Scanning tips?

mosaic · August 8, 2008 2:28PM

Wasn't sure if this was best for the registry forum or here... but, hey, I'll put it here and invite fandang0 to stir some ruckus, jamesryanbell to talk about his collection of "racks," and Rube to be himself... all are welcome!!

I have about 140 cards to scan... the insurance company will thank me and it might even spark me to start my own registry sets... but the question for me is: What DPI do I use? How do I end up with the proper dimensions?

I did a search and found a few tips, but nothing really definitive...

But I've seen plenty of awesome looking scans here, so I must ask the scanning ninjas: What settings do you use for getting quality scans without wasting much time?

lawnmowerman · August 8, 2008 2:33PM

I scan at 300 dpi and resize to 425 x 600ish

ripkenintheminors · August 8, 2008 2:38PM

I use a HP Officejet 6210 All-in-One. I scan directly into a photo editing program, crop and resize. As already mentioned, somewhere around 400 x 600 gets the job done.

Not sure how much you've scanned in the past, but let me offer a tip since you're doing so many cards. Recently my wife ws scanning pictures and did them one by one and it took her quite awhile. I informed her that had she scanned 4 or 5 at a time and copied the files under different names that she could've cropped them while only scanning one time. Every year I get to do a major photo slideshow and that tactic has really cut the work time by a ton.

MuckyMutt · August 8, 2008 9:51PM

I scan at 300 dpi, but when I crop and resize them I also change the dpi to 100, It reduces the file size by about 75% and makes no visual difference on your monitor.

mosaic · August 9, 2008 2:17AM

Thanks for the replies so far

300 DPI and re-size to 100DPI (400x600 pixels approx.) seems to be the popular opinion in this thread and a couple others I searched.

I'm not sure if it's the lame image editing software I use -- it came with our Lexmark scanner -- but when I scan at 300 DPI and shrink the images, sometimes they turn out great and sometimes they end up with what I can only describe as "dot noise." If anyone knows what I'm talking about and has tips on how to reduce that, that'd be helpful.

One thing I don't like about our scanner is that it seems to capture every microscopic blemish on the slab. I got an 89 Upper Deck Randy Johnson rookie the other day. It's a beaut: BGS 9.5 (4x9.5). But there are teensy-tiny scratches on the slab in spots that are very difficult to see with the naked eye. When I scan the slab, however, they're not only visible, they're over-exaggerated!

Here's another question: Scanner lid up or down?

nam812 · August 9, 2008 2:22AM

<< <i>........Here's another question: Scanner lid up or down? >>

Down for black bordered/color bordered cards, and up for everything else.

dizzle · August 9, 2008 2:22AM

scanner lid up in a dark room works great.. Also you can do lid down if you have black consruction paper or a black background already on your lid..

lsutigers1973 · August 9, 2008 2:25AM

If I am scanning a card with white borders and the card does not have that natural curve that some older cards get, then I leave the lid up. If the card has a little curve to it, I cover it with a piece of red or black construction paper. The red seems to show the cards true colors a little better. The paper also keeps the cards from sticking to the scanner lid. Ruined a 2001 Leaf Limited Mark Prior auto rookie, when it was selling for $400 raw, because the stupid card got stuck to the lid and fell about 5 feet to the floor.

My biggest problem has been scanning dark colored chrome cards.

mosaic · August 9, 2008 8:50AM

For my needs, it seems that scanning at 300 DPI with the lid up and saving at 150 DPI works best.

100 DPI was OK, but I couldn't read the card backs... and I intend to upload the fronts and backs for the project I'm going to attempt. At 150 DPI, I can read the stats and ballyhoos.

Griffins · August 9, 2008 9:15AM

are you viewing the scans at 50% or 100% of their size? If not they will never be readable, as the pixels are squished. 16, 33, and 67% will look like crap, and that isn't accurate.
I tend to do everything viewed at 50%. Gives you a true picture of what you're dealing with.

mosaic · August 9, 2008 11:31AM

Viewing at 100% ...

From my scanner, grabbing at 300 DPI and scaling down to 150 DPI keeps things readable. Going down to 100DPI mucks things up too much. I'm sure people that have scanners with better lenses don't have the same problem, but I have what I have (cue Popeye).

Eh, no biggie -- I scanned 5 cards at a time into bitmap format and then saved the individual images in JPEG format. They're under 100kb each, so that's good. And the images and text look good.

Did about half of them today. I'm scanning the backs too, so that's slowing me down a bit *grin*

HighChopper · August 9, 2008 11:57AM

black consruction paper

Great tip. Can leave lid up too.

mosaic · August 12, 2008 7:13AM

I want to thank everybody for their input. I finally finished scanning the main share of my Nolan Ryan cards. Still have some odds n ends left, but that is enough to catalog what I like to call my "Big 3 Run" - Topps, Donruss, Fleer regular issues 1967-1994.

For kicks, I decided to enter them all into the PSA registry.

So, if anyone wants to see the handiwork that their suggestions helped, here ya go:

mosaic's Big 3 Nolan Ryan Run Showcase

mosaic's Nolan Ryan Basic Topps set

Hehehe, even with two cards missing, my Nolan Ryan Topps Basic is #14th... I'm a little tempted to submit the '69 and '70 I have in BVG slabs to complete the set in PSA slabs...

HobbyKings · August 12, 2008 7:25AM

Thats a great looking collection you got there!

I must have took you forever to scan all of those. Scanning is a pain in the neck I tell ya.

Congrats!!!

HK

divecchia · August 12, 2008 7:27AM

Mosaic...

That looks like a terrific job did with scanning those Ryan cards.

Congrats....Donato

clayshooter22 · August 12, 2008 8:47AM

The resolution on most computer monitors will provide the same resolution from anything 150dpi and above. By using a DPI above 150 you're only increasing file size.

mosaic · August 12, 2008 9:39AM

HK: thanks for the kudos, and the PM

It took about 3 hours to scan, in batches of 5. Resizing, rotating, and cropping each card took a couple hours a day for the last four days *grin*

Donato: from you, that means a lot. Your Nolan Ryan site and contributions to the Ryan PSA reg thread were a big encouragement to me when I set out to finish up my "run." One thing that bothers me about many registry sets is that people tend to scan the fronts and not the backs. The backs are often very rewarding for their goofy anecdotes and comic artwork. Another thing that gets me a little is how people don't rotate the scans for cards that are horizontal... kinda feels like people are celebrating the holder and not the card. I've actually tilted my laptop sideways when viewing some registry sets!! Heh.

clayshooter: Yeah, I went with 150 DPI mainly because my scanner and the software I have just don't do well when I scan or re-size to 100DPI. At 150, the text on the back is still legible. That was important to me, since I was scanning the backs.

Mescalito345 · August 15, 2008 6:45AM

Those scans look great. I've been using an HP PSC 2110 scanner, but my results haven't been as good:

HP-2110-test-scans

Anyone have any suggestions for improving the quality? Thanks.

Griffins · August 15, 2008 8:11AM

If it's taking you more than a few minutes to crop, rotate, etc you can save yourself a lot of time by automating everything. I wrote this for a few people that have pm'd me, it's based on using Photoshop. Basically you can quickly and easily write an action (it's basically a script that is executed) to do any repetitive task. And photoshop has a crop and straighten option that will take a scan with multiple cards on it and crop and duplicate everything in seconds that will give you each card in an individual file. PM if you have any questions, or if it's really making you nuts pm your phone number and a time to call and I'll talk you off the ledge.

Hope this makes sense.

1. Place cards on scanner bed, and leave the lid open. Doing this will add just a touch of contrast without overpumping the saturation (as done by some auction houses)

2. Leave a bit of space between each card, a third of an inch is fine

3. Drag the area of the scan out to the full size of the scanner bed. This way you won't have to do a preview scan.

4. When you've done all your scanning you'll have a bunch of 4 card scans (my scanner holds 4 cards slabbed, your mileage may vary). Save these into a folder on your desktop just in case anything goes south, you can dump it when you're done.

5. If you're not in photoshop already open the 4 up scans (we'll call them master scans from now on).

6. Go under File---> Automate--->Crop and Straighten Files. This will duplicate the file 4 times and crop each image individually and straighten it if it's crooked (CU won't let you post the word c**keyed. Stupid)

7. Save each file to the appropriate folder and repeat step 6 with the next file. Sometimes it will crop one funny so you'll have to retrieve your master file from the desktop folder. If everything is good dump the master files.

A few tips:

-If the slabs are SGC you'll have to scan them with the lid down.
-Once you have your master scan do whatever you need to it before using crop and straighten. Rotation, sharpness, etc
-I"m not sure Photoshop prior to version CS (8.0) has crop and straighten.
-Use Bridge to rename files- it's much quicker. If you need help shoot me a pm
-You can automate many photoshop tasks using actions. Actions are a recorded series of commands that can be scripted and then activated by pushing a button. I use them for everything and it saves a ton of time. Again, if you need help on this let me know.

Mescalito345 · August 15, 2008 8:54AM

Thanks for taking the time to print out all of the steps. I do have a few questions, which I'll send in a PM.

hofautos · August 15, 2008 9:52AM

Best to scan at the resolution you wan to keep, and that would be dependent on what dimensions you want your final scan to be.

I personally like 120dpi like this one.

Griffins · August 15, 2008 10:09AM

agreed- add a bit of sharpening and they will pop a bit more as well- all scanners are a touch soft, and need a little sharpening. Same with digital cameras
This is the same scan with a bit of Photoshop sharpening, hopefully you can see the difference on screen.
PS Nice cards!

Before

After

hofautos · August 15, 2008 10:16AM

Yes, I can see the difference...and is probably even closer to what the cards look like in hand.
I haven't played with photoshop much, but the small tidy freeware program I use (irfanview) has that option too. It also allows you to rotate by small steps, but that option you talk about where it automatically fixes sounds cool.

Scanning tips?

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