or levels, to make the book look "newer". This is highly subjective; the goal is for the book to "look right".
6. I also apply a slight unsharp mask (again, HORRORS!)
7. I resize the resulting page to 1280 wide, allowing the height to be whatever it needs to be to preserve the image's aspect ratio.
8. I save as a relatively high quality .jpg file.

Oh, and I also save my original unaltered TIFF files for posterity. So if someone doesn't like my scan, I can give them the DVD with the raw scans and say "go for it" (and yes, it takes an entire DVD to store the raw scans for one book!)

If you look at a recent scan/edit that I've done (i.e. Phantom Lady 17) you can see how my stuff has turned out. Actually, PL17 might not be the best example because of the pink paper; maybe look at one of my recent Police scans for another example.

This has probably been more information than anyone wants to know. I hope you enjoyed reading it at least half as much as I enjoyed typing it, in which case I enjoyed typing it twice as much as you enjoyed reading it

[JVJ (RIP)]

I think Bchat's conclusion summarizes well the situation. All the points of view are valid as personal
preferences for the kind of correction to be presented in the screen (I know many people who prefer the
re-colored Marvel Masterworks editions better than the original comics).
Then the raw scan is the only format with the potential to fit every taste, since It can be corrected
later in each computer with Photoshop. Since some readers will not want or not be able to make the
corrections for themselves, the "raw" scan should be pre-processed  with a minimum set of "raw"
corrections: at least it should be sharp (from the scanner software or photoshop) and with only a bit of
yellow correction if too old.
   
JVJ: post-sharpening will not be needed if you start with the book properly placed in the scan bed,
the long-sides parallel to the long-sides, and you skip the rotation that breaks sharpening.
This  can be done with error less than 1 deg. In fact now I never rotate my scanned images.
I prefer to slightly bend the head.

I understand that the  digital technology you mentioned that emulates black ink on white paper
is the e-ink used in  ebook readers. I own one of these readers and the background is not white,
but GRAY.
 

The only point I disagree with, citaltras, is:

"the 'raw' scan should be pre-processed  with a minimum set of "raw" corrections: at least it should be sharp (from the scanner software or photoshop) and with only a bit of yellow correction if too old."

I don't believe that the raw scan should have ANY pre-processing. Period! If it's possible to adjust the raw scan in Photoshop (or elsewhere), then give everyone access to the un-adjusted scan and let each person determine just how much sharpening and yellow correction they prefer.

Regarding straight scans: if every GA book was printed squarely on the page, you'd be right, but anyone who's scanned a couple dozen books will likely tell you that it simply doesn't happen that way. Having scanned a couple hundred stories, my experience is that you'd end up scanning every other page at least twice to avoid something that I don't see as a real problem. Yes, rotating a scan adds some blurring due to pixel extrapolation, but, If you scan at high enough resolution (300-400 ppi), then any blurring caused by straightening is easily overcome by post-scan sharpening.

Why do you believe that scanner sharpening is more appropriate than post Photoshop sharpening? I'd like to understand your reasoning, but I haven't seen the explanation yet. Here's my reason for opting for post-scan sharpening.

There's some edge-detection going on in both cases and some contrast adjustment at those edges, all of which is mitigated by and limited to the resolution of the scanner heads (native optics resolution, not extrapolated resolution) and the scanning resolution chosen. These limitations are present pre-/mid-/post-scanning. The only difference I can identify is that on the scanner bed the source material with its (theoretically) infinite edge resolution is available. However, I'm pretty certain that the scanner sharpening algorithm is applied to the captured scan - i.e. the scanner reads the edges of the source material and THEN detects and sharpens them. And I believe that Photoshop can do a better job of detecting and sharpening the captured scan than the scanning software. I would like to understand why you think the opposite.

And you're absolutely right that some e-paper/e-ink still has a grayish tint to the background. That's what the millions of research dollars are trying to overcome. I don't believe it's because they want gray, but because that's as far as the technology has come - and there are a half-dozen high-end labs searching for a better answer.

Fascinating thread, guys.

Peace, Jim (|:{>

[John C]

I understand that the  digital technology you mentioned that emulates black ink on white paper
is the e-ink used in  ebook readers. I own one of these readers and the background is not white,
but GRAY.

As Jim points out (thus forcing a rewrite on my part), the state of the art is gray, but the goal is not.

However, there's a not-so-subtle difference between e-paper (and real paper) and computer screens:  The contrast on screens is painful (though necessary), because the lighter parts are actively lit, whereas e-paper (and wood-pulp and similar technologies) diffuse reflective light.  That's why it's easy to spend hours or days reading a book or a magazine, but reading the same material off a monitor causes serious fatigue and burnout.

I wouldn't necessarily correlate scan de-papering with the research going into making better plastic paper, in other words, unless the scan's destination is a paper-like (not backlit) screen.

[JVJ (RIP)]

My initial 2 cents: I find that if I scan at a higher resolution (i.e. 600 pixels/inch), I'm able to straighten (i.e. micro-rotate) the image without making it look "less sharp".

I agree, Snard. This has been my experience, as well. And I think 600 ppi is a WONDERFUL and luxuriously generous choice. You need a fast scanner to make it the default of your workflow, though.

I realize that for some, the right & wrong ways of editing scans approach a religion, so I'm certain that in some peoples' eyes I'm clearly going to hell Smiley But anyway, just for reference, here is what I do for my golden age scans:

1. Do the raw scan at 600dpi, save the raw scan as an uncompressed TIFF. All sharpening/gamma correction/etc. is turned off in the scanner driver.

I generally scan at 400, but that's usually because that's what publishers ask me for. The scans I do end up in printed books from IDW, Fantagraphics, etc. and since I'm doing them to "order" I do what's asked of me. But I think 600 is a great default. I save my raw files as .psd, which are Photoshop's native format and equivalent to a layered .tiff file.

2. Straighten the image along a major vertical or horizontal feature in the artwork. This can be tricky when the page doesn't have any long horizontal/vertical lines, or if the left & right side aren't parallel. If the latter occurs, I go with the straight line that's closest to the edge of the paper.

The [Filter][Distort][Lens Correction] (now just [Filter][Lens Correction] in CS5) is an easy straightening tool in PS. Draw a line along a mostly horizontal or mostly vertical feature and it makes that axis horizontal or vertical. There will be some extrapolation and consequent blurring, but at 400-600 ppi resolution, I think it's negligible.

3. Crop the image to preserve as much of the paper as possible, excluding the staple holes (did I mention that I usually remove the staples from my books before I scan them? HORRORS!)
4. If there are tears, small pieces missing, or other post-printing defects or defacing, I will try to fix/remove them (I won't go into how I do this because it would take another post or two Smiley

Even though I'm working on a copy of the raw file, I always do all my corrections on a separate layer.

5. Depending on the paper/ink color, I will perform some adjustment of the color balance or levels, to make the book look "newer". This is highly subjective; the goal is for the book to "look right".

Here, again, all my adjustments are done on Photoshop's Adjustment Layers for the ultimate in reversibility and flexibility.

6. I also apply a slight unsharp mask (again, HORRORS!)

I don't use this step in my workflow. Since this actual version of the file isn't going to be used AS IS anywhere, I don't see the need to sharpen it.

7. I re size the resulting page to 1280 wide, allowing the height to be whatever it needs to be to preserve the image's aspect ratio.

This is where I would apply an unsharp mask. When resizing the scan you introduce extrapolation "blurring" similar to that from straightening, and since THIS is the image you're going to use to make the jpeg, it's where I would want to add the sharpening. That said, in PS CS3 and higher, you can turn all of steps 1-6 into a "Smart Object" and then re-size in step 7 and add the sharpening as a "Smart Filter" all non-destructively - without permanently changing a single pixel of the original. That's what I do.

8. I save as a relatively high quality .jpg file.

Oh, and I also save my original unaltered TIFF files for posterity. So if someone doesn't like my scan, I can give them the DVD with the raw scans and say "go for it" (and yes, it takes an entire DVD to store the raw scans for one book!)

I always save that raw file and my "corrected" file as well, which is actually a second copy, UNCHANGED, of the raw scan, with all kinds of PS layers and adjustments and stuff stacked on top of it. Takes up space, to be sure, but storage is SO cheap these days.

If you look at a recent scan/edit that I've done (i.e. Phantom Lady 17) you can see how my stuff has turned out. Actually, PL17 might not be the best example because of the pink paper; maybe look at one of my recent Police scans for another example.

This has probably been more information than anyone wants to know. I hope you enjoyed reading it at least half as much as I enjoyed typing it, in which case I enjoyed typing it twice as much as you enjoyed reading it Smiley

No, it's exactly enough information, Snard. I believe that the more specific you can get in describing your workflow, the more value it will have (as either a good or bad example - depending on how much the reader agrees with your scanning "philosophy") to the other scanners on the site. Thanks for sharing.

Peace, Jim (|:{>