Scan "The Man", Musial
 

It's nearly springtime. Four more days to go! And you know what that means. Spring means rising temperatures, hay fever, and spring training. And with the coming baseball season, young boys and young-at-heart-men start trading, buying and selling baseball cards. Glorious baseball cards. Little slices of cardboard heaven. Romanticized pictures of greats long gone, as well as today's players.

But how do you accurately represent the cards you are wanting to sell? How do you take good pictures, and share them with potential customers, without spending a fortune?

As I've spent time perusing the B/S/T boards, I've seen lots of new faces. Excellent! (insert your own Bill and Ted reference here). But one thing I'm seeing are some pictures of cards available for trade, or sale, and they're nearly impossible to see. So, I'm here to help. If you want to make some money, either to pay for bills, or, better yet, buy more cards, you need clean pictures of your beauties. And you don't have to spend much to get them.

I've just finished doing some scans of a few random cards from my collection. Pre-war cards, vintage cards, and modern cards. I've tried to create a variety of images showing just how good cards can look, regardless of how they are stored. While we all love holding our cards without plastic tombs, sometimes, they're a necessity. There are a handful of ways that cards are stored and/or scanned, so I've utilized them all, well, almost. First, the eye candy.

http://i.imgur.com/TR2Gr4a.pnghttp://i.imgur.com/StavoRS.pnghttp://i.imgur.com/1pCH85H.png

Three T206 cards, scanned as graded by PSA, SGC, and au natural. Just Mr. Fred Merkle slapped face down on my scanner, and covered with a black sheet of construction paper.

Next, some vintage cards.

http://i.imgur.com/VtTMh7M.pnghttp://i.imgur.com/bTkSoZE.pnghttp://i.imgur.com/aOK0VRw.png

Here we have a 1953 Bowman Carl Erskine, scanned in a Card Saver, and au natural. And, for giggles, I scanned a 1975 Topps Don Money au natural. I'm also including a link to a larger scan of the 1975 Topps Don Money card that will give you all an idea of just how big a difference a scanner can make when attempting to ascertain the true condition of a card. Of course, you can go much bigger than that, too.

Last, but not least, a few modern cards scanned in a variety of holders.

http://i.imgur.com/iDBjSUx.pnghttp://i.imgur.com/Zob19Sw.pnghttp://i.imgur.com/QzD8u32.png

The first card, a Bowman Chrome rookie auto of Max Fried is in a Beckett (BGS) slab. You'll notice there's some strange discoloration evident in the top third of the card. This is due to Beckett's placing cards in plastic sleeves before slabbing, and the light reflects off the sleeve. Next is a Bowman Chrome rookie auto of Lucas Giolito in a one touch magnet case. And, finally, an Upper Deck Exquisite auto of Joe Thomas. This, too, is in a one touch, but a much thicker variety. The point here is that all the cards, regardless of the era, or what they are in, can be cleanly scanned, showing their condition in great detail. Collectors like me appreciate clear images like this, as they allow us to know exactly what we are buying.

And the best part is that I'm using a 12-year old Canon Canoscan 8400F to do these images. I got it about four years ago for $60 delivered on Ebay. I use Photoshop CS2 to crop my images, but you can use any free image editing software like GIMP, or even Adobe Photoshop Express, to do this.

There are a lot of great scanners out there, and new ones come out every year. I'm using this old relic and CS 2 on Windows 7, and don't have any issues. When you are shopping for a scanner, make sure that you pay close attention to the scanning element, and the lighting source, because the wrong one will severely impact your image quality. The Canon scanner I have is a flatbed with a CCD scanning element (CCD is charge-coupled device). A lot of scanners, especially those combination scanners/fax machines/printers will have CIS elements. Those are made for scanning documents. They're problematic when trying to scan anything that isn't very near to the scanning glass. Any graded card slab, or one touch will actually lift the card further away from the scanning element, and the results won't be pretty. This old scanner also had a cold cathode fluorescent lamp for a lighting source. That's old technology. It's a little slower than what's being used now, but I like this one for scanning modern cards, especially those with any reflective qualities. The cold cathode elements don't create glare, or "banding". It's a nice even lighting source.

There are a plethora of topics about scanners on the forum. The one I'll eventually upgrade to when this one dies is a Canoscan 9000F Mk II. It uses a LED light source, but has a much higher DPI, so the detail is even better. But my scanner, which has seen a lot of use since I bought it three-and-a-half years ago, is still going strong, and giving me great picture quality. So, I'm in no rush.

So, take a (very) little bit of that money you were going to spend on cards, get yourself a good scanner, open an account at a free image hosting site (I have started using Imgur), and you'll be amazed at how much more business you'll get.

Happy scanning!

Bill

Nice post Bill, it is very true that image quality is hugely important. I posted a few additional scanning tips here:

http://www.net54baseball.com/showthread.php?t=201527

Nice post Bill. I'm guilty of taking lousy pics with my iphone....

I don't recognize Musial in the OP.:eek::D

Thank you, Bryan. I'm going to read through them tonight. I'm sure there are ways to be more efficient ways to do it, so maybe I'll pick up a few pointers, too. I have a lot of cards I need to scan, but the payoff will be worth the work, I think. I can't wait to knock off a few of the biggies I want, and get them scanned.

Thank you. You've also got a good deal of history here, Brendan, so you can post something, and people know to trust your description as being accurate.

There can be a happy medium between convenience and quality.

This post is like a gift from above. I've been meaning to figure this out for awhile as this is the best I have done with my scanner. I might actually look for the very model you're using.

I always hesitate as a buyer when I see an SGC holder scan and the gasket space around the corners is not visible. I suspect that the contrast is high and the card will disappoint when I get it in hand. Is that is a valid concern?

It's not an issue of the contrast being high, per se, as much as it is an issue of how the card was scanned.

Here's the original scan of Mr. Abstein, and a second scan in the identical environment, same settings, only with the lid down, utilizing a white background instead of a black one.

http://i.imgur.com/StavoRS.pnghttp://i.imgur.com/nY8tTPU.png

Do you feel you get more information by having the area between the card and the gasket lighter? That's a question only you can really answer.

You always have the right, as a buyer, to ask for additional pictures. In fact, if I'm going to spend a chunk of change buying from somebody for the first time (especially if the purchase isn't being made on our forum), you'd better believe I'm asking for additional information. I'm doing so for two reasons: one, I want to see the card better (after all, I should get what I expect for the money, right?), and two, I'm vetting the seller. A big seller might be busy scanning, handling business, etc. But asking for a little more information shouldn't create a burden on them.

If you're really wanting to see the card in much finer detail, you're going to need a bigger than normal scan. The picture I just linked was done at 600 dpi with the lid down. When the image opens up in another tab, click it, and it will give you a full page image to consider. The only adjustment I did in Photoshop was a 20% unshape mask. This helps to show the grain of the card stock a bit more clearly, allowing for a better "feel" of any surface issues that may be present. It also shows the edges and corners a bit more clearly. Keep in mind that I have a 12 year old scanner. A newer scanner is going to get even better clarity. But, you should get a pretty good idea of the flaws present in the card. A 600 dpi scan will clearly show any registration issues that occurred during printing. And, if there's been any kind of alteration done, you have a better chance of seeing it. Just keep in mind that the bigger the scan, the bigger the file size. The first picture of Mr. Bill is 196 kb. The 600 dpi scan is 9.34 MB. So, it's not practical to do every scan at that size, obviously, but if this were a Ty Cobb SGC 55, I'd be putting up a big scan. When I sold my first Walter Johnson T206 portrait, I put up a huge scan so my buyer was comfortable.

I hope this helps ya, Steve. Please let me know if there's anything else I can do for you.

Bill

Thank you, Sam. I've been very happy with this ol' girl. As you can see, it would give you a big improvement in picture quality. However, if you're going to be doing a lot of scanning, you might consider a new model. It will be faster, and have a better picture quality, overall. The 9000 F Mark II takes some really impressive scans. My scanner has a max 3,200 x 6,400 dpi resolution, while the Mk II has a 9,600 x 9,600 dpi max.

It really depends on your budget, how often you'll use it, and just how picky you are about image quality.

Happy scanning!

Speaking of scanners, what do you guys use to clean the glass?
I would assume Windex/invisible glass is all you need or are they not recommended?

I just scanned these cards last night, and although I don't think they are too bad, I am going to try some of the tips suggested in this post.

Thanks, BTW. Great thread :)

Off topic but giolito is gonna be nasty when he gets the call.

Thank you, Irv. I rarely use any kind of cleaner on my scanner. The biggest bugaboo that comes with scanning is typically fingerprints on the glass when picking cards/scanned items up, and I've gotten pretty good about not touching the glass. Before I scan something, I hold a light to the glass, look at about a 45% angle to the scanner surface, and if I spot a fingerprint in the area I'm about to use, I just pull out a eye glass cleaning cloth, and wipe it off. I don't want to use anything that could scratch the surface, interfering with the picture quality.

On the rare occasion when the glass is actually dirty, I use the same stuff I use on my HD TV, Bryson Screen Cleaner, which I purchase from Amazon, and a micro fiber cloth. I've used it about three years, and love it.

Agreed, Danny. I picked up that card not long after the set came out for about $20. That should be a real good buy. I wish I'd picked up a couple more.

There's a crop of pitchers that have just hit the Majors, or are just about to, that I have big hopes for. I really like Giolito, Taijuan Walker in Seattle, and the Pirates have two kids named Tyler Glasnow and Jameson Taillon that will team with Gerrit Cole to give them one hell of a 1-2-3 punch atop the rotation. The Reds have a kid named Robert Stephenson that has fantastic stuff. Like Walker, he needs to work a bit more on his control. His walk rate needs to come down a bit, and Walker needs to cut back on the long ball. They could be top of the rotation studs for a long time.

That's a great idea, and one I never even thought of.

Thanks for the tip on the T.V. cleaner also, I will look into getting some.

Thanks again. :)

I bought a 9000f, but my results are still weak. What software are you using? How many dpi? I am doing 600 dpi and a 10 x 12 sepia photo from about 1880 was ok in quality but also 80 mb. Help please!!!

Mark

I use a 5600F and use MP Navigator software which came with the unit. It is set to factory settings unless I ever have to change them to make an item look correct.

http://luckeycards.com/phuncviseddoby1949.jpg

Thanks Leon.