Best way to Scan

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Posted By: BlackSoxFan

I'm not sure if i'm asking or making a suggestion, but a few people have talked to me about how to scan items properly.. many scanners don't do a good job if you shove an item into the corner...as a result, if you don't have a boundry...you will end up "trimming the card" in the scan. I know a lot of people don't care and that's certainly understandable..but my suggestion for all cards is to get a thin flat object (for me it's the back of a SlimJewel cd case)... use that as the top edge and just line the card up that way...of course when it's in a slab it's a bit easier to scan properly... just my two cents..if you guys have any thoughts ... throw em out there. I myself am a stickler for straight scans.

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Posted By: Julie Vognar

About 4 months old, and I'm used to it. Likes stuff in a corner (and upside-down OF COURSE!). You can choose the amount of contrast, size, resolution, color--but once you've scanned something--it hates to be changed! Even moved to a different folder or category--starts getting all liney and stuff. You really have to start again from scratch if you want a changed scan...

It scans equally well naked things, things in Mylar or holdered things. I taped the inside of a black notebook cover to the inside of the top to give everything a black background.

On the whole, I recommend it highly--between 100 and 150 dollars.

Of course, every new scanner is the scanner from hell till you get used to it....

If I had one complaint, it would be that it tends to hide some faults--creases, wrinkles. But does not hide specks, blobs, something that got on the scanning surface by mistake, etc.



This T3 Speaker, for instance-well, you can see it's off center (very rare in T3s), and the color is faithful to the glorious color of the card. But the card has 3-4 fairly heavy creases in it--one runs down from the top through the shoulder behind his head! Others also invade the picture. I should try making a great big scan, and see if they're visable then--also might show the great, idiosyncratic surface of a T3...

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Posted By: steve yawitz

I'm the same way. I actually like taking the time to get my scans just right, no matter if it's something I'm selling or if it's something I just want to show off. I can't believe how many big-time cards I see on eBay or wherever with images that are pitifully small or of poor quality.

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Posted By: DSGreen

I was wondering which dpi is best to scan a card to get enough detail? Also, I have seen some people that crop out the holder of a graded, leaving only the card to be displayed. Is this preferred? I usually size down my scans but have a large, high resolution LCD and I am not sure at which percentage to size down the scans to make them easy for everyone to use. What percentage do most use to size the scans down? Thanks for any suggestions.

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Posted By: Josh K.

I have found that 150 dpi is a happy medium. Big enough to show most creases and wrinkles but no so big that ebay wont accept the file.

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Posted By: BlackSoxFan

When scanning for looking at on your computer screen... you only need to worry with pixel dimensions. Most computer monitors displays 96 pixels per inch. For sake sake of ease round this off to 100 ppi. So, if you want an image to appear approximately 1 1/2 by 2 inches on a web page, scan it at 150 by 200 pixels.

Each interface is slightly different, but they all have a resolution setting you can adjust. Either ppi or dpi. Set the resolution to 96 or 100 and set the dimension units to pixels. Then you can adjust the size percentage values to get the image to the desired pixel dimensions. Just make sure the values you take into consideration are the output pixel dimensions.


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Posted By: Julie Vognar

quality of the card. If it's crudely printed, you can scan it at 72 (or even 50) per inch, but enlarge the scan. That way you have a nice, tight picture, and the requisite size as well. A poorly-printed card will tend to go all tweedy, or appear to have evenly-spaced holes in the scan, if you do too many pixels per with it...

Don't use just ONE resolution, or size, for all your scans; all your cards and photos aren't alike, are they?

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Posted By: BlackSoxFan

Perhaps i should elaborate...i was not saying that 72 dpi is the only resolution that will display and the only factor to consider. Sorry i'm running on fumes so I will try and elaborate a little more and hopefully rectify my errors.

DPI number (the scaled printing resolution stored in the image file) simply does not matter on the screen...you can have 4 images taht are all 100x100, these images below can all have different dpis (say 1, 10, 100, 1000). If you print them you are going to have 4 very different pictures. The dpi numbers act as an instruction to the printer how to print them. (how to space the pixels adn how large to print the image)

To test.... get an image and keep everything the same except the dpi, look and compare and i'll bet you'll have a hard time telling them apart on your screen. Remember that while an image might display at 100x100, depending on the dpi..it can print at 100 inches by 100inches or 1 inch by 1 inch.

There is no concept of dpi on ANY video screen. 72 dpi is a false notion. That makes it worse than if it were just useless, because it is counter-productive, both to results and to understanding how it really works. There is no concept of dpi in the video system. There are only pixels. (we're talking about 72 dpi relative to screen display not printing).

So you have 4 identical 100x100pixel images. Lets say you started with a 35mm negative scanned at 1408 dpi. Cut it by quarter: 1408/4 = 352 dpi size now (scanning 0.92 inches film width at 352 dpi would also give 324 image pixel height). The 1, 10, 100, 1000 dpi values here are very true, honest and legitimate in every way possible.

If you save all 4 of these images, and then look at them with adobe or whatever you use, and look at them carefully. You will probably notice they have different dpi's. he three images are identical size on the video screen (all are 412x324 pixels - dpi is ignored on the screen). But the four files are indeed all very different now when printed on paper, at least when you print them one at a time. Dpi is for printing on paper. The images are obviously the same size on the screen , but the images are indeed scaled to 1 dpi, 10 dpi, 100 dpi, and 1000 dpi, and the image properties definitely will show different print sizes. This dpi applies only to paper, or wherever inches might exist. DPI DOES NOT APPLY TO VIDEO SCREENS. The three images will obviously print at those inch sizes on paper (ps...we're talking about printing from a photo suite NOT YOUR WEBSITE - I will be happy to talk about this when I actually have time!) Oh yeah, and unless you have billboard printing, don't print the big boy! lol.

Pinter drivers definitely do use dpi - dpi is all important to printers because printers print on paper, and paper is dimensioned in inches. But video systems know no concept of dpi at all, nor any concept of inches either. Video systems simply show the number of pixels pixel for pixel. Any dpi value is always ignored on the screen, regardless what value it is. Dpi is simply not defined in the video system. PERIOD!

If you understand this much - that any image will always be displayed on the video screen only according to its size in pixels - then you've got it right. But if 72 dpi is still of any interest, i'll explain some more.

For the video screen, and therefore obviously for web pages too, simply scan images at whatever resolution necessary to get the image size desired (pixels) from the area size of the original being scanned. This is very easily computed. The size of the image in pixels is all that matters on any video screen.

If you take an image from 35 mm film and the size of 35 mm film (36x24 mm, about 1.4x0.92 inches) is scanned at 72 dpi,you're going to get an image size of (1.4 inches x 72 dpi) x (0.92 inches x 72 dpi), which is about 100x66 pixels. Any 72 dpi scan of 35 mm film is not likely very useful, this is too small for most purposes, only thumbnail size. 72 dpi is simply not applicable. It just doesn't matter what the resolution was as long as it created the desired number of image pixels.

The display doesn't even look at the image dpi number when displaying the image on the screen. Screens only know about pixels. People in the chat room were mentioning this to me about my site taking too long to load..and i told them i just hadn't edited them properly. They kept telling me to knock down the dpi! People will say "Your pictures have to be 500 dpi, they can't be 50!) THAT is my point too. Remember, i'm not talking about printing here. All the images will appear 100x100 same appearance on your screen, on my screen, on any screen, including your browser or your photo editiing program. And this is the point; it shows that video systems simply do not use image dpi.

The difference in video screens and printers is that paper is dimensioned in inches, and printers do use dpi, and these images will all print on paper at very different sizes (printed from a photo editor NOT A WEBPAGE). Dpi is for printing, and your printer definitely will honor printing resolution to print individual images, and will print these individually at the sizes shown above (except your printer probably cannot handle the big one). But screens only show pixels.

I hope that makes sense, i have used up most of my free time, off to the bank in a few moments to set up the bank accounts for Collectibles for a Cause, Inc.

Ted

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Posted By: Judge Dred (Fred)

I usually try to go hi resolution (200 dpi) then I crop and reduce the graphic with a utility (without any enhancement or change to the image). WHen I crop the image I only remove excess "space" that isn't part of the card.

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Posted By: BlackSoxFan

Ps... to further my point, I don't really know much about photography ... i know a little bit b/c of my minor in film...but i am a computer nerd not a photography nerd... although i did teach Cycleback all he knows! LOL Just kidding. DPI DOESN'T MEAN ANYTHING WHEN YOU ARE TALKING ABOUT WEB!!!!

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Posted By: Josh K.

so lets see, are you saying if you want a smaller picture decrease the DPI?

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Posted By: Alan

From a technical standpoint, how does Mark create this ???? - you click on the little scan to get a huge scan (BTW - Mark, I love it)

http://www.rustywilly.com/MYCOLLECTION.htm

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Posted By: BlackSoxFan

It's by telling his browser to display the image in a smaller pixel size or... it's a "thumbnail" which is a picture that is smaller in dimensions that links to a picture in larger dimensions. That's the way i do it on my site.

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Posted By: Dave

I scanned all my cards at 2x size and 200 dpi - which is 400 dpi at 1x. A typical T206 is about 500 kB, so the whole set is about 1/4 GB, which is nothing on todays hard drives. I found creases I never knew I had.

I find that I'll get dot patterns often on these, and changing the view size will change these a lot. That's due to the pixel size on my screen interacting with the resolution of the scan.

When I post here, I'll open the picture and resize to actual, or a little smaller, and save to an upload spot.

Here's an example of the 2x - it's only a portion of a card due to its size.

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Posted By: DSGreen

Ted, I read and re-read your posts but when I increase the dpi in software and view the image scanned, it is larger in size on screen than an image scanned at a lower dpi.

The process I go through to scan an image, as I use a Mac, is to use Image Capture to scan the image at 150dpi. I then crop the image and resize at 85% of the original scan. Here is my only example:



Is this a decent scan or should I be doing something different? Thanks.

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Posted By: Julie Vognar

Are you saying these two pairs of pictures each has the same number of pixels?

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Posted By: BlackSoxFan

Okay guys...same card...two scans ... one at 50 and one at 150 dpi... file sizes are both the exact same...you tell me which one is better... (answer: neither)





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Posted By: BlackSoxFan

Senor Green -
What you need to do is a couple of things, look at the image size (the pixels) not the dpi. Also, you might be zoomed in on one image and not on the other. Hope that helps

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Posted By: DSGreen

The pixel count in the image I posted is 425x679. I don't quite understand your statement about zoom. How many pixels do you think it should be? Do you believe that image is bad? The only choice I have prior to the initial scan in software is a choice of dpi. I can then crop the portion of the image that is scanned and resize in terms of pixels, inches, or cm. I think Julie's scans look great. Sorry to keep coming back to this. I would just like to get good scans for others that view my cards.

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Posted By: BlackSoxFan

What program are you using? Many scanning packages only allow you to choose dpi...that is fine...once you've scanned the item you can change the pixels and dpi to what ever you want...... but for the purposes of display the only thing that will matter when you first scan an item is the dimensions.... i appologize if i'm doing a poor job of explaining .... i try and have all of my large images display somewhere between 500 and 600 pixels in width/ height depends on the image itself.....

500 width


600 width


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Posted By: BlackSoxFan

Also...for you guys using save for the web...understand it isn't changing the dpi.... it is changing the amount of data in the file.... there is a difference....


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Posted By: Julie Vognar

and the size. I can scan the image larger or smaller than it actually is. I can choose the number of pixels per inch (or centemeter).

Anything you can do, I can do..well, depends if you like photos, I guess.


O.K, O.K, so the T4 is only a fancy computer reproduction..it's Mark M's. There're only about 3 of them...notice that the photo inside the folder has been trimmed (and laid outside the folder), to show that the card is, er, defective...huh, I should own such defectiveness! Also the writing on the photo was added by an earelier owner.

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Posted By: steve yawitz

I have hp Scanjet 3500c but use Microsoft Digital Image Pro instead of the HP imaging software. I scan at 200 dpi then cut and paste the back of the card next to the front. I like to crop out the holders, then resize to a height of 450 or so. When saving, I'll set the quality level at 90-95 percent. I end up with something like this:



On blank back sets or sets on which all backs are the same, I don't often include the reverse:



And larger cards get sized at a height of 500 or so:

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Posted By: DSGreen

Well, I have tried to alter the scans the best I can but I can't get anything close to some of those I see on the boards. I have given up as the best overall scan it seems I can get is much like the one I posted above. Perhaps it is just the scanner, as it is a few years old and an all-in-one. Thanks so much for all the assistance provided and I may just need to mail all of the my cards to Julie for her to scan.

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Posted By: BlackSoxFan

What scanner are you using and what program are you using?

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Posted By: Dave

I use an HP 3970 ScanJet, which isn't still a current model. It has been replaced by the HP 4370. I paid $99 for it at Best Buy, I don't think it was on sale. I use its bundled software to take the scans (2x, 200 dpi).

I use Microsof Picture It Photo as an editing program. It is really limited when compared to something like Photo Shop, but it is pretty easy to learn. When it comes to cards, I don't want to touch-up or enhance any of the colors, so I'm just changing size and compression on the file.

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Posted By: DSGreen

I am using an Epson CX3200 all-in-one. The software that I have used is Image Capture, Preview, and the bundled Epson Scan application. These are all Mac apps.

Now, I have done something that I didn't want to do, but I pulled that same image into iPhoto and slightly adjusted the brightness, saturation, and sharpness. It does look much better and close to the actual image of the card but I just feel bad. I never wanted to have to adjust the image.

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Posted By: BlackSoxFan

There's the answer.... epson makes the best scanner products..but you have a pretty weak scanner in that all in one. Here are your specs:

Scanner Area 8.5" x 11.7"
Optical Resolution 600 dpi
Hardware Resolution 600 x 1200 dpi
Interpolated Resolution Up to 9600 dpi enhanced
Color Depth 48 bit color

I use a 4180, it's a dedicated scanner and while it doesn't have all the bells and whistles oh a high end model...but since i don't scan anything but my cards and a few documents...it's pretty damn good.

Optical Resolution 4800 dpi
Hardware Resolution 4800 x 9600 dpi with Micro Step Drive™ technology
Maximum Resolution 12,800 x 12,800 dpi with software interpolation
Effective Pixels 40,800 x 56,160 (4800 dpi)

The dpi resolution mentioned on these DOES make a difference....

All-in-one's are very nice for saving space but unless you drop serious coin on them you're gonna have a hard time getting one that is top flight in all functions.

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Posted By: DSGreen

Thanks again Ted. I knew the all-in-one is pretty much bottom of the line. Finally, I am getting scans I am satisfied with, even with I need to adjust them to compensate for the shortcomings of my scanner.
At least, after your explanation, I can stop all of this experimenting. Really appreciate the assistance.

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Posted By: Robert

Black Sox Fan,

Hate to say it but when you are scanning to post on the people the only thing anybody can see on their display is 72 DPI. By trying to upload an image in higher res will usaully increase the size. I scan everything in 300 and then convert it to 72 in photoshop. Offset printers use 300 DPI

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Posted By: BlackSoxFan

Robert - Hate to burst your bubble, but perhaps you should read my previous statements.... his issue isn't with posting, it's with the quality of the scan in the first place.

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Posted By: BlackSoxFan

per your request

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Posted By: BlackSoxFan

bumping for someone to read! Email me if you have any ?'s


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Posted By: quan

i thought it was just the crappy canon lide, i dumped that and bought the epson 3in1...and the scans are still blurry, especially on the thicker-slabbed SGCs. Do I have to change some default setting?

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Posted By: BlackSoxFan

Which model are you using and what software are you using to scan.
most multi-function units are pretty horrible. You often time have to spend an extraordinary amount of money on one just to get it to be decent in all aspects.

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Posted By: Josh K.

My epson perfection scans sgc's great - for only $100.

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Posted By: BlackSoxFan

Dedicated Epson scanners are the best and you don't need to spend a lot of dough on them!

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Posted By: Anonymous

I had a post a long time back that contained a link on why some scanners work better on these types of items than others - unfortunately, I can't seem to figure out how to search for messages I've posted so will have to go from memory.

Bottom line is that the very thin scanners can do a nice job scanning but do not work on items with depth, such as slabbed cards, very well. This is because the optics (LED?) that are used which allow the ultrathin scanners to be so compact also rely on technology that does not have a good depth of focus. Scanners that use a bulb or lamp (I don't know what the correct term is) do a much better job of scanning which is why my cheap old scanner (which I got rid of because it was pretty slow and really equipped for Windows 95) did a pretty good job but the compact Canon LIDE I replaced it with was blurry. I ended up giving that one away to my sister and replacing it with another inexpensive Canon model and have been very happy with the quality of my scans.

Adam B

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Posted By: BlackSoxFan

Adam -
That is sort of true and sort of not. But just to clarify, I have never said you have to spend a boat load of money on a scanner. What i said was that if someone wanted to purchase a multifunction unit, that in order to get any quality from the scanner they would have to spend some money. The way the scanner functions has a lot to do with lighting equipment inside the scanner bed. That being said, width of the scanner really doesn't have anything to do with it.

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