I know we all like to show off our slabs with the best foot forward. I just hate I didn't do this before I scanned like 200 slabs! I hope this helps some of you who've asked about correct settings in past discussions. They're straight from the scanner to here. Here's a super zoom comparison:Įverything really came together after some pretty simple setting changes. I could walk you through every scan I did, but this post would be a mile long.wait, it already is. So how about the results?! Here's a stock setting scan of the Nova #25 vs the updated settings. On a side note, 90 shines with a super busy cover. There's very, very little degradation in most scans. 50 would work fine if you're concerned with a few kilobytes. The file size reduction wasn't huge for 50 vs 90 so I opted for the higher setting. I played with several, and honestly, I think I was tripping myself out a bit. The detail really concerned me and getting these two settings right seemed to make sure the darkest and brightest colors weren't washed or flattened. Curve high obviously does the opposite and brightens the whites. Curve low is a setting that darkens the blacks. The curves are where the fine tuning came in. Moderns are super bright, whereas some of the older comics have an off-white look to them. I also wanted to match the white on the books. Much higher and it starts to look like a blown out photo. I don't know if that's due to ink or age. It was tough on some of my Silver Age and Bronze Age because those blacks look dark gray. The black point I cranked all the way up to pull those dark blacks as best I could. It really leveled everything out so I had good control over the final scan. Neutral color balance was the best option. I went from "hey, not too shabby" to "holy cow (insert best Harry Caray impression here)" getting these settings right. This is where I spent most my time, however, it made the BIGGEST difference. This means that the comic is slightly out of focus. With the deeper wells in these new cases, the scanner actually focuses on the rib/edge of the case. The grain reduction set to light made the book still have that textured look, but smoothed it out enough to mimic more of what you'd see with the naked eye. Sometimes these high-res scans really pick up every fiber in the paper and it can get a little noisy. Pulling those out of a Bronze Age book accurately was my primary focus. There are so many deep colors mixed with blacks and whites on that classic cover. Part of the reason I used Nova #25 was because of the great inking by Klaus Janson. Restore colors really seemed to get the ball rolling as far as the Red, Green, and Blues go. I tried multiple passes and saw zero improvement even at 600% zoom. You could do 100 or 72 and see very little degradation. The only real thing of note is probably the scan resolution. Here I'll focus more on what I did do, rather than didn't. I know that should be a no-brainer, but it's the little things that get overlooked easiest. The darker covers tend to absorb the light a bit better. Sadly the glare just wouldn't go away, but I didn't think it was awful. Getting the blacks and whites right was by far the most difficult task. Like I said earlier, I spent a couple hours really fine tuning this as best I could. Make sure that in VueScan you set the Options to Professional (or click the Options+ button at the bottom) The older ones can still use these settings, but the new case really shines without that infamous blue tint. Every slab I post will be the new CGC case. After everything, I'll post a cornucopia of scans from different ages and colors. I'll also make sure I have a before and after shot of our brave test subject Nova #25 (props to Ron C. I'll drop some screenshots here of my settings for you "just give me the goods" type and for the engineers, surgeons, and over-organized collectors I'll post some context below. SCANNER: HP Scanjet 8300 (white background)ĪPPLICATION: VueScan (Version: 9881.17.206.just kidding, it updated 7 minutes ago and it should update again within the hour ) I've been helped so much over the past couple years by your collective knowledge, I guess this is just my way of giving a little back. So hopefully a few of you can use this post to your time-saving advantage. After a couple hours playing with every single setting I could find, I settled on what I felt was the best representation of the slabs on hand. So I decided I'm not all that slow and could probably figure it out on my own. Let me start off by saying I searched high and low for the simple solution of just copying someone's settings and couldn't find them for the life of me. The Best VueScan Scanner Settings I Could Find (HP 8300)
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |