Getting sick of the more obvious frauds

[bn2cardz]

Originally Posted by Leon

Agree with everything you said Steven....but you lost me on this one-

"2. I do not personally consider adjusting scans an agent of fraud. To me that is reserved for trimmed, recolored, swapped, and stolen cards. Part of selling is making the product seem appealing. If the scan was edited to hide something (paper loss-creases) I might consider otherwise, but simply adjusting the scan to make the card pop does not constitute fraud to me. Unethical maybe, but not fraud."


Deceiving is fraud and making a scan look better than the card really is, is called deception. Plain and simple fraud to me. I guess it's debateable, just not in my mind.

Too me it is hard to say when a scan has been deceptively manipulated. A scanner is a camera, you have to chose the settings that best show the card to what you seen in hand on your monitor.

The problem is that not everyone uses a color management system so everyone's view is different. Also every scanner is different along with the default settings so what one person's scanner captures can be different then the next person. Then you add on top of that different scanning software. So really every you make a scan the software is making a tweak (whether you know it or not) to make the output on your monitor match the photo taken by the scanner.

So when every scan consists of at least three (scanner, software, monitor) different things to make the outcome. If you add printing a catalog into it then you have another adjustment from another outside company.

[sportscardpete]

willferrel.jpg

[Runscott]

Originally Posted by bn2cardz

So when every scan consists of at least three (scanner, software, monitor) different things to make the outcome. If you add printing a catalog into it then you have another adjustment from another outside company.

Agreed. I recently sold a hat on ebay, using the default images that my scanner produces. The seller thought they were getting a grey hat, when it was actually brown. I've found that I have to up the contrast and the red setting to get an accurate depiction. But even doing that, I've had hobby friends ask me questions that indicated to me that their monitor and my monitor weren't in sync. Also, there is at least one auction house that produces ridiculous card scans that look cartoonish - I'm sure it isn't on purpose, as it can't possibly help their sales.

I think that often, the sellers are just trying to depict their item accurately and end up making a mistake. And on the flip side of the coin, most of us have picked up things cheap because the scan did not represent the item fairly for the seller.

[Matthew H]

Originally Posted by Runscott

Agreed. I recently sold a hat on ebay, using the default images that my scanner produces. The seller thought they were getting a grey hat, when it was actually brown. I've found that I have to up the contrast and the red setting to get an accurate depiction. But even doing that, I've had hobby friends ask me questions that indicated to me that their monitor and my monitor weren't in sync. Also, there is at least one auction house that produces ridiculous card scans that look cartoonish - I'm sure it isn't on purpose, as it can't possibly help their sales.

I think that often, the sellers are just trying to depict their item accurately and end up making a mistake. And on the flip side of the coin, most of us have picked up things cheap because the scan did not represent the item fairly for the seller.

It depends on what kind of issues you're buying/selling. I've recieved faded OJs in the mail that looked great in the scan... These sellers/AHs know exactly what they're doing and why.

-Matt