Feedback requested on new scans
 

Hello VEFers --

After a several years long hiatus, I have decided to scan some old mags again.

Click the thumbnails below to view 2 samples taken from the 4/81 issue of Bob G.'s famous men's magazine. The pictorial -- one of my favorites -- is entitled "Bare Essentials" featuring Michelle Murchison.

My goal is to achieve the finest scans possible. I am particular interested in your opinion of the following attributes:
- color balance: do the colors look accurate and natural to you?
- resolution: are these high enough resolution?
- sharpness, detail and clarity: self explanatory

I had to touch up the bottom left corner of one of the pics. Will go back and work on that some more. In the meantime, any and all feedback is welcome before I post the complete set.

Thanks,

Kid C.

http://ist2-2.filesor.com/pimpandhos...0481_p69_0.jpg http://ist2-2.filesor.com/pimpandhos...481_p66a_0.jpg

Hello and welcome. 500kb-1mb is usually a good range for full-page mag scans. The print quality in Penthouse was never great so there's nothing to be gained from attempting higher resolution. I compared your scans against my hard copy and I'd say your colors are slightly under-saturated but this is very minor. I'd say your scans look very good overall; they're certainly better than my early efforts. Please scan and post full pages. Those of us who collect magazines appreciate this.

This particular pictorial has already been posted here by some character. This was one of my earlier scans and as you can see the quality is lacking. We have a rule against duplicate posting but your scans would be allowed in this case because they would be an upgrade.

I hope this is helpful and feel free to PM me if I can help further.

Hello Pepper -- Thanks for your reply and your thoughts on the scan quality/color saturation.

I have scanned full pages in the past -- providing both the full pages with text as well as the separate pics. I plan to do this for every set I scan. Here is an example of a scan set I did years ago: http://vintage-erotica-forum.com/sho...9&#post1638289

I do try not to duplicate scans but didn't know these existed.

Looking at them again, I think I may do a very little bit of sharpening via unsharp mask.

Question: Once I complete my set, where should I put it?

Please post them in this thread: Penthouse Magazines (US). The various threads in the Vintage Erotica Talk section were created before a separate magazine section existed.

Hi Kid C.,

I think your scans look good overall and as far as I'm concerned they are surely good enough to be posted. I personally think they could do with a bit more colour,but that may be a matter of taste. I would prefer 150dpi scans, but more is indeed not necessary.
File size itself of course depends on the size of the mag, the resolution and the JPEG compression. I think you can compress your scans a lot more and save file size and upload/download time. here's one I reduced to 30% of the original file size:

http://img185.imagevenue.com/loc83/t...0_123_83lo.jpg
I used Irfanview at the 80% quality setting. Can you see the difference?

Another suggestion: use Imagebam or Imagevenue instead of P&H.

Happy scanning!

As far as the colour balance is concerned there's a bit of a red colour cast in the highlights of the 2nd picture.
Looking at its histogram in photoshop quickly confirmed that, plus in the shadows there's a tendency towards blue which also happens in the skintones.

With neutral shadows, highlights and midtones and a slight toning down of the blue in the skintones the picture looks like this :

http://thumbnails108.imagebam.com/28...e281815198.jpg

If you scanner software allows you to adjust the colour before scanning I would suggest doing it there.
For post-processing I would suggest taking a look at Gimp which is an excellent freeware alternative for photoshop.

Thanks for everyone's feedback. Below is a new image I created today that takes into account your suggestions:
- color saturation should be up
- I have adjusted the color balance a bit
- higher resolution
- I saved at a slightly lower (higher?) JPG compression/quality ratio to reduce file size, though it hurts a bit to spend time on the images and then see compression artifacts
- this pic actually spans 2 pages. I have tried to make the seam as inconspicuous as possible
- not sure why Pimp and Host is discouraged. Seems fine to me. Any particular reason I should use the other services? Just curious.

http://ist2-2.filesor.com/pimpandhos...1_p72-73_0.jpg

Also, here is an example of a whole page scan which includes 4 different photos. I plan to post the full pages along with full size versions of the individual pics.

http://ist2-2.filesor.com/pimpandhos...YI/p0064_0.jpg

The reflections in the stockings now jump out rather unnaturally IMO.
It looks like you adjusted the white highlights based on measurements of the reflecting surfaces in the picture which is something you should avoid.

An important thing to keep in mind before starting colour adjusting is making sure your monitor is calibrated correctly.
In windows you can manually calibrate your monitor via the Advanced tab of Colour Management in the control panel (Windows 7).

Another thing to keep in mind when colour adjusting is that white highlights in printed pictures are never completely white (i.e. at a value of rgb=255, for a printer this would mean no ink at all which is never the case) and neither are shadows completely black ( rgb=0 ).
Rule of thumb is shadows at rgb=12 and white highlights at rgb=242 ( the so-called 5% rule ). Though these are not absolute values to adhere to, more of a guideline.
Anything below rgb=8 will not show much detail anymore and neither will anything above a value of rgb=245.

Thanks for the tips. I am actually doing the scanning and retouching in Linux Mint. I use the SANE driver on an Epson Perfection 1660 Photo scanner (which is great BTW) and then do the color/retouching work in good ol Photoshop 6 running under WINE.

While I do think you are right, I have already gotten so far along this set that I'll probably have to incorporate your suggestion in my next set.

On that note, where is the right place to ask for suggestions on my next set to scan? I have a lot of Bob G's mags from 74 - 95. If I don't have it, I will scan it if someone sends it to me.