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Is 2200px high too small?


kitsunebi

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With so few people actually scanning anything around here, it seems a little silly to suggest that there's a standard scanning size being used, because there isn't.  If a couple of people use one size and a couple of people use a different size, then there is no standard.  However, our scanning rules HAVE set 2200px high as the minimum size allowed (I'm not sure how that particular size was arrived at), and there are some people who release their scans at this size.

I go bigger, although I have yet to go full 300dpi.  I usually release mags at sizes between 2500-2800px high, and I even released one at 3000 once (300dpi is usually in the 3200-3300 range.  But I feel in some cases it's necessary, and here's an example of why.

Areala asked me a question recently about an ad I uploaded, and while looking at it, I noticed that some of the fine print was illegible at the size I had uploaded to the gallery (2200px high, the same size as many of our magazine uploads are released at.)   I still had the 600dpi scan, which was of course quite readable, and I also had the page as was edited for the magazine upload, which I had saved at 2700px high and was also readable.  So in this case, 2700 was OK, but 2200 was not.

From top to bottom, 2200px, 2700px, 6100px.  Please note the kanji pointed to with the arrow.  Anyone fluent in Japanese would still be able to read the top pic because of the context, but for anyone else who actually needs to clearly see the lines of the character (raises hand), the 2200 scan makes this kanji become a bit of guesswork.  The 2700px pic is totally fine, albeit not as sharp as the 6100px 600dpi scan.

2200.jpg

2700.jpg

6100.jpg

 

Now, it's true that this is fine print, and isn't anything that a normal reader would even care about.  Indeed, it's small enough that it's pretty damn hard to read when looking at the actual magazine page.  But this example DOES prove that 2200px isn't up to the task of capturing such fine print.

I'm not saying we have to bump up our minimum scan size, but I would at least encourage anyone scanning something to make certain that everything in their scan is legible at the size they save their edited files at.

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This might be a good case to test "newer" compression formats. Maybe some of them can improve the 2200px quality, or maybe give us a 6000+px scan a smaller size.

 

Sometime ago I asked one uploader for raw files so I could run some tests. Either he forgot or I somehow missed his reply. Anyway, may I suggest you give formats like webP,  FLIF and HEIF a try? Some of them support both lossy and lossless compression. I'd test both.
 

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I'm not familiar with FLIF or HEIF, but considering that I can personally confirm that webP doesn't work with some CBR readers (like mine), I sort of doubt the others will, either.

The whole purpose of our files being simple jpgs contained in a simple archive folder (cbr/cbz are actually just .rar/,zip files) is that we want our files and the individual image files they contain to be readable and able to be accessed/edited by everyone (which is why we don't use PDF.)  Until those newer filetypes become more accepted and recognized by all other software, they aren't going to serve the purpose of mass accessibility.

 

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No one else who scans magazines seems interested in discussing this topic (hmmm) but I'm currently experimenting with increasing size while using higher compression.  My next release is already in the bag (no one can release anything at the moment due to Phillyman being MIA), but for the one after that which I'm currently editing, I scanned at 600dpi (as I always do), but I decided to save the edited pics at 3000px high (very close to 300dpi) using Photoshop quality (compression) level 8 (in the past, I've always used level 9).  The filesizes are smaller than the same scans saved at 2800px high at quality level 9, and I can't really see any difference.  So hopefully this way I can release scans that better preserve the fine print kanji while also shrinking the filesizes somewhat.

I wouldn't probably go lower than 8, though, since I've read various sources which claim that the algorithm for level 7 actually gives worse results than level 6.  So based partially upon my own tests and partially upon things I've read, my understanding of Photoshop's quality levels is this:

Use 6 or lower if it serves your needs.  Obviously, lower numbers will likely result in visible artifacting.

Avoid 7 entirely since it results in lower quality pics (yet larger filesizes) than 6.

Use 8-10 for higher quality compression at the expense of increasingly large filesizes.

Avoid 11-12 since they bloat the filesize considerably without providing any discernible difference in quality.

 

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Not sure what the problem with 2200H is but I think it fine. I usually go by the page amount to determine what height I will go with the release. For the Megazone I did I used a larger height then I would usually go with (3280) because its only 63 pages. Even with a 9-10 compression its still a reasonable filesize. I try not to inflate it if possible. With my PCG April 2000 re-release that I'm currently working on (almost done!) I'm sticking to 2200 because its 154 pages and a extra 1,000 of height isn't gonna change anything drastically. Except bloat the filesize.

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  • Retromags Curator
On 2/22/2020 at 5:50 PM, Ferneu said:

This might be a good case to test "newer" compression formats. Maybe some of them can improve the 2200px quality, or maybe give us a 6000+px scan a smaller size.

 

Sometime ago I asked one uploader for raw files so I could run some tests. Either he forgot or I somehow missed his reply. Anyway, may I suggest you give formats like webP,  FLIF and HEIF a try? Some of them support both lossy and lossless compression. I'd test both.
 

If it was Phillyman, if he doesn't do it right away, chance are he won't do it unless you keep asking :P. I don't remember you asking me, but I can definitely provide you with something to test with. Just let me know what you need.

9 hours ago, kitsunebi said:

No one else who scans magazines seems interested in discussing this topic (hmmm) but I'm currently experimenting with increasing size while using higher compression.  My next release is already in the bag (no one can release anything at the moment due to Phillyman being MIA), but for the one after that which I'm currently editing, I scanned at 600dpi (as I always do), but I decided to save the edited pics at 3000px high (very close to 300dpi) using Photoshop quality (compression) level 8 (in the past, I've always used level 9).  The filesizes are smaller than the same scans saved at 2800px high at quality level 9, and I can't really see any difference.  So hopefully this way I can release scans that better preserve the fine print kanji while also shrinking the filesizes somewhat.

I wouldn't probably go lower than 8, though, since I've read various sources which claim that the algorithm for level 7 actually gives worse results than level 6.  So based partially upon my own tests and partially upon things I've read, my understanding of Photoshop's quality levels is this:

Use 6 or lower if it serves your needs.  Obviously, lower numbers will likely result in visible artifacting.

Avoid 7 entirely since it results in lower quality pics (yet larger filesizes) than 6.

Use 8-10 for higher quality compression at the expense of increasingly large filesizes.

Avoid 11-12 since they bloat the filesize considerably without providing any discernible difference in quality.

 

I always save at level 9 in Photoshop. I also save two sizes (2200px high and 3240px high), and release the 2200px version. I haven't found a case where 2200px is too small, but with screens getting denser and denser, it might be time to up the minimum size. 2200 was settled on because it was the closest even number to 1600px wide back when we based the release sizes on width rather than height. 1600px wide was a step up from the 1440px that came before it, and the 1280px wide that scans were originally released at way back when. So the sizes have increased over time, and it may be time to do so again.

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The reason I provided screenshots was to give a concrete example of how there IS a visible difference between 2200 and (in this case) 2700...obviously the difference will be more exaggerated the larger you go (as the 600dpi pic showed).

I don't see the point in changing the size based on the length of the mag.  Either bigger is better (in which case you're screwing the quality of longer magazines by saving them at a smaller size), or else bigger doesn't matter (in which case you're unnecessarily bloating the size of shorter mags by saving them larger).  If a size (be it 2200 or 3200 or 6200) is determined to be better, then it would be better for all mags, regardless of length.

One thing I haven't considered since I have no way of testing it is...what do these scan resolutions look like on a 4k monitor?

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2 hours ago, MigJmz said:

 For the Megazone I did I used a larger height then I would usually go with (3280) because its only 63 pages. Even with a 9-10 compression its still a reasonable filesize.

Btw, I just wanted to point out that it's very likely that the only reason you could save at 3280 using compression 9 or 10 and get an average of 2MB per page is because you were editing jpgs that were scanned on a flatbed originally.

E-Day can back me up here, but using a higher quality scanner (like the Scansnap) results in larger files (more quality=more data).  To show you what I mean, I took a page from the scan I'm editing now (6049px high) and saved it at quality level 9 in two sizes.  2200 px high resulted in a 1.6MB file.  Saving at 3280 resulted in a 4.8MB file.  So using files coming from a quality scanner, there would be no way to save at 3280 and get an average of 2MB per page, unless the pages were mostly text and the editor overcranked the white levels, erasing all texture from the page.

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  • Retromags Curator

The magazine I edited last night was scanned on my Fujitsu. The original files sizes range from 7MB to 22MB, depending on the detail of each page. The versions I have at a height of 3240 pixels average about 2.5MB, with the lowest being 1.1MB and the largest being 5MB; most hover around 2-3MB. At 2200 pixels in height most pages are around 1.2MB in size.

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It's been a while since I've scanned any USA mags, but my impression is that they have much larger fonts than the mags I'm used to.  So smaller sizes are probably adequate.

But since you'll be editing some Dengeki PlayStations, I want to warn you that 2200 is probably not good enough.  There are many different font sizes throughout the mags, of course, and 2200 is fine for some of them, but for the smaller fonts, it just isn't good enough (there's a reason that 300dpi is the recommended size for OCRing alphabetic text, but for Japanese text, 600dpi is recommended).

Let me explain the comparison picture I'm posting below.  In the center is a bit of text from a 2200 Swatpro. On the left is a bit of text from a Dengeki PlayStation which I saved at 2200.  As you can see, after reducing the DP page to 2200, the text was much smaller than the Swatpro text (since the actual print on the page is smaller), so for comparison's sake, I then increased the scale of the DP text until it matched the Swatpro text in size when side by side (the pic on the right.)  The results are not good.  This text is on the smaller side, but it is NOT fine print, and is meant to be read (it's the caption for a picture), but at 2200 it's quite blurry (albeit readable). 

S.W.A.T.Pro Issue 07 (August-September 1992) page 04.jpg

I realize that I'm usually the only one dealing with Japanese text, but since you've got 4 in the pipeline, I caution you to make sure that everything is crisp, because unlike the few simple lines of an alphabetic character, you're dealing with characters that sometimes have upwards of 10, 15, even 20 or more strokes.  And ironically are usually printed smaller than their alphabetic counterparts.😅

Btw, here's another pic, again using a picture caption which has been sized to match Swatpro's font size.  This time, the picture is included as well (a reader's postcard.)  The postcard is rendered almost completely illegible at 2200px, and in all honesty would probably be hard to read at anything under 600dpi (though it could be argued that it's impossible to read on the magazine page itself unless you have eagle vision or a magnifying glass).

S.W.A.T.Pro Issue 07 (August-September 1992) page 04a.jpg

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@E-Day

it was either you or him (the one I asked), but I don't remember right now. Anyway, the reason I suggested kitsunebi to give it a try, instead of asking him to give me some raw samples, is that right now I am nowhere near a machine where I can perform the tests. But I promise to bother you guys again later. I just gotta see how those "new" encoders perform. Even if they are never accepted, I still got to do it. For the science!!!

 

 

 

@kitsunebi

I understand  what you are saying. But then again, if nobody ever uses a newer format and always stick with jpg, nobody will ever feel the need to add support to anything other than jpgs in their apps. But then again (inside a "but then again" :)), I remember Google tried to push webp by making it the default on Chrome, and people rejected it like plague (for the same reasons you gave which, don't get me wrong, are quite reasonable). So, if even Google couldn't convince people, who am I to try :)


 

 

In the end it is just like the gif plague. Pretty much every browser support something better, but some people keep insisting on uploading gigabytes of low-res 8bit animations that could have been easily replaced by high-res 24bpp formats that use 10x less bandwidth.

 

PS: maybe you could give webp another try? Even if you are not going to use it, just to see how it fares. You are already doing a bunch of tests...
 

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9 hours ago, Ferneu said:

@kitsunebi

I understand  what you are saying. But then again, if nobody ever uses a newer format and always stick with jpg, nobody will ever feel the need to add support to anything other than jpgs in their apps. But then again (inside a "but then again" :)), I remember Google tried to push webp by making it the default on Chrome, and people rejected it like plague (for the same reasons you gave which, don't get me wrong, are quite reasonable). So, if even Google couldn't convince people, who am I to try :)

Well, let me make my reasoning simple.

I make the scans.

webp is not compatible with my reader software.

I'm not going to create scans that not even I can open.

 

So...if anyone out there really wants scans released in webp, I suggest they invest in a scanner, some mags, and lots and lots of time. Till then, I guess I'm in charge (of my own scans, anyway).😉

EDIT: Oh yeah, I forgot one other important thing.  I use Photoshop CS6 (the last standalone Photoshop before they switched to a subscription-only service).  Photoshop CS6 does not support webP, FLIF, or HEIF (since I don't think they existed in 2012 when CS6 was released).  So unless you want to sponsor me for $240 per year to get Photoshop 2020, I'm afraid I can't even create those files even for test purposes...

You can ask E-Day, though, and he can test it on his PIRATED copy of Photoshop CC (2013-2019...not sure what year's edition he has).😋

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your fingers type "no", but I know your heart is saying"yes"

 

please understand that I am not trying to force you to change your workflow and, in case it is not clear, let me tell you how much your efforts are appreciated. Please, PLEASE, don't take this conversation the wrong way. With that out of the way, here is how you could perform some tests:

 

after editing your scans on Photoshop, you could use the official cwebp to convert your raws (PNG maybe?) to webp. It is quite simple to use. As simple as

cwebp -q 80 image.png -o image.webp

Then, since your image viewer does not support webp, you could use a browse to view the resulting image. And then you could try different "quality" values, instead of that 80 I used as an example and compare the results.

 

Please note that I am not trying to enforce webp as a new standard or anything like that. In fact, I don't even know if it will produce better results. But since you are worried about the readability of your scans, I thought, well, why not suggest it to him. At least he would have an extra tool in his arsenal, instead of simply "brute-forcing" giant resolutions while sticking to outdated formats.

 

I also would like to add that I really appreciate your efforts. I am studying Japanese right now and I do agree that non-natives have a hard time with kanjis that are not perfectly crystal clear. Heck, we already have a hard time when we can clearly identify the bloody pictogram :)

 

PS: may I ask the name of the software you use to view images? I thought most of them had support for webp by now. It is only 10 years old. It is older than your Photoshop hehe!

 

 

 


 

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Sure.  I read comics.  That's why I even HAVE a CBR reader.  I don't actually read game mags (haven't been interested in games for the past 15 years or so.)  I have around 18 TB of comics.  So a good comic reader is important to me.

The absolute BEST comic reader out there is (as you surmised) no longer in active development (http://www.cdisplay.me/).  But it's simple, with no bloat.  I've tried every reader out there, and this is the only one I want to read comics on.  It can't handle webP, but I don't really care.  I've never seen ANYONE claim that webP offers better image quality than jpg, it just (supposedly) offers the same quality at smaller sizes.  And storage space isn't a concern of mine (I just bought a 12TB HDD, my 8th...)

Also, the Scansnap that we all use around here is perhaps the best scanner available for its size, but it doesn't scan to TIFF or PNG - it scans to jpg.  So using lossy compression like webP (lossless webP would make the files larger, which isn't the goal) to convert a lossy format like jpg isn't going to improve quality, but may make it worse.

 

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I didn't know your scanner only supported jpg as the output format. That would have saved us a lot of typing :)

 

I was assuming it was possible to choose the output format of the scanned image. Only then testing other formats would make any sense. It is just like you said - if source the image already has all the compression artifacts, in the best case scenario the only thing we could hope to achieve would be reducing the file size. But the most likely scenario would be us just making it look even worse.

 

Unless, of course, we had that magical piece of software they use on CSI which can stretch a 2x2 pixel image to 4K and then allow them to zoom in and see things on a molecular level :)
 

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6 minutes ago, Ferneu said:

I didn't know your scanner only supported jpg as the output format. That would have saved us a lot of typing :)

Phillyman, E-Day, and myself all use Fujitsu Scansnap scanners (ix500 for me and Philly, ix1500 for E-Day, but their scan quality is identical, so far as I'm aware), as they are the best scanners for magazines in the sub-$1000 range.  But yep, they output to jpg.  So almost every scan you see released at Retromags over the past couple of years was created that way.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Late to the conversation but I think Retromags should stick to a DPI standard instead of choosing an arbitrary pixel width. By hard-defining pixels we're losing the metadata that tells us how large the scan was physically, whereas if we just set a smaller DPI, Photoshop etc. would still report the exact physical size of the page. I also think DPI should be 600 minimum, which is typical museum/library scanning standards, but think we could get away with 300 if it's a server hit etc.

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3 hours ago, TheRedEye said:

Late to the conversation but I think Retromags should stick to a DPI standard instead of choosing an arbitrary pixel width. By hard-defining pixels we're losing the metadata that tells us how large the scan was physically, whereas if we just set a smaller DPI, Photoshop etc. would still report the exact physical size of the page. I also think DPI should be 600 minimum, which is typical museum/library scanning standards, but think we could get away with 300 if it's a server hit etc.

Yeah, if we were the Library of Congress, it would be worth considering.

But we scan video game magazines.  I'm not going to ruffle anyone's feathers by saying they aren't important.  To some people, an issue of Game Boy Power #2 is more important than an original Shakespeare folio.

But.

600ppi (minimum?!  🤣) is absolutely not necessary for preserving magazines, comics, books, etc.  Not for our purposes, at any rate.  The reason for this is quite simple - all of these media are designed to be read.  So long as the scan is of a high enough quality that the media can be read without any apparent deficiencies, it's fine. Our mission is not to create an archive of museum-quality scans for esoteric purposes, but rather to get high quality scans into the hands of as many people as possible so that they can BE READ, which is why they were printed in the first place.  So while we want to make top quality scans, the needs and desires of the masses are paramount and will ensure need to find a balance between the absolute best quality possible and practicality.

All magazines are more or less a standard physical size.  There are slight variations, of course, but to a fault all of them are designed to be held in one's hands at something less than arm's length away.  When a magazine is designed and printed, it is with these physical restrictions in mind, and thus text and images are made a certain size so as to be readable. 

People reading magazines on computers will often have them displayed on a large screen further away from them than if they were actually holding the magazine, and thus we often view digital magazines at some level of zoom.  Thus, we need to make the scans of a high enough resolution that they not just look good at a size approximate to the physical size of the magazine itself, but also at much larger sizes when viewed zoomed-in on a larger screen.  However, at 600ppi, the only differences in clarity which are noticeable are at zoom sizes so large that the issue is no longer readable.  Yes, if you zoom waaaaaay in and compare, a 600ppi image will be sharper than a 300ppi image.  But you won't be able to read anything at that level of zoom - too little of the page will be visible on screen.

Regardless, Retromags will definitely NOT be hosting 600ppi scans.  I scan all of my mags in 600ppi before editing/resizing, and if I were to release those 600ppi scans, each magazine file would be between 2-6 GB.  Not only does no one need a 6 GB magazine, no one WANTS a 6 GB magazine (oh, the complaints that would start rolling in if we did...)  And that's a good thing, since there's no way we'd be able to afford suddenly paying for 10-30 times the amount of server space needed.

 

Just be glad we're not releasing stuff at 96dpi like all of the official PDFs sold directly by the publishers.😉

 

 

Btw, in regards to setting a pixel height standard as opposed to a PPI standard, that's a concession to people using readers which display pages at their relative sizes.  All pages are slightly different sizes when scanned.  When viewing pages individually, this isn't a problem, but if facing pages are of slightly different sizes (as they absolutely would be if not resized to identical heights), the images wouldn't align correctly.  Indeed, the only way to edit facing pages into a seamless image in the first place is to edit them together as a single page (thus being identical heights) and then split them apart again when saving.  I see your point about metadata concerning the document size, but 99.99% of people who download magazines don't really care if the original page was 10.097 inches tall or 10.242 inches tall.

 

Also, we need to stop using DPI when talking about scans.  I'm guilty of it as well, but DPI is only concerned with ink dots and is only relevant when printing an image onto paper.  When discussing digital images, we should only be using the term PPI.  The terms aren't interchangeable, though we often treat them as such.  I'm trying to watch myself from now on.

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Okay in that case people should upload their 600ppi originals to The Internet Archive so when someone in the future actually needs a high-res screenshot of a lost game or whatever they don't have to find the magazine again. Not trying to make demands or anything, just contributing to the conversation about scan size etc. and why there might be a need for higher res, especially if you're already doing that work.

Edited by TheRedEye
Clarifying that I'm not trying to be a jerk
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Agree with TheRedEye and that's what I've personally been doing. It's a good idea if people don't mind going to the trouble to upload them to the Internet Archive if we have the 600DPI images. I get not wanting to host them due to size etc but the Archive can. The RAW images could be very useful down the road.

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The Internet Archive is already a disorganized mess, so I suppose adding to that chaos by uploading multiple versions of everything really won't make matters much worse than they already are (unless they someday actually use some of their $10million per year budget to hire some people to organize and moderate their site).  So that's a possibility, sure.

I don't think needing a "high-res screenshot" is a good reason for 600ppi scans, though.  A 600ppi scan of a magazine page is (pixel-wise) much larger than the pixel resolution of a 4K film.  However, that 4Kfilm was shot on a special camera to provide its higher resolution.  Upscaling a DVD onto a 4K TV doesn't make it high res, you can only be as high-res as the source.

Magazines, as I said before, are typically A4 size (sometimes a little larger or smaller) and meant to be held at less than arm's length away.  They are also printed on paper.  The printing process itself limits the resolution of any images on the page.  Frankly, the difference between a 300ppi screenshot and a 600ppi screenshot is imperceptible.  Again, on a scan of something the size of a magazine page, the only perceptible differences in clarity come at zooms so large, you're no longer reading anything (or in this case, looking at a picture), but rather, you're only looking at a small part of something.

Here's an example from a mag I'm currently working on.  This is the 600ppi page I'll use as a demo.  I've shrunk the page down here, but its only purpose is so you can see the relative size of the screenshot we'll be looking at (the second one).  As you can see, its a fairly ordinary size, so far as screenshots go, somewhere in the middle between large and small.

PC_Games_v3n7_047.jpg

Now I'll use my original file and crop the picture out at 600ppi.  Next, I'll reduce the page to 300ppi and cut out the image again.  Now, obviously, if I were to place the two side by side, the 600ppi image would be twice the pixel dimensions as the 300ppi.  But that doesn't mean that the image itself would look twice the resolution.  In fact, were I to display both images at the same physical size, the differences would be imperceptible (if anything, looking at them both in Photoshop at the same display resolution, the 300ppi image looks slightly better to my eye, for some reason.)

Anyway, what you're looking at here is 600ppi on the top, 300ppi on the bottom.  No difference.  But this is quite small, as it has been resized by our forum software to web-friendly screenshots that are only 640px wide (about 60% the size of the 300ppi pic)

600.jpg

300.jpg

 

 

So let's try full size.  Well, you won't be able to see the 600ppi screenshot at fullsize, not really.  That's because, even just that cropped screenshot at 600ppi makes an image that has larger pixel dimensions than a 4K monitor.  So, hmmm...maybe someday in the future we'll be able to definitively say for sure, but for now, let's just see what we can see.  This is the 600ppi image displayed here as large as is possible on whatever monitor you're using (I don't have a 4K display, so this may be bigger for you than for me.)

600.jpg

And here's the full-size 300ppi:

300.jpg

As I said before, the 600ppi is larger (it would be larger still if only display monitors existed which could actually display it), but is it really better?  On my 1080p screen, the 300ppi image basically stretches from the top to bottom of my screen - it couldn't be any larger and still display the entire image at the same time.

And, just because monitors that can display the 600ppi image haven't been invented yet doesn't mean that we can't zoom in to see it full size.  So go ahead and open up that larger 600ppi image in a new window/tab by right clicking it and then clicking the "+" button.  WHOA that's big!!  But the only thing new you're looking at is increased detail of the spaces between the ink dots.  At 600ppi, the scan resolution has exceeded the printing limitations of the source material. 

The only way to get an actual high-res pic of this image would be to recreate it in the game itself and take a screenshot.  The resulting image would be smaller than either the 600ppi or the 300ppi image, but it would be higher resolution and better quality, since it wouldn't be held back by the fact that it was originally just a small box printed on a paper magazine page.

 

Bottom line, does keeping a 600ppi copy handy hurt anything?  No, of course not.  But is there a need for doing so?  I don't think so.  Arguing that bigger is better "just 'cause why not" isn't a practical argument, and leads to a slippery slope.  What if I scanned at 1200ppi and released 15GB magazines?  Why not?🤔

Anyway, if you guys know of any reasons why a 600ppi copy is necessary, I'm open to listening, especially if backed up with concrete examples, like I tried to do here to debunk the idea that it's possible to pull a better screenshot from a 600ppi scan.  That still doesn't mean that we'll ever be releasing 600ppi scans here, though.

 

Btw, I probably DO sound like I'm trying to be a jerk.  Don't take it personally, that's just my natural speaking voice.😋

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  • Retromags Curator
On 2/26/2020 at 6:03 PM, kitsunebi said:

You can ask E-Day, though, and he can test it on his PIRATED copy of Photoshop CC (2013-2019...not sure what year's edition he has).😋

CC 2020 baby!! And CC 2018 on my desktop in the basement :)

On 2/29/2020 at 5:39 PM, kitsunebi said:

Phillyman, E-Day, and myself all use Fujitsu Scansnap scanners (iX500 for me and Philly, ix1500 for E-Day, but their scan quality is identical, so far as I'm aware), as they are the best scanners for magazines in the sub-$1000 range.  But yep, they output to jpg.  So almost every scan you see released at Retromags over the past couple of years was created that way.

I'm actually using the Fujitsu fi-7460. It can save TIF format, but I have it set to the highest quality JPG because it's faster, easier to open across the home network and don't eat nearly as much space on my limited network storage as TIFs would. However, when I do the next batch of scanning, I can experiment with scanning as TIF and seeing the storage damage and speed hit when compared to JPG. If I use my flatbed scanners, then they are saved as TIF as I generally don't scan as much with them.

As far as releasing 600 ppi files, we don't have the server space to sustain that, plus that seems like it's the domain of the Video Game History Foundation and TheRedEye. And if you ever want our raw scans for your archives, I am sure we can definitely provide that to you. Everything I scan is at 600 dpi (scanner's term, not mine); same with Phillyman as far as I know. They are all saved on the Retromags QNAP, so they are available for the Internet Archive if they are ever needed.

Our MO is to just make things available. As kitsunebi said, we aren't the Library of Congress (or in my case, Library and Archives Canada), or even a legit foundation like the VGHF. We're just doing this as a hobby. If we had more time and resources, I am sure we could release in even higher quality.

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11 minutes ago, E-Day said:

Our MO is to just make things available. As kitsunebi said, we aren't the Library of Congress (or in my case, Library and Archives Canada), or even a legit foundation like the VGHF. We're just doing this as a hobby. If we had more time and resources, I am sure we could release in even higher quality.

If I may toot our own horn, in regards to magazine preservation, I think sites like ours and Kiwi's are ultimately the more beneficial to the world at large, even if we're all doing this as a hobby at our own expense.  The Library of Congress is great, but they're mostly keeping archival copies of things that are available in some form to the rest of the world.  If they kept archival copies of unpublished manuscripts from history's greatest writers, well, that just wouldn't seem right - people would want copies made available so everyone could read them.  And that's what we do.  Archival copies of magazines are nice and all, but we make that material easily accessible to the world, and that's a more valuable service than keeping a hard copy tucked away in a box any day, in my opinion.

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I for sure get what you guys are saying in regards to 600DPI for everyday uses, I don't mind going through the QNAP and maybe uploading the RAWs to the Archive if that doesn't step on anybodys toes?

The biggest benefits of 600DPI and keeping those archived to me is just that it's easier to clean up things at higher resolution and that we don't know what the future holds for displays to where maybe we'll want that large of images. In the mid 90s a 640x480 monitor was pretty sweet but now we're at 4k monitors. So you just never know (Except the limits of the human eye heh)! I'm just saying if we have the images already in 600DPI as RAWs lets get them out there and preserved in more than one place. I'm happy to work on that in my spare time if it's okay.

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