Jump to content

Japanese Magazines Scan Project


JhonnyD

Recommended Posts

  • 1 month later...

What amuses me is that almost everyone out there scanning mags is a member of our site and discusses it in the forums, but currently only E-Day and myself are following through and editing our scans so they can be shared here.  (We do have some members who edit other peoples' scans).

It's weird, how it seems everyone wants to be a part of this community while simultaneously keeping all of their work separate from it (though judging by the number of unedited scans circulating out there, I guess it mostly boils down to a lack of interest in taking the time to adhere to quality standards.)

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Habanero said:

Gaming Alexandria has also been scanning an old JP gaming magazine. Are there any other random users scanning JP mags?

https://archive.org/details/%40hubz?and[]=mediatype%3A"texts"&and[]=languageSorter%3A"Japanese"&sort=&page=2

That games criticism magazine looks fantastic and fascinating! A lot of game reviews, features, and interviews for sure. I checked a few issues and they have a feature called "Kojima Cinema" (no clue what that is exactly), and I saw an interview with Yoji Shinkawa. Plus I saw a Famitsu issue that devoted a page to Summer Carnival 92, the one with the infamous Recca.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

14 hours ago, kitsunebi said:

What amuses me is that almost everyone out there scanning mags is a member of our site and discusses it in the forums, but currently only E-Day and myself are following through and editing our scans so they can be shared here.  (We do have some members who edit other peoples' scans).

It's weird, how it seems everyone wants to be a part of this community while simultaneously keeping all of their work separate from it (though judging by the number of unedited scans circulating out there, I guess it mostly boils down to a lack of interest in taking the time to adhere to quality standards.)

Can't say I blame them, editing can take a long time. When you have a backlog, it's either spend 6 hours cleaning up scans, or 6 hours scanning more magazines that are piling up in your room. How many scans sit on a hard drive for months waiting to be edited? At least the raw scans are there for anyone to edit (I myself am leveling and running them through pngquant for saving, only shaves off about 100mb per issue).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

6 hours ago, Habanero said:

Can't say I blame them, editing can take a long time. When you have a backlog, it's either spend 6 hours cleaning up scans, or 6 hours scanning more magazines that are piling up in your room. How many scans sit on a hard drive for months waiting to be edited? At least the raw scans are there for anyone to edit (I myself am leveling and running them through pngquant for saving, only shaves off about 100mb per issue).

It's strange, though.  Magazine scanners are the only "media sharing" community where most of the people involved are too lazy to turn out nice looking product.  People who rip movies/TV are very competitive over who can create the best-looking rips, and comic book scanners are similarly competitive.  Meanwhile, most magazine scanners can't be bothered to make any attempt to release a finished product.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

34 minutes ago, Habanero said:

It can't be helped. Magazine scanning community is miniscule, with a miniscule audience. For most it's mainly about getting it scanned in the first place and moving on to the next magazine. What the community needs is more volunteer editors.

They're just lucky that a pirate site without standards like the Internet Archive exists.  Make no mistake, it's only their $10 million annual budget and disregard of copyright law that allows you to do that.

We have quality standards in part because that's the only way we're allowed to operate.  In the past, Retromags allowed poorly edited scans such as you see at the Internet Archive.  But in order to not be asked by publishers to remove low-quality copyrighted material from our site, quality standards were put into practice to prove to those publishers that we love and respect the material that they produced.  Outside of a few who declined to give their blessing (mostly because they either sell or intended to sell back issues), every person we've encountered within the industry has been pleased with the results.

 

As far as volunteer editors go...

What we REALLY need before asking for volunteer editors are scanners willing/able to invest the money in buying a quality ADF scanner.  Not only will the scans look better, but the results are FAR FAR FAR easier to be edited quickly.  No one wants to edit flatbed scans for good reason - it takes too long.  Meet the editors halfway, and you just might find the volunteers.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Personally I can't use ADF scanners because I primarily scan artbooks, manga, etc. which aren't suited (paper-wise or quality-wise) for ADF scanners. The Canon 9000f mk2 has the quality I desire for my scans. Ah well, such is life. At least I crop and rotate my scans (usually).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

9 minutes ago, Habanero said:

Personally I can't use ADF scanners because I primarily scan artbooks, manga, etc. which aren't suited (paper-wise or quality-wise) for ADF scanners. The Canon 9000f mk2 has the quality I desire for my scans. Ah well, such is life. At least I crop and rotate my scans (usually).

I'm not sure what you mean by paper or quality not being suitable.  Can you explain further?

If you're scanning something that can't be fed through an ADF (like a hardcover) then obviously you have no choice but to use a flatbed.  But for anything printed on pliable paper, an ADF scanner ensures the best quality scan by keeping every part of the page pressed tightly against the scanning glass as it is fed through.  On a flatbed, even debound pages are sometimes hard to scan completely flat if the page is curled or warped in some way (like a stapled mag, for example).  I've never encountered an example of something that would be better scanned by a flatbed other than things that can't be scanned by an ADF.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Flatbed scanners have a CCD lens, which is important when scanning art (which I've done a lot of -- about 1,200 books, 150-300 pages each with some outliers like 1,200 pages). I've compared several scanners around the same price range and settled on the Canon because I liked the results best. As for paper, some artbooks would definitely not fit in an AFD scanner, or might get damaged by the auto-feeder.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

14 minutes ago, Habanero said:

As for paper, some artbooks would definitely not fit in an AFD scanner, or might get damaged by the auto-feeder.

Well obviously, if you can't fit it through the scanner, you can't scan it.😀  I can vouch for scanning manga on an ADF though.  Not sure what issues you have there?

At any rate, as I said, anyone hoping to have someone else edit their scans isn't going to have much luck offering up raws from a flatbed scan.  We have several members here who edit E-Day's scans (Migjmz, Melki, CrimsonFox, possibly others I'm forgetting), but they're editing scans which came from an ADF and are (compared to flatbed scans) relatively easy to edit. 

I don't think I'm mistaken if I point to  a quote from Migjmz as an example - "I'm always willing to edit as long if its a quality scan."  If I'm reading between the lines correctly, this is a call for either ADF raws, or else flatbed scans that have already been cropped and rotated.  Basically "quality scan" here means one that doesn't require massive amounts of work.  That doesn't make him lazy - it just means he doesn't want to waste time on raw flatbed scans when he could edit 4 different ADF scans in the same amount of time.   If scanners don't want to waste time editing when they could be scanning more mags, editors likewise don't want to be editing one flatbed scan when they could be editing 4 ADF scans.😋

Link to comment
Share on other sites

What's the A3 equivalent of the scansnap ix500?

 

 

About the editing process, sorry but all the time that I would dedicate to it would be less time dedicated to the scans. In an ideal world I would have infinite time and scan everything at 1200 dpi with a professional flatbed scanner and accurately edit every single page. But I think that the current "quick and dirty" approach with an ADF scanner is ok enough. Having something not ideal is better than having nothing at all, and that doesn't prevent the possibility to have better edited scans in the future.

I like it to compare this to the emulation scene, where people started to develop the first scrappy emulators and ripping games in the 90s, but it took several years before the preservation and accuracy mentality caught on. The early projects while far from ideal where the foundation on which the later contributors provided the better experience.

I'm doing what I can, if tomorrow someone will edit/provide a better scan, kudos them, everyone will benefit. I'm just an individual with limited resources at the end of the day and compromises must be made; currently I decided to spend these resources on the scanning process alone since I'm the only one with access to these magazines and willing to scan them.

 

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

That's my take on it as well. Scanners scan, editors edit. If there's an editing backlog, it means there's a shortage of willing editors with free time to work on the scans, so...

On that note, I need to find a larger flatbed scanner for A3 books too. I think they start at $350 though so I've been procrastinating on buying one. I'm not even sure if flatbeds are being made as often anymore.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 hours ago, Habanero said:

That's my take on it as well. Scanners scan, editors edit. If there's an editing backlog, it means there's a shortage of willing editors with free time to work on the scans, so...

We've got people asking if they can help with editing more often than you may be aware, since many people want to contribute but don't own a scanner or don't want to destroy their own magazines.  There's someone asking for access to raw scans to edit right now in the chatbox.

What you may not realize is that quite a lot of Retromags' releases are scanned by one person and edited by another.  It might even be accurate to say that MOST of them are that way, when you consider how many mags Phillyman has scanned in the past, but has never edited any of them.  The difference, however, is that those people worked as a team to create a Retromags release.  They didn't upload their scans to a different website first and then wait around for volunteers to edit it months/years later.

Once a scan has been released into the wild, it's value/interest level goes down significantly, even if it isn't edited.  Sure, it may not look great, but it can be read, and for many people, that's good enough.  Not everyone is gonna wait for the bluray if they can watch it now on Youtube.  So most people aren't going to want to commit to doing editing work on a magazine that has already been released, since it isn't going to be as anticipated and appreciated as a new, never-before-seen release.  Which is why it's best if anyone interested in only one aspect of the process makes arrangements with someone else to complete the other aspects before releasing the scan.

So you're right, many times, scanners scan and editors edit.  But it might also be worth considering that it's usually the case that "Retromags scanners scan for Retromags, and Retromags editors edit for Retromags."  Not because they "work for the site" (no one does), but because they like what the site represents and want to contribute their efforts here to make it stronger, rather than somewhere else.  "Scanners scan for the Internet Archive and editors edit for Retromags" has never been a successful pairing thus far.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

8 hours ago, JhonnyD said:

What's the A3 equivalent of the scansnap iX500?

The cheapest is probably the FI-7460, which is what E-Day has.  I don't think he's actually ever used it to scan any oversized mags, which is a shame, but it IS A3 capable.  Somebody send him some UK mags!

https://www.amazon.com/Fujitsu-PA03710-B055-Document-Scanner/dp/B01GY37TBY

And on the higher end you've got the FI-7700, which also includes a flatbed so you get the best of both worlds.

https://www.amazon.com/Fujitsu-PA03710-B055-Document-Scanner/dp/B01GY37TBY

 

Obviously both of these are out of most people's price ranges, which is why most of us use A4 scanners (which are fine for almost all USA/Japanese mags)

  • Thanks 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

If you are prepared to risk a second hand unit I'd suggest grabbing a Fujitsu fi-5650c off eBay like this ......

If you get one working unit with no scratches on the glass (from some idiot pushing a document through with a staple still attached) then they will do everything up to A3 no problems at all. I got one off eBay and it has been brilliant. There is likely plenty of places you can get it serviced Stateside and if you do get dust inside the device it is fairly easy to open them up to clean the glass with the top optics being particularly easy. Add to that ISIS drivers and Quickscan software and it's a veritable scanning monster at around sixty pages per minute in duplex. They also scan those fluro/neon colors far better than other units although all the Fujitsu's tend to be good in that regard.

The only problem I have had is the greasy tissue thin paper stocks used on American magazines which can cause slipping with older pickup rollers, resulting in a few bad scans. I HATE American mags with a vengeance because of their crappy paper which is why I tend to have predominantly UK magazine scans over at OGM. Much better for my sanity sticking with magazines made of newsprint or better paper stock. In all fairness I think that particular problem affects most ADF style scanners anyway.

If you do decide to get one of these make sure you ask the seller what number is displayed on the function display on startup. Devices in working condition cycle from "P" to "1" on boot up. If it sits on "P" or any other letter or number then there is a hardware problem or they had paper in the ADF feed when they turned the unit on. If they say it is in working condition and it isn't you can always send it back anyway.

  • Like 1
  • Thanks 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thanks guys, I'll probably stick with something second hand. I acquired some italian magazine that are just a little bigger than the maximum size accepted by the ix500. Anyway no hurry, I've still many boxes of gamest and arcadia to go through :)

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.
×
×
  • 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!