On 2018-06-23 14:58:36 +0000, symm said:
> I was surprised you still disassemble with book scanner. I was hoping
> it was useful for glued spines, etc. that don't lend to non-destructive
> disassembly.
It's just less hassle for me. It's enough that I have to clone the
staple damage. Also, on aged paper, matching colors in recreating the
gutter can be tricky. I have done a few titles by creating a fresh
blank page and copying the content into it but, when I read it, the
fact that the empty spaces repeat rather than being random sticks out
to me.
>
> I had disassembled the comics with the previous scans on the Mustek A3
> scanner. It makes page order a bit on a pain since I'm scanning two
> pages at once. With the new scanner, I've tried scanning intact as the
> books were already in rough shape (ebay purchases instead of my
> personal collection) and not much further damaged by scanning intact
> (which makes page order a breeze).
>
> The color correction and page repair are roughly a wash for me as long
> scanner produces good images. I've had to recreate/repair the gutters
> on the folded pages using the intact scan method, but I've had a
> virtually no lift off the glass on the "new" scanner with this method
> which a problem I struggled with the previous scanner setup. I'm using
> one of our coffee table book collections as a weight and the scanner is
> built like tank.
>
> These latest books I've mainly left as scanned internally with just
> cover/ifc/ibc/back-cover cleanup/repair. I spend most of my time
> de-skewing, repairing the missing gutter from the folded pages. But
> it's not hard compared to the restorations and "upgrades" I've done in
> the past. It just sucks taking an hour or more to actually scan the
> book. I have to pre-scan, align/crop, and then S L O W L Y scan each
> page. If I get distracted and forget if it was a pre-scan or final
> scan, I end up skipping pages so multitasking is an issue.
>
> On a side note, I've vacillated over the years on how much page
> cleanup/color correction to use. And had a few discussions here with
> the regulars. I've even released multiple versions of some
> rare/favorite items. Auto color correction in apps like Chunky on the
> iPad have made this less of an issue as you can dynamically select the
> aggressiveness of the filter(s). Not that much help with bleed through
> but that's another issue I've struggled with how much to correct.
While I have two (aging) iPads, I do most of my reading on my iMac (the
mini's too small and the 2 is too old) and the idea of adjusting the
settings for each comic annoys me. I prefer to spend the time up front.
If the page colors look good, then I'll leave it alone. If the paper
color bothers me, then I'll use whatever methods work, and I'm always
looking for better and faster ways to do it. My ultimate goal would be
to recreate the comic as clean and bright as it looked on the day it
was published, figuring that's what the artists had in mind. Most times
that's not practical or even possible, of course.
I'm looking to create the best possible copy rather than an accurate
recreation of a flawed book. I think most would agree that if you have
two files, one a prefect recreation of a damaged and discolored comic
and the other a clean scan of a really nicely preserved copy, you would
prefer the latter. So why not shoot for that in the first place?
Still, everyone has his own preference and, as I've said many times, it
should be scanner's choice. And, as a corollary to that, once I've
downloaded someone else's scan, I'm free to do with it as I see fit (as
long as I note the changes somehow). I did some work on the
Ultra-Heroes volume, and I noted that in the file names by adding and
"e" (for edit) to it. I have also been using an "m" (for modified).
Even so, you can see how the quality of the scans varies, which I found
to be more jarring than I thought it would be. I considered creating
fresh and uniform pages, but that seemed like too much work for comics
that are so deeply flawed in the first place. Also, I had to leave
something for the folks at Archie to do for their potential digital
version :)
I did enjoy creating the cover.
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