kitsunebi

Meanwhile I'm that guy sitting in airports reading comics and watching movies on my laptop LOL.  All the storage and functionality I could ever want, and I'm old enough to still wonder why no one ever mentions laptops anymore when discussing portable devices.  I could even use it to edit magazine scans while traveling.  Of course, then I'd have to kill myself since clearly I no longer considered my time to have any value whatsoever.

One of the annoying things about having different "ranks" of members is that it's impossible for one rank to easily know what another rank can or cannot do.  I realize you're just a "newcomer," but it MIGHT be possible for you to create database entries.  Granted, you would only be able to do so for a magazine category that already exists, but if that's the case, all you need is for the category to be created and then you could create the entries yourself, which would be best since you're the only one with the info on the mags in the first place.

If you CAN'T currently add issues to an already existing database, then possibly that's an ability that only becomes available to people with "team member" status.  If so, no problem.  Once you scan/edit a single mag approved for uploading, you'll get bumped up to team member, at which point you'll definitely be able to create database entries (though again, either a database moderator or a...whatever the heck those guys with the red names are called... will have to create the magazine category first, so you'll have to ask one of them to do that, along with a download category for your completed scan.  Luckily, all they'll need to do that is the magazine's country and title.  The rest you would be able to do yourself once you're a team member.  (Or possibly you could get someone to do it for you, but you'd need to give them all the info you have on the various fields on the database entry form, and then sit back and hope they find the time to actually do it.  I always figure, if I've got to type out all that info to send to someone anyway, I may as well just input it myself. )

Congrats on the "lucky steal" A3 scanner, btw.  I personally think it's FAR better to have an additional person out there scanning their own mags than to have them donate their mags to someone who likely already has an enormous pile of mags waiting to be scanned (I know I do).  Although maybe someday people will have to start sending YOU donations of oversized British mags that can't be scanned with a regular A4 scanner.

I don't want to say that BAFTA has no business declaring the most iconic video game character of all time with their "worldwide" poll of "over 4000 gamers," so I'll let their list say it for me.

1. Lara Croft, Tomb Raider
2. Mario, Super Mario
3. Agent 47, Hitman
4. Sonic the Hedgehog, Sonic the Hedgehog
5. Sackboy, LittleBigPlanet
6. Pac-Man, Pac-Man
7. Link, The Legend of Zelda
8. Master Chief, Halo
9. Kratos, God of War
10. Shadowheart, Baldur’s Gate 3
11. Arthur Morgan, Red Dead Redemption 2
12. Pikachu, Pokémon
13. Steve, Minecraft
14. Solid Snake, Metal Gear Solid
15. Crash Bandicoot, Crash Bandicoot
16. Cloud Strife, Final Fantasy VII
17. Astarion, Baldur’s Gate 3
18. Kazuma Kiryu, Yakuza
19. Ellie Williams, The Last of Us
20. Nathan Drake, Uncharted

OK.  Lara is pretty well known in many places (not Japan), but more iconic than Mario?  Please.  And #3 is generic bald guy Agent 47? Does your mom know who Agent 47 is?  No, of course not - he's not iconic.  Pac-Man?  Iconic.  Pikachu?  Iconic.  SACKBOY?  Not iconic.

This list is wickety wack, y'all.

Stick to films, BAFTA.

We don't scan comics here, so it's a long shot anyone can help.

If it hasn't been reprinted somewhere (in its own tankobon collection or some other volume of the artist's work), it will probably be pretty hard to find.  Especially because almost no one keeps the weekly/monthly anthology magazines that manga is initially printed in. They're printed on super cheap paper and are quite long, so take up a bunch of space.  People don't want them cluttering up their homes, so they toss them out into the recycling and buy nicely printed collections of the manga they particularly enjoy.  I often see giant stacks of comic mags bound together sitting outside waiting to be collected for recycling.

You could check Yahoo Auctions, but that's the best advice I can give.

It was the right decision to split this into two files.  I once saw someone release a scan of a flipbook EXACTLY as it was printed.  Meaning the first half was normal, but in the second half, all of the pages were upside down and went backwards from last page to first.  I tried convincing them of the stupidity of doing this to a digital file that can't be physically flipped, but they insisted they were doing the right thing in preserving the book exactly as it was printed.

I think the key to pinpointing the cause is figuring out how/why your flatbed scans and ADF scans are identical (if I understood you correctly.)  I'm not familiar with your printer and have never used the ADF scanner on my printer, so perhaps they function differently from a standalone ADF scanner?  Because an ADF scanner moves the page across the glass while the laser remains motionless.  That's why if there is something on the glass blocking the laser, the scan line will run the length of the page as that spot is blocked the entire time the page is pulled across it.  A flatbed is the opposite - the page remains motionless while the laser moves across the length of the page.  So if there's something on the glass, it will only block the laser at that one single point as the laser moves past it.  The fact that you say you get identical streaks on both types of scans surely holds a clue to the mystery, as it doesn't seem like that would even be possible.

But yeah, on a brand new scanner, you may as well send it back under warranty, because that's huge problem.

That doesn't look anything like a scan line created by dust.  On an ADF scan, dust lines will typically be perfectly straight and quite thin (not more than a few pixels wide), and they will be a solid color, often red or blue depending on the background color of the page.  You can't see the image on the page behind the scan line, because the laser has been completely blocked by the dust particle.

What your pics look like is scratches on the glass.  Those will be opaque discolorations like are seen in your examples, since the laser light can still pass through the scratch, but it's distorted, causing the discoloration.

Another less catastrophic thing that can cause images like you're seeing is glue.  Sometimes glue from the page binding can rub off onto the glass and cause streaks like you're seeing.  Luckily, that can be carefully cleaned off with glass cleaner and a microfiber cloth.  If it's scratches, you're S.O.L., though.  I'd check the glass very carefully - scratches can be very hard to see.  Hopefully it isn't that though and it's just something that can be cleaned, although I suspect you've already tried cleaning the glass. 

A flatbed scan, btw, shouldn't even have scan lines, since any dust on the glass just gets scanned into the image.  The only way to get streaks like that on a flatbed scan would be to have some sort of scratch or smudge running the entire length of the glass.

I've written extensively about CBR/PDF in the past and honestly don't have the energy to repeat myself or see if I can locate any of those old posts, but I would like to point out that it isn't just "this site" that uses CBR - it's all of them.  All of the major sites creating magazine scans of English-language magazines, at any rate.  Granted, there aren't many sites like that out there, but ever since Oldgamemags (which has 4 times the amount of scans that Retromags does) switched to CBR, no one in the scanning community uses PDF anymore, outside of a few independent individuals throwing stuff up at the Internet Archive.

Suffice it to say, for something like game manuals, a PDF would probably be adequate.  For magazines, it's a very restrictive format.

(Of course - anyone out there using a PDF reader like Sumatra to read a CBR isn't benefiting from the CBR format at all, so hopefully everyone is using CBR readers to read their CBRs, since that's what they're made for...whodathunkit?)

8 hours ago, PixelBoy said:

Magazines and reviews have evolved, perhaps matured. Back in the day there were four game reviews on one page, these days one game review can take four full pages. So today's reviews are more thorough and try to cover some background, whereas the early reviews were more like "it's a nice game with nice graphics, four stars".

I'm not sure what country's magazines you're talking about, but I should have been clear that I was talking specifically about American video game magazines.  Of which, currently, there is only ONE still in publication.  And that's Wal-Mart's mag, which I've never bothered looking at, because...well, it's published by Wal-Mart.  But yeah, once Game Informer went digital-only recently, there isn't a single print magazine about videogames you can buy in America anywhere but at Wal-Mart or through the Internet (small press/Patreon mail-order type stuff, which certainly can't be counted as significant or influential).

So unless I'm not giving them the credit they deserve and Wal-Mart Game Center is actually the greatest magazine about video games ever published, I don't think any argument saying that video game magazines (in America) still have much to offer has any legs to stand on.

Other countries may be different.  Certainly Japan still publishes a decent array of books and magazines about games, even if they're in far fewer numbers than the past.

The high-school-English A.I. OP post briefly touches upon the one thing mags DO still have to offer, which is a look at the past.  Current mags...well, they don't even exist for the most part.  But older mags, especially pre-Internet mags, offer a solid look at the history and evolution of gaming - information that sites like this try to make more permanent by digitizing via scanning so that it can be freely disseminated to all.

Just read the OP and I kept thinking "what video game magazines are they TALKING about?"

"immersive and engaging reading experience?"

"detailed reviews that provide readers with a more comprehensive understanding of the games" (cited as a reason they're better than online resources.)

WHAT?

Hahahahahahahahaha.

Video game magazines have their place, especially from the point of nostalgia.  But most of them offered only the most superficial form of journalism at best (which is fair, considering most of them were primarily marketed towards teens).  I'm supposed to believe that a four-sentence review from EGM is more insightful than an 8 paragraph review from an established online gaming site?

Let's be dead honest.  when you were a kid, what excited you the most about the latest gaming mag?  Was it hard hitting, literary journalism () or was it the copious screenshots of upcoming games that fired up your imagination?

Gaming mags have one purpose nowadays, and that's simply being a physical collectible for those interested in owning things.  Nothing in their contents is better served on paper than it is online.  (The exception being guides full of maps and reference material which can be more easily referred to in your lap while playing the game than by looking them up on a computer screen in the other room.)

23 minutes ago, Phillyman said:

Box H1 on my Inventory sheet is going to be chopped up and scanned this week. Anything already preserved will be listed for sale in the Retromags store or set aside for blindboxes.

The only issue of Games for Windows I'm not scanning is #5, which is conveniently in that box.   The other 2 in that box have already been scanned (one I've already uploaded, and the other is waiting to be edited).

Btw, that word "chopped" gives me chills, especially as I'm neck-deep in trying to edit together all of the 2-page ads in the gallery, most of which have been "chopped" to blazes.

Looking forward to the Hero Illustrateds.