VGBounceHouse

We can always replace them out,

Cool. I'm resizing now to 96dpi. I am confused by one note:

Please adhere to the naming standard in each section

I couldn't seem to find what is meant by each section. My planned filenames were:

Electronic-Fun-002-198212-001

Name of mag, issue number, year and month, page number

I have also been doing all my lo-res archive saves as PNG rather than JPG. I'll re-check the guide but I'm assuming you want the least amount of compression?

Chris

I have my existing 300dpi scans I did for my ad floods. I can upload those immediately but I will be re-scanning at 600dpi and playing with color corrections when I do my archival de-stapled scans. Would it be possible to overwrite with the updated versions later if I upload my existing ones now?

Chris

I'm only seeing one image so I'm not seeing a difference but I understand what you're saying. None of the three mags I'm working on have gloss covers if that makes a difference. 10 years of publishing advances are really apparent from an issue of Electronic Games and your scan.

After I'm done with those looks like I should check the other mags I wasn't thinking about Amiga mags. I have a pretty extensive collection of those including UK ones. I even have two probably not listed since I was the publisher lol

Chris

That's interesting. I have doing my scans for the floods with an Epson V300 and I have been very happy with the results but certainly never considered how much better they might be on a high-end scanner. It's a 1200dpi optical so when I needed to replace my printer I found a great deal on the Epson WF-7610 which included an A3 2400dpi scanner and an ADF. Am I making a mistake with this kind of hardware, should I wait until I can afford a higher-end scanner?

I guess I'll do some samples both with the ADF and without and place original, color-corrected and resized versions on my website if anyone has the time to take a look and give me feedback. I just ordered a batch of preservation sleeves and boards for the de-staples issues so I am ready to hop in on this but would hate to go too far down this path if it's the wrong direction.

Chris

Thanks for all the info, that answers all of my questions. I have just purchased an Epson WF-7610 and need to test its quality compared to my other scanners. My hope is it's comparable (if not better) as the larger bed means I can scan two-page folds at once (and possibly use the ADF as we're talking about dozens of 100-page mags here that you don't have).

I will review the guides before I begin but absent that knowledge at the moment my plan is: remove staples, scan two-page folds with only de-screening active at 600dpi, follow de-yellowing guide with Photoshop saving each page individually after crop, then render a separate file for each page at your desired resolution. If anything in your guides suggests alternatives or if anyone here has suggestions based on that plan of action I hope to start next week so I'll be checking back.

As to the stapling issue, these magazines were bought personally as a teenager with no thought of preservation. Some have damaged (or no) covers, others with torn ones. While running my ad floods on Twitter I ran into a number of issues with straightening due to folding the issues and that was just for some nostalgic fun. I think in terms of preservation my only option is to remove the staples not only because of gatefolds but also because of the old printing techniques where I found many full-page ads not properly rotated in the space leaving very little margin when cropping if any. Also Electronic Fun with Computers & Games used a much tighter stapling process and I see back-fold creases. I do plan on retaining the originals, there is more than a little sentimentality beyond seeing the young me filling out in-mag questionnaires, so if I can't re-staple them I guess I'll go for bag storage.

Finally in regard to your side note, I only brought that up as I can't help but tell stories and my new website is meant to follow in the tradition of these older magazines in terms of representing the enthusiast press. While I do tweet on the hashtag I also do so under the gamedev, indiedev and crowdfunding ones where appropriate. As a gamer for 40 years I'm trying to find solutions and ensure more people know of the rich videogame history and in doing my ad floods I found this site. That was the context, I never meant to imply I had any intention of linking your important project to me personally, my site or any "internet kerfuffle".

Chris

Howdy!

My name's Chris Rowley and as part of #GamerGate I'm working on creating a new game site. In the meantime I have being doing floods of ads from my collection of first gen mags. Looking to fill in a few holes I came upon your site and figured I could contribute. Doing a less than thorough browse I couldn't find a "Getting Started" guide.

I have a complete collection of Electronic Fun and near complete runs of Electronic Games and Video Games. As I bought these from the newsstand as a teenager with no thought of preservation there is some aging as well as missing covers on a few. I am willing to take the staples out for better scans but here are my questions:

If I pull the staples any advice on putting new ones in when I'm done?

What resolution do you prefer for the images?

Do you prefer me doing color correction or saving images "as is"?

Can I submit pages one at a time or do you only want complete issues?

Where do I upload the pages/issues?

I have also found some of my missing issues on eBay and was wondering if there were other sites worth checking for mags from the pre-1985 era.

Thanks!

Chris