Jump to content

So if a mag is "missing" and I have it, i can scan and add here?


vice350z

Recommended Posts

Hello there, Enjoy the site and the mags on here but never have contributed scans myself. I have some of the earlier Sega Mega Play mags that are "missing" which according to the site means no one has them. I guess that means I can start the scanning process? I did a quick search and didn't see anyone saying they're working on any Mega Play mags unless I missed it. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

"Missing" in its most basic sense simply means we don't have a scan available.  It's technically impossible to say whether or not anyone has the issue in their possession, since every single one of our 12,000 members is a potential scanner.  Even if someone were to mark a mag as "acquired," that's no guarantee that they'll ever actually get around to scanning it (and some like myself don't bother marking mags they own as aquired).  That said, there are literally less than a handful of people that have actually contributed scans in the recent past, and none of them is currently planning on scanning any issues of Mega Play in the immediate future (I for one don't own any beyond the one I just uploaded, which was donated to me by another member.)

So in other words, you're in the clear!  Go for it!

Be sure to hit us up with any questions you have about the process.  We have some guides available to get you started, but that's just one person's take on things.  Other people (myself included) follow a different process entirely, so there's more than one way to go about it.  You'll have to discover what works best for you.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Good to know, thanks for the info. So far I've found 2 Mega Play mags that are shown as missing. 

The scan guide says to save scans as tiff files if possible but my Epson only saves as jpeg. I assume that's not a problem.

I planned on just scanning each page at a time, straightening, photoshopping marks, folks and all that out and then doing whatever the guide states at the end to turn it into a magazine.

I was going to just scan at 300DPI. Should i go bigger?

Do i need to make a thread stating the ones I'll work on so no one else happens to just start them?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Jpg is fine, just make sure you set your scanner to save them with as little compression as possible (i.e. the largest filesize).  Jpg by nature is a lossy format, so you want compression to be as low as possible since you're going to be shrinking and recompressing the files after editing.  If the files are already heavily compressed before editing, the quality of the final edited pages will be lower.

Depending on the quality of your scanner, you may need to adjust the black/white levels and possibly the brightness.  A good scanner won't need much of these types of adjustments, but some of the abominations I see on sites like archive.org are in serious need of this type of editing.

I wouldn't worry about making a special thread.  The only people who have scanned anything around here in the last 6 months are me (no more Mega Plays), depressor (Russian mags), and E-Day (no Mega Plays on his immediate schedule, which he always announces in his WIP thread.)  I never bother announcing what I'm working on - there are so few people scanning anything these days that the odds of working on the same thing at the same time as someone else are astronomical.  But if it makes you feel better, you can always post about it here.:)

EDIT: You can also go into each issue's database page and change the status to either "scanning" or "editing" if you like

Link to comment
Share on other sites

17 minutes ago, vice350z said:

yeah, i turned up the option to save as best quality possible. 

I edited my last post so you may have missed my one question...is 300DPI fine or should I go bigger for each page scan to start with for some reason?

I personally scan at 600dpi.  So take the issue of Mega Play I just uploaded, for example.  Each raw page is slightly different in size, but they're all around 5010x6460px before editing.  After I've edited the files in Photoshop, I resize them to 2500px high (the width will vary), and save them at quality level 9.

Having a bigger size to start with may or may not make a difference in the image's final appearance after resizing (I've never scanned at 300dpi, so I couldn't say), but at the very least, the bigger your image is to start with, the easier it will probably be to edit out blemishes or stitch together images seamlessly.  It isn't a concern with a document scanner like most of us use, but I can imagine that people who use flatbed scanners may not want to scan at 600dpi because it's slow as hell.  Why not scan a page or two both ways and compare if it's a concern?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thanks for the useful info! I thought there was some fancy program needed to turn the scans to magazine but I see its just having all the scans zipped then renaming zip to CBR/CBZ. Looking 2 up on a screen, 300 vs 600 dpi wont make a difference...but if people like to zoom in, then it would probably make a bigger different. Will definitely test out some pages zoomed in at 300 vs 600 to see if its worth the extra scan time. So far the couple pages I did at 300 dpi zoomed in looks fine to me. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Woot..my first mag scan done for the most part! Just going through each page for the last time to make sure I didn't miss anything. Not gonna lie, quite the task to scan, adjust, touch up lol. 

Went with 300 DPI, looks good without the extra scanning time wait and file size.

Will upload soon. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

In my experience, there's no real difference in final filesize between a mag scanned at 300dpi and one scanned at 600dpi.  Since we reduce the page dimensions before saving, it basically equalizes the two.  The main difference between the two is in the editing stage (or if you saved the files without resizing).  Your filesize is based on the physical dimensions of the scan - a 600dpi raw is twice as large as a 300dpi raw.

For anyone stuck using a flatbed scanner, though, the difference in scan time is definitely a concern.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Retromags Curator
13 minutes ago, vice350z said:

Thank you. Uploaded. Although i didn't know what i was supposed to put in the database field so i left blank. Is there something I'm supposed to put there? How does it change in the database from missing to preserved?

The database field is the URL for the database page for that issue. So for yours you would put 

https://www.retromags.com/magazines/usa/mega-play/mega-play-vol5-no2/

Then you go to the database page and fill in the info there,  such as that it's preserved, who scanned and edited it, so any other info you can fill in. You can also add a cover photo if it's missing one (which you can upload to the cover gallery) :D

Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 hours ago, E-Day said:

For some reason Lifetime Patrons don't have permission to upload files. I have changed the permission for Mega Play to allow Lifetime Patrons to upload scans.

I think once you upload a scan you get bumped (manually) to a Team Member.

The reason Lifetime Patrons can't upload files is the same reason that regular members can't upload files - it allows staff to supervise the process and approve the file the first time someone scans something and wants to add it to the site.  After they've done it once and have proved that they can be trusted to do everything in accordance with our rules and standards, they get promoted to team member and the uploading restriction is lifted. 

It's a sensible precaution that prevents newbies from uploading random scans they find on other sites willy-nilly.  And after all, there isn't necessarily any difference between a lifetime member and a brand new member, since someone could visit the site for the first time, give a donation, and become a lifetime member all within a matter of minutes.  This is why we usually have a first-time submitter upload their file to a 3rd-party filehost, and upon approval, a staff member will upload it to Retromags (changing the credits to those of the actual scanner/submitter), and finally, Philly will promote them to team member.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

6 hours ago, vice350z said:

nevermind...i resized to 1920x2500 and saved at 10 quality jpeg to get the file size down a litte.

Only issue now is when i go to submit file, i can't select Mega Play as the magazine. It's grayed out and not clickable. Any ideas?

First of all, thanks for the scan!  Now if I may, some advice.

Related to my post immediately above, one of the reasons we usually have staff evaluate a scanner's first file before they upload it here is so we can check for common mistakes a first-time scanner might make.  You were given permission to upload your file without having it evaluated first, so none of this is your fault, but I'd like to give you some guidelines to follow on your future scans.

Had I seen your file before you uploaded it, I would have drawn your attention to the fact that it appears you have gone about the resizing incorrectly.  Every file should be resized to a set height.  Some people like E-Day use a 2200px standard, others like myself use a 2500px standard.  You have chosen to go with 2500px, which is fine.  However, the width of each page should NOT be resized to a set width.  When resizing an image, you should have "constrain proportions" checked (if using Photoshop).  When you enter in the height of 2500, the width will automatically be changed proportionately.  This is vitally important - otherwise, you're stretching or squeezing the image, even if only slightly.

Every image in your file is 1920x2500.  That simply isn't possible unless you changed the width and size independently from each other.  A properly edited mag will have an identical height for every image, but the widths will all vary slightly depending on minute differences in the size of the raw files and the way they were cropped.

Granted, unless either the height or width is independently resized to a grossly disproportionate degree, it might be difficult to even notice.  Glancing at your file, it doesn't look distorted at all.  However, to provide as accurate scan as possible, again - "constrain proportions" (or something similar if using a program other than Photoshop) must be selected before resizing.

 

At any rate, I was at work while all this went down, and what's done is done - no worries.  There's no need to make a corrected file - the one you submitted looks fine to the naked eye.  Just make sure you keep all this in mind on your future scans.  And thanks again for contributing!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Ah good to know kitsunebi....your reasoning makes perfect sense. Sorry I wasn't aware of it.

Yes, i had constrain off and just rounded the width to 1920. All of the images were around 1905-1925px in width and I thought pages were supposed to all be the same WxH so rounded them all to 1920 which isn't noticeable just looking at them.

Will definitely keep in mind when I scale down my next mags. I saved as jpegs at 10 quality instead of 9. Should it always be 9 also?

How/Who do i alert for my next scan to be looked at before approval for upload? I guess I would upload to my own server first for you to look at just to be 100% sure I didn't it according to spec this time?

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Retromags Curator
9 hours ago, kitsunebi77 said:

The reason Lifetime Patrons can't upload files is the same reason that regular members can't upload files - it allows staff to supervise the process and approve the file the first time someone scans something and wants to add it to the site.  After they've done it once and have proved that they can be trusted to do everything in accordance with our rules and standards, they get promoted to team member and the uploading restriction is lifted. 

It's a sensible precaution that prevents newbies from uploading random scans they find on other sites willy-nilly.  And after all, there isn't necessarily any difference between a lifetime member and a brand new member, since someone could visit the site for the first time, give a donation, and become a lifetime member all within a matter of minutes.  This is why we usually have a first-time submitter upload their file to a 3rd-party filehost, and upon approval, a staff member will upload it to Retromags (changing the credits to those of the actual scanner/submitter), and finally, Philly will promote them to team member.

True story. I couldn't remember the particulars.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

7 hours ago, vice350z said:

Will definitely keep in mind when I scale down my next mags. I saved as jpegs at 10 quality instead of 9. Should it always be 9 also?

How/Who do i alert for my next scan to be looked at before approval for upload? I guess I would upload to my own server first for you to look at just to be 100% sure I didn't it according to spec this time?

It isn't really a big deal, but I believe everyone here saves their pages at 9.  It's more or less been unanimously decided upon as the best size-to-quality-ratio compression level.  The visual difference between 9 and 10 is nearly imperceptible, even when zoomed all the way in.

No need to alert anyone on your next scan.  You've already been promoted to team member, so you should be allowed to upload to any magazine category, and you've already been advised of what you need to do differently on your next scan, so I assume there won't be any more problems.:)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

uploaded Super Gaming Issue 1 but after the fact I noticed there wasn't the fields for the MD5 check and the Database link and all the credits fields when submitting the file. All those fields were in the main database to edit though. I guess that's why the image is missing from the Latest Releases thumbnail.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
  • Recent Achievements

    • cifa earned a badge
      Member for 1 Month
    • cifa earned a badge
      Member for 7 Days
    • cifa earned a badge
      Member for 1 Day
    • CRZYBASTRD earned a badge
      Member for 7 Days
    • badger117jm earned a badge
      Member for 7 Days
×
×
  • Create New...
Affiliate Disclaimer: Retromags may earn a commission on purchases made through our affiliate links on Retromags.com and social media channels. As an Amazon & Ebay Associate, Retromags earns from qualifying purchases. Thank you for your continued support!