Scanning water damaged mags

[Rubinski]

I recently had a Lips mag I wanted to scan that had slight water damage.
All the pages were a bit wavy, and it showed up badly on most of the scans.

I tried my weighted board to press it flat, but it didn't help.
Even when I pushed down on it.
I removed the staples, and tried again, but even a single page would not go flat.

So, I decided to try something different.
I used my weighted board and pressed on it, to hold one side of the page in place, and used a stiff thick cardboard strip to press the full page flat that I wanted to scan.
I pressed on the cardboard strip, and slid it in sync, over the scanner head, as it scanned the page.
It worked!!

Then I cropped the scans and moved on.
I scanned most of the mag like that.
Turned out pretty well.
See here
http://vintage-erotica-forum.com/sho...83#post5994283

Hopefully, I said that well enough to make sense.
If not I can try to say it again, or maybe take some photos of the set up and process.

BTW - I could not figure out a way to do 2 page scans with this process.
So I did single page scans and used photomerge to stitch up the 2 page photos.


And just in case you don't know it yet, use a black sheet of paper or plastic behind the page you are scanning to clean up the reflections from the back side.

Cheers!!

[Spruce]

I had a similar problem with an old magazine, a 1970's Tozerward Peaches Special.
Tried weights & pushing down hard on my scanner lid, but you could still see the wrinkles!
So, as it was only on the first few pages, I took the drastic measure, of holding the pages over a boiling pan of water, and the steam softened the paper enough that when I put extra pressure down on the scanner lid, the wrinkles smoothed out.
I then put the pages under a heavy weight before putting the magazine back together with new staples, the old ones had rusted away, and this has improved the effected pages greatly. I guess this suggestion may not work on every magazine, and will depend on the quality of the paper.

Maybe not very practical if the entire magazine was effected, as it was time consuming ,but for only a few pages it worked very well.

[Gruenspecht]

Just reading about the process you guys went through makes me anxious when i place myself in that situation of trying to restore and scan a warped magazine in which Lara features. I do in fact own a copy that is mildly warped so i am taking notes here. Showing photos of the setup you use are welcome.

What is mostly frightening to me are two outcomes that can occur simultaneously, the paper will tear and or the ink will bleed. What was the type of paper used in the magazines you applied these technics?

[Spruce]

Originally Posted by Gruenspecht

Just reading about the process you guys went through makes me anxious when i place myself in that situation of trying to restore and scan a warped magazine in which Lara features. I do in fact own a copy that is mildly warped so i am taking notes here. Showing photos of the setup you use are welcome.

What is mostly frightening to me are two outcomes that can occur simultaneously, the paper will tear and or the ink will bleed. What was the type of paper used in the magazines you applied these technics?

The paper in 70’s magazine was a lot thicker, so the process I used was ok…however, I only held each page over the steam for a few seconds, just enough for it to absorb a bit of moisture, you certainly don’t need to let the paper become wet, as otherwise the ink could run, and the page may also rip!
The slight contact with the steam just made the paper become a bit more flexible & pliable, so flattened out better when put under pressure by holding down the scanner lid.

Hope that makes things clearer for you…really no need to post pictures I think.

[EvilElf13]

Good tips here! One trick I use for wavy/warped pages such as you get with water damage is place the page so the "waves/ripples" are perpendicular to the scanner light. This, 99% of the time, eliminates the glowing/shiny pattern seen with the ripples or even page dividing lines. Examples...you can see water damage in the top left in one and not the other. Same magazine, I simply rotated the page:



That's one thing I like about the Epson V600 over the wide format Epson I'm using now. The V600 pretty much forced you to place pages at a perpendicular aspect to the scanner light. On top of that, it's also about 50% faster than the WF-7820 wide format.