Backside bleed through

[sammler]

I know this has been touched on before and mentioned quite a bit here in the help section. Some of you may have noticed me dabbling in scanning in my small stash of German "Sexy" magazines. One huge problem I've encountered is page bleed through: The pages in this mag are so paper thin (pun intended) that bleed through from the next page is practically guaranteed. It is so bad that the usual remedy with a black backing only slightly helps.

To illustrate the problem, here is the same title page scanned normally and with a black plastic sheet behind it:



Even though the black backing is making it a little bit better, I still consider Kristara's portrait ruined: you can see the outlines of a black frame on her left cheek, an almost solid bar gives her a Magnum PI mustache and a vertical bar through her right breast.

I spent a bit of time in photoshop and managed to get this scan to acceptable quality:


And here is how I did it: I took the scan of the next page, flipped it horizontally so that it became a mirror image. Then I inverted the colors of the b/w page making it black on white. I also faded the contrast quite a bit to make it easier to blend. Then I added this image as a new layer under my imperfect scan. The difficult part was to make this helper image line up with the bleed through from my original scan. Once that was accomplished I started playing with the transparency of my original scan letting a little of the inverted helper image bleed through. I ended up with a 95% opaqueness setting in the final version. I feel I've almost eliminated the bleed through.

Now for the question: Has anybody else on here tried something like this before? I feel with all the scanning going on and with the improved stitching software that is around these days, there must be an easier way to arrive at the same or better results. Especially the lining up part and finding the right blending mix are prime candidates for an automated process.

[seany65]

What sort of black sheet do you use? Is it shiny?

I used matt black paint on what used to be the white backing surface of my scanner. I don't usually scan 'thin pages', so I don't know how much this would help.

[Pepper II]

The whole process you described would be completely impractical when scanning an entire magazine or multiple magazine pages due to taking an incredible amount of time to get just one good scan. I had the same thought as seany65 when I saw mention of a plastic sheet. It may become somewhat transparent when backlit and being shiny wouldn't help, either. I use a nearly black matte finish sheet of thick paper, what we call construction paper here in the US. The idea is to allow no light penetration.

[sammler]

I cut off the back of a black plastic folder since it was almost the right size. Definitely matte and with a very fine texture that makes it very light absorbing. If you shine a flash light on it there is a very diffuse circle. Probably not quite as good as construction paper, but very close. I was looking for something that is thin enough to be inserted into a magazine without deforming the pages at the edge but letting no light through.



And yes, what I did in this case doesn't scale. That's why I started this thread. And to give you an idea of how bad the paper quality of this magazine is: You can see the bleed through from the next page with your naked eye from any angle. You don't need to shine a light on it. If it weren't for the subject matter, I wouldn't waste any effort on these magazines

[Jism Jim]

My advice would be the same as already said. Use paper instead of plastic. It will absorb more light.

[ConstantOgler]

Originally Posted by sammler

And to give you an idea of how bad the paper quality of this magazine is: You can see the bleed through from the next page with your naked eye from any angle. You don't need to shine a light on it.

This is counter-intuitive, maybe futile, and never tried it myself. (I use black matte paper as found in some page protectors.) If the bleed is obvious to naked eye, even with backing, the scanner bulb can only make it worse, being an intense, brilliant light.
I would try to find a way to reduce the intensity of that light, see what results. I don't know of any scan s/w or hardware trick that would do this, haven't looked. Next would be put a partly opaque sheet (eg page protector) in front of subject. Will reduce quality of scan, but in what way? If too much detail is lost, nothing gained, but eliminating some detail when the scanner is intent on capturing it all is the purpose. Other effects maybe fixed in editor. ?

[sandhunter]

Everybody kept saying use a black paper as a backing , when I scanned I tried the black paper and it worked ok but when I lost the black paper (messy shop) so I tried a plain white printer paper and I think I had better results , also keep playing with settings till you find best results

[croitear]

Originally Posted by sandhunter

Everybody kept saying use a black paper as a backing , when I scanned I tried the black paper and it worked ok but when I lost the black paper (messy shop) so I tried a plain white printer paper and I think I had better results , also keep playing with settings till you find best results

Counter-intuitively, I have found that a neutral colour like buff, dull orange or pale green can be quite effective (cut up from an old document wallet). With all of these colours you are keeping well away from black points and white points in any of the scanning software that you use.