Pc Engine fan scans?

[Black Tiger]

I have a a couple foot high stack of PCE mags and flyers that I plan to scan in and post some day, but unfortunately I won't have time within the near future. 

[esteban]

This thread needs reviving! The magazines are an important part of the system's history, but are most easily destroyed.

I think I might buy and scan a few guide books one of these days, since those are cool too.

You are so awesome for reviving this thread. Here's the deal: I will be swamped at work for this month (April), but after that I will have some big chunks of free time.

I will be able to scan my magazines (or, at least, a big chunk of them) and make them available to everyone on my site.

BEFORE ANYONE BUYS ANYTHING, let me list the issues I have so we don't duplicat our efforts. I wish I had more early PCE issues (I have a few). I also have some japanese SEGA magazines I'll scan.

I NEED TO DECIDE ON SOME STANDARD SIZES for the final jpg images (pixels width X pixels height). Your input/logic/reasoning would be appreciated. I have a size that is "future proof"—2600x1800 for 2 magazine pages stitched together, 1300x1800 for single page—but maybe there is a better size.)

[grahf]

Thanks for stepping up to the plate esteban.

I was thinking exactly the same thing. This kind of task is extremely daunting for one person, but if a bunch of people work together I think we can make some progress. I'm still studying over here in Tokyo, so I have access to game shops and Yahoo auctions. The problem is that like all students, I'm poor . I can only spend  a little each month on PCE stuff, but I'm willing to spend that on issues that others don't already have.
Also, if anyone else in Japan has any magazines, I'm willing to do the work of scanning them.

As far as the actual file size, I haven't really thought about it much yet. It's always a difficult decision to balance file size and quality, but in my opinion it would be better to lean towards quality. You can always scale it down later, but not back up. I checked out the scans on your site now, and they seem OK at the lower resolution. Some of the fine print isn't readable though, which might be an issue for Kanji in the Japanese magazines. Could you do a sample scan at 1300x1800 and see how it looks?

[SignOfZeta]

I really don't think 2600x1800 for two pages is future proof in the slightest. That's desktop res nowadays. We're talking about a major archive process here.

It really sucks to go back to something done from the past and see how bad it sounds/looks. Things move FAST in the technology world. Hell, a lot iPhone apps created pre-retina display now look like crap on the new phones, and some of those are only a year old.

I don't have any of these mags anymore, but I do have an issue of Saturn Fan somewhere. I think that was the same physical size. I'll do some tests and see how they come out.

[SuperPlay]

Retromags has some very good guides on how to scan magazines

http://www.retromags.com/forums/index.php?

While you are there dont forget to check out the EGM mags as they contain some nice PCE stuff!

[sunteam_paul]

Issuu, where I put PC Engine Gamer would be a good place to display complete scanned mags. There are already some old UK Mean Machines Sega mags there that someone has scanned in.

[esteban]

I really don't think 2600x1800 for two pages is future proof in the slightest. That's desktop res nowadays. We're talking about a major archive process here.

It really sucks to go back to something done from the past and see how bad it sounds/looks. Things move FAST in the technology world. Hell, a lot iPhone apps created pre-retina display now look like crap on the new phones, and some of those are only a year old.

I don't have any of these mags anymore, but I do have an issue of Saturn Fan somewhere. I think that was the same physical size. I'll do some tests and see how they come out.

Well, 2600x1800/1300x1800 was for the final jpg/pdf that I spit out of PhotoShop.

1300xnotquite1800
2600x1800 review
2600x1800


The original scans are much larger in size. You can see my general guidelines here.

Anyway, I am entirely willing to change my output images to a larger size--I chose 1300x1800/2600x1800 because most folks can can read a single page/double page at "actual pixel size" without scrolling too much.

BUT, I can totally increase the final image size... is there a standard? pseudo-standard? Tell me!

[sunteam_paul]

If you want print resolution, you should be scanning at 300dpi. If you can't descreen on your scanner, scan at a higher resolution and resample down to 300dpi.

Anything bigger than 300dpi is pointless.

[Bonknuts]

I have a few PC-Engine Fans, but they're 93+

 I also have what appears to be special edition hint (book) editions of PC-Engine Fan.

[grahf]

The older ones are harder to come by, but the newer ones are still important.

[neofan]

I have at least 20 issues of PCE Fan, Dengenki G's Engine/PC Engine all from '95-98
but I also have over 30 hint books for 20 different PC-FX titles.
Granted, most were published with the PSX/Saturn in mind, but work very well (and have tons of cool art), but finding new ones are just about my fav hobby ATM
It would have been so cool to know about these in the 90's, when I  could game for 10 hrs/day 

later gamers
-neofan

[SignOfZeta]

I really don't think 2600x1800 for two pages is future proof in the slightest. That's desktop res nowadays. We're talking about a major archive process here.

It really sucks to go back to something done from the past and see how bad it sounds/looks. Things move FAST in the technology world. Hell, a lot iPhone apps created pre-retina display now look like crap on the new phones, and some of those are only a year old.

I don't have any of these mags anymore, but I do have an issue of Saturn Fan somewhere. I think that was the same physical size. I'll do some tests and see how they come out.

Well, 2600x1800/1300x1800 was for the final jpg/pdf that I spit out of PhotoShop.

1300xnotquite1800
2600x1800 review
2600x1800


The original scans are much larger in size. You can see my general guidelines here.

Anyway, I am entirely willing to change my output images to a larger size--I chose 1300x1800/2600x1800 because most folks can can read a single page/double page at "actual pixel size" without scrolling too much.

BUT, I can totally increase the final image size... is there a standard? pseudo-standard? Tell me!

OK, I guess I'll take back what I said. When I did digital graphics for a living (thank God those days are over)  we scanned at much higher resolutions, but we were going from photos, slides, etc, not magazines. I forgot about how low end printed magazines are, higher resolution isn't needed unless one really wants to examine the grain in the paper.

[akamichi]

This is an awesome idea.  I have PCE mags too and I've scanned some pages over the years.  Mostly just the front covers tho.

I'll dig out some recent ones and upload them somewhere and see what others think of the quality/res.

- akamichi

[grahf]

Well lets not let this die again.
If you guys that have magazines are willing to scan them, would you mind posting up which issues you have? Even if you don't have time to do it now. I can try to hunt down other issues, but I don't want to buy anything someone already has.

[akamichi]

Couldn't find my old scans so I made some new ones instead.    I scanned these at 300dpi and used the descreening option on my scanner. 

I converted these two pics to jpg so I could upload them, but I have the original TIFFs (around 12.5MB/scan).

Anybody with ideas on a standard size?  That retromags site suggests 1440 or 1600 pixel widths, but I dunno what would be good.  If these scans look good, I'll continue with these two magazines.





Uploaded with ImageShack.us