Tips on scanning slabbed cards?

VintageJeff

I can produce very nice scans of ungraded cards. Many people have commented on how good my scans are but I can't scan a graded card to save my life. Always ends up blurry, especially the psa flip and any letters on the card. Anybody have any tips?

lostdart58

A black background helps for the corners and edges.........assuming the card has a white (light colored) edge)

wolfbear

Have heard of old scanners that don't do a good job
unless the item they're scanning is absolutely flat, which a graded card isn't.

May be time to get a new scanner. Good ones can be found pretty cheap nowadays.

sagard

Scan with lid open and no overhead lights. This will give you the sharp black background.

MooseDog

Scanning with the lid open is a good idea, that will give you the black background, but even easier, is to go to any office supply or drug store and pick up a small pack of black construction paper. Tape it to the lid (use the edges and as little tape as possible) of your scanner and you'll get a nice black background every time.

http://www.sonic.net/~moosedog/images/psa_58t_aaron.jpg

I also scan at 200dpi and scale down the picture to 450 pixels wide. Seems to strike a nice balance between image quality and file size.

BTW this is with a bottom level Epson 1250 Perfection Scanner ($49 after sale and rebate!)

smallstocks

Actually, i get better scans with the cover open than the construction paper idea which I used to use myself. You need a good scanner though.

RipublicaninMass

<< <i>Scan with lid open and no overhead lights. This will give you the sharp black background. >>



FYI I have left the lights on, and it still have the black back ground!

shambo2000

I use the lid open technique plus I turn the lights off in the room while the scanner is running. Scans are usually very crisp. Another tip is not to scan a card with a light colors at the same time as a card with a dark colors. My scanner tends to expose for the darker card leaving the lighter card overexposed.

I scanned these four cards at the same time. Notice how the darker colors are perfectly exposed and the whites (especially on the Carew card) are over exposed. I don't scan several cards at a time any more.



Shannon

Brian48

Does anyone have a technique for scanning cards with a reflective surface? I've yet to come across a solution that works well. Of course, my scanner isn't exactly top of the line either.

In this example the autograph area should be silver/chome, but it comes out looking flat, light blue.



Here's an even worse example where the silver reflective area comes out looking dark and blue on the Brady Championship Ticket RC.

Engineer

Very thin scanners do not have the depth of field of standard scanners. I posted the technical reasons on Net54 at one point if you are curious but you can get a pretty good scan with a cheap scanner as long as it uses a bulb as opposed to LED (?) optics. I returned a nice Canon USB model (thin version) and replaced it with a cheap Canon with the bulb for scanning and it improved performance greatly.

Adam B.

Ullr

Jeff, check out this thread.
Read TheNaturals post about half way down.
Good luck.