A Few Random Collecting and Net54 Tips

[Jobu]

I thought I would post a random collection of a few things that I have found useful since I got back into collecting last July. Please add any other tips that you have. I realize that this thread is ripe for exploitation by smart asses.... and I say let it rip!

1) Scanning:

To get those nice, uniform black backgrounds (and images with truer colors that require less, and often no, tweaks to get them to look like the card) scan your cards in a somewhat dark room (just make sure there are no lights above/near the scanner) with the lid of the scanner open (hat tip to atx840). You can then use a photo editing program to arrange the cards in a seamless single image because the black backgrounds around every card match perfectly.

Scanning raw cards can be difficult because the glass on the scanner is usually surrounded by a plastic lip that makes it impossible to gently slide raw cards off of the glass. Scanning in top loaders or plastic sleeves also isn't desirable because they reduce image quality and can add weird reflections and scratches. There are two options here: 1) scan cards directly on the glass and use a top loader to carefully lift them off the scanner. 2) Go to the hardware store and have them cut a piece of glass just smaller than the scanner bed (costs a couple of bucks). Cover the corners for safety (but not the edges bc you want to be able to slide the cards off the edge). You can then scan raw cards out of their holders and gently slide them off of the glass with no lip at the edge so there is no risk of damage unless you drop the card.

This is more obvious, but most scanners have a DPI (dots per square inch) option somewhere, sometimes under the advanced option. Set this as high as possible for the best images.

2) Net54 posts:

I have seen people complain about having to click through tons of pages on long threads. If you go to User CP --> Settings and Options (clicking on Edit Options) --> Thread Display Options (Number of Posts to Display Per Page) you can set this to 80 to increase the number of posts per page.

3) Searching Net 54:

The search feature built in to Net54 is, shall we say, less than perfect. A far better way to search the forum for old posts is to go to Google and type "search site:www.net54baseball.com" followed by a space and then whatever it is that you want to search for. This will let you use Boolean operators built into Google that Net54 doesn't allow (AND and OR) and quotation marks to search for an exact phrase. It is much better than using the forum's search option.