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  #1  
Old Oct 10, 2009, 11:52 AM
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razakin razakin is offline
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Default Scan-quality upgrade?

So, as some of the people idling / talking on IRC-channel noticed that I today went through my collection in here and checked all the albums that require scans. And the aftermath of that was around 93 entries do need full scans (which I will be supplying in the coming weeks/months).

But anyways, there was 83 albums where there were sets of scans, but I didn't much check if they should be upgraded to better ones ('samples' of scans I do on these albums: Ys Premium Music CD Box in Felghana, The Bouncer Original Soundtrack, NICE LIFE AS WIFE and Sigma Harmonics Original Soundtrack).

And here's the list of albums I came up which could need scan upgrade:
http://vgmdb.net/album/1557 2197
http://vgmdb.net/album/1180 BATTLE GEAR III - The Edge
http://vgmdb.net/album/360 Biohazard Outbreak Original Soundtrack
http://vgmdb.net/album/926 Breath of Fire Original Soundtrack Special Box
http://vgmdb.net/album/712 Breath of Fire V Dragon Quarter Original Soundtrack
http://vgmdb.net/album/255 Capcom Music Generation Family Computer Soundtracks Rockman 1~6
http://vgmdb.net/album/256 Capcom Music Generation Rockman X1~6
http://vgmdb.net/album/604 Chaos Legion Original Soundtrack
http://vgmdb.net/album/5684 Chocobo's Mysterious Dungeon: Labyrinth of Forgotten Time Original Soundtrack
http://vgmdb.net/album/5 CREID Yasunori Mitsuda & Millennial Fair
http://vgmdb.net/album/6009 Devil May Cry 4 Special Soundtrack
http://vgmdb.net/album/3061 Estpolis - Game Sound Legend Consumer Series Biography Estpolis Sound Track
http://vgmdb.net/album/1857 Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles Original Soundtrack
http://vgmdb.net/album/5681 Final Fantasy IV Original Soundtrack
http://vgmdb.net/album/17 Final Fantasy Tactics Advance Original Soundtrack
http://vgmdb.net/album/324 Final Fantasy Vocal Collections II "Love Will Grow"
http://vgmdb.net/album/297 Final Fantasy XI Chains of Promathia Original Soundtrack
http://vgmdb.net/album/184 Final Fantasy XI Original Soundtrack (Limited Edition)
http://vgmdb.net/album/304 Front Mission 5: Scars of the War Original Soundtrack
http://vgmdb.net/album/369 Front Mission Online Original Soundtrack
http://vgmdb.net/album/2803 Front Mission Original Sound Version
http://vgmdb.net/album/914 Genso Suikoden Music Collection Produced by Kentaro Haneda
http://vgmdb.net/album/428 Grandia II ~Deus~
http://vgmdb.net/album/426 Grandia II ~Povo~
http://vgmdb.net/album/1167 Guilty Gear X Heavy Rock Tracks ~ The Original Soundtrack of Dreamcast
http://vgmdb.net/album/4602 Gyakuten Saiban 4 Original Soundtrack
http://vgmdb.net/album/2675 Hako no Niwa
http://vgmdb.net/album/190 HALO Original Soundtrack
http://vgmdb.net/album/5026 Hanjuku Hero Original Soundtrack
http://vgmdb.net/album/163 Hanjuku Hero VS 3D Original Soundtrack
http://vgmdb.net/album/2671 Hayarigami Original Soundtrack
http://vgmdb.net/album/290 Jet Set Radio Future Original Sound Tracks
http://vgmdb.net/album/5059 Kingdom Hearts Original Soundtrack
http://vgmdb.net/album/2940 Konami Game Music Remix Series Vol.1 Dracula X Remixies
http://vgmdb.net/album/2410 Legaia Duel Saga Original Soundtrack
http://vgmdb.net/album/196 LIVE A LIVE Original Sound Version
http://vgmdb.net/album/4002 Makai Senki Disgaea Makai Arrange Collection ~Dark label~
http://vgmdb.net/album/2489 Medal of Honor: Frontline Original Soundtrack Recording
http://vgmdb.net/album/8021 Metal Gear Solid 3 Snake Eater Original Soundtrack
http://vgmdb.net/album/7633 Metal Gear Solid 4 Guns of the Patriots Original Soundtrack
http://vgmdb.net/album/10822 Metal Gear Solid Original Game Soundtrack
http://vgmdb.net/album/3709 More Than Mario
http://vgmdb.net/album/10425 Naruto Shippuuden Naltimate Accel Best Sound
http://vgmdb.net/album/939 Nobunaga's Ambition Online ~Chapter of Hiryu~ Complete Sound Track
http://vgmdb.net/album/3998 Radirgy Original Soundtrack
http://vgmdb.net/album/3176 Rhapsodia Original Soundtrack
http://vgmdb.net/album/2174 Rockman Battle & Chase
http://vgmdb.net/album/4385 Salamander ~Again~
http://vgmdb.net/album/4240 SHADOW HEARTS Original Soundtracks plus1
http://vgmdb.net/album/1584 Shin Megami Tensei III NOCTURNE Original Soundtrack
http://vgmdb.net/album/1081 SILENT HILL 4 -THE ROOM- ORIGINAL SOUNDTRACKS
http://vgmdb.net/album/1159 The OneUps Volume 1
http://vgmdb.net/album/8716 The OneUps Volume 2
http://vgmdb.net/album/1492 The Very Best of SEGA
http://vgmdb.net/album/1261 Valkyrie Profile 2 -Silmeria- Arrange Album
http://vgmdb.net/album/1259 Valkyrie Profile 2 -Silmeria- Original Soundtrack Vol.1 Alicia Side
http://vgmdb.net/album/1260 Valkyrie Profile 2 -Silmeria- Original Soundtrack Vol.2 Silmeria Side
http://vgmdb.net/album/1262 Valkyrie Profile 2 -Silmeria- Voice Mix Album
http://vgmdb.net/album/96 Wander and the Colossus ~Roar of the Earth~ Original Soundtrack
http://vgmdb.net/album/1067 Wild Arms Advanced 3rd Original Soundtrack
http://vgmdb.net/album/3685 Wild Arms Complete Tracks
http://vgmdb.net/album/1117 Wild Arms Music the Best -feeling wind-
http://vgmdb.net/album/1097 Wild Arms Music the Best -rocking heart-
http://vgmdb.net/album/4222 Wild Arms the Vth Vanguard Original Score Vol.1
http://vgmdb.net/album/3691 Wild Arms the Vth Vanguard - Justice to Believe
http://vgmdb.net/album/48 Xenogears Original Soundtrack
http://vgmdb.net/album/1799 Xenosaga Episode I

So, to help my workload, I ask you members, to check atleast some of those albums and decide if they need or not, and post in here.

And yes, I seem to be losing some sanity lately, because of starting stuff like this.

Also thanks to lgb already checking few albums off

Last edited by razakin; Feb 23, 2010 at 06:30 AM. Reason: CLeared off some albums
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  #2  
Old Oct 10, 2009, 03:39 PM
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Cypher Cypher is offline
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Thank you for the generous offer.
At first glance,I think these album needs upgrade(well, consider it a request list ):

Metal Gear Solid 2 Sons of Liberty Soundtrack 2: The Other Side
Castlevania: Lament of Innocence Limited Edition Music Sampler
SHADOW HEARTS II Original Soundtracks
Time & Space - A Tribute to Yasunori Mitsuda (Blue)
SILENT HILL 3 original soundtrack(Tainted.Fingerprints everywhere.)
Unlimited SaGa Original Soundtrack(Some blurry parts in the scans.)

EDIT:
Also,I guess these three needs some rework:
Grandia II ~Deus~ and Grandia II ~Povo~ (Although the scans are in the prefered png format,the image optimize is poor.)
Front Mission 5: Scars of the War Original Soundtrack(The tray piece is missing?)

EDIT #2:
2197 (Tainted.Fingerprints everywhere.)
Chaos Legion Original Soundtrack (This one could use a new disc scan.)
Chocobo's Mysterious Dungeon: Labyrinth of Forgotten Time Original Soundtrack (Missing disc & obi etc.)
Devil May Cry 4 Special Soundtrack (Part of the booklet & disc etc. are missing,some scans are too small to be read.)
Final Fantasy IV Original Soundtrack (New disc scan needed)
Final Fantasy Vocal Collections II "Love Will Grow" (Some scans are too small.Also missing disc & obi.)
Final Fantasy XI Original Soundtrack (Limited Edition) (Booklet scans are kinda small.)

EDIT #3:
Front Mission Original Sound Version (Scan quality vary,some are too small.Bad cut job.)
Genso Suikoden Music Collection Produced by Kentaro Haneda (Disc & Obi are missing.)
Guilty Gear X Heavy Rock Tracks ~ The Original Soundtrack of Dreamcast
Gyakuten Saiban 4 Original Soundtrack (Bigger disc scan needed.)
Hanjuku Hero VS 3D Original Soundtrack (Disc scans are a little hard to read.)
Hayarigami Original Soundtrack (Scan quality vary.)
Jet Set Radio Future Original Sound Tracks (Disc & obi are blurry.)
Kingdom Hearts Original Soundtrack
Konami Game Music Remix Series Vol.1 Dracula X Remixies (Scan quality vary.)

To be continued...

Last edited by Cypher; Oct 13, 2009 at 05:57 AM.
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  #3  
Old Oct 10, 2009, 07:46 PM
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The upgrades requested here seem more like "perfectionist" jobs than something of palpable importance. Not to say that I'm arguing against the upgrades though; I enjoy perfection as much as you do.
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  #4  
Old Oct 12, 2009, 06:17 AM
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Some of the first list are mine, and I at least think they are pretty good scans with accurate colours (which isn't always the case, as I learned) and stuff. Of course they are not perfect, but is there such thing?

And man, that FF12 Limited Edition was a pain to scan as I recall. That's easily the worst of the lot from me. The booklet on that one doesn't really render itself very well for regular scanners, so the inner edges of most (all?) of the booklet pages are blurry. So by all means, improve on that one if you can.
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  #5  
Old Oct 12, 2009, 01:55 PM
Ramza Ramza is online now
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I have my own scans of FFXII and I'll tell ya Mika, your scans are even better than mine were. I don't see how you could get much better.

Also, that SaGa Frontier 2 OST ... not sure if those are my scans (submitted by someone else) or if they are my own scans. In any case, I can't see what needs improvement. If you knew about the type of paper that was printed on, you'd settle for what you have. I'm trying to see what's wrong with them...
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  #6  
Old Oct 18, 2009, 10:59 AM
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razakin razakin is offline
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Mika and Ramza, I'm sorry if you two got the feeling that I'm saying that there's something wrong on your scans (when there's clearly nothing wrong). That was not the purpose of this thread, it was more like to help me to check if those albums listed do need any 'major' upgrading on the scan-section.

Probably should go through that list now that I have bit more time to waste and remove albums like FF XII and Saga Frontier 2, where I can't get better scans unless I start damaging the booklets for example (atleast on FF XII, big booklets are pain in the ass to scan).

Also, there's stuff like Vagrant Story OST where the scans are bit 'grainy' (if that's the correct word), but still it's easy to see the stuff on it, and stuff like that probably won't be scanned again by me.

Thankfully Cypher has done already some checking and descriptions what to do, which does help a lot. Though, this list still is on a backburner after I'll manage to finish up scanning the stuff I own which doesn't even have scans on here.
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Old Oct 18, 2009, 01:17 PM
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Oh, I didn't get the impression at all, my post was mainly just to "eliminate" the stuff I've done so you don't need to check. I remember scanning most of my collection, but skipped a bunch that appeared to have complete set of scans.

Interesting that you should mention Vagrant Story, I was just looking at my scans of the remaster reprint version thing and they are a little grainy as well. If I remember right I was getting too dark scans, and tried to adjust accordingly, but ended up introducing some noise in there. Maybe the colour combo of black and red is a difficult thing for cheaper scanners to master. Or something. I obviously know what the hell I'm talking about here.
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Old May 23, 2010, 04:02 AM
Cedille Cedille is offline
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I'm a total scan beginner and want other members to share know-how...

Wouldn't it be better to keep the scan size smaller so that dust and moiré become less noticeable? I feel a 600 dpi scan provides too much needless detail even if we can zoom out it later by scrolling the mouse, and the thumbnail as a default cover sometimes looks pretty bad.

Also, does anybody trim particles of dirt on the black background, or delete white blank space on the verge which I guess is the reflection of the scanner bed cover (such as this)?
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Old May 23, 2010, 04:24 AM
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I don't see what you mean about the reflection, but I do see some smudges above the "esp". I've never done any post-scan cleanup, but I do clean the scanning surface with some glass cleaner and a soft cloth when I start to notice markings.

I agree about 600 dpi. We really don't need anything above 300 to document the scans at a readable letter. Anything above that will just catch fine details of the paper and imperfections in the printing process.
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Old May 23, 2010, 05:02 AM
Cedille Cedille is offline
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I wanted to point out the white space at the inferior border. I don't know what causes this, but not infrequently can it be also found in other members' scans.



I'd appreciate some guidelines for better scanning as I really suck at this. After adding several inclined disc scans, I finally realized I must prepare a CD tray to keep discs upright.
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Old May 23, 2010, 05:15 AM
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razakin razakin is offline
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Isn't those borders just case of lazy cropping? Also, if you're using Photoshop to edit scans, use Ruler-tool (hk: Ctrl-I twice at normal settings) and draw line from example the bottom of the slanted scan (for example, if booklet scan is bit slanted, just draw the line with ruler-tool one end to another end), then just Image -> Rotate Canvas -> Arbitrary. It should have same angle amount as Ruler-tool did gave. Which rotates the picture amount of the angle given. Should straighten things up. (Thanks for blah telling me that tool ages ago on irc)
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Old May 23, 2010, 06:17 AM
Cedille Cedille is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Razakin View Post
Isn't those borders just case of lazy cropping?
Lazy as I am, I'd want to prevent it from happening, since it discourages me to submit covers actively if I have to take care of every scan. I only use Paint for cropping, but perhaps there can be some awesome free software available.
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Old May 23, 2010, 06:26 AM
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I use xnview to crop.

If it were a repeatable problem (like the exact number of pixels of extra white in each scan is always the same), then I'd write a Python script that called into Gimp or something, so that I could automate the process.
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Old May 23, 2010, 06:31 AM
LiquidAcid LiquidAcid is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Cedille View Post
I only use Paint for cropping, but perhaps there can be some awesome free software available.
Then I would recommend Gimp.

If you're using a *nix OS with GNOME desktop manager then F-Spot should do it, even though it's still considered a 'photo management software'. However it should support at least rotation, cropping and some more 'trivial' functions.

While I was still using Windows I had XnView installed, I'm pretty sure it also supports a limited set of edition functions. And from what I heard Paint.NET should be quite good.
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Old May 23, 2010, 06:34 AM
LiquidAcid LiquidAcid is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Secret Squirrel View Post
I use xnview to crop.
OK, so it does at least support cropping

Quote:
Originally Posted by Secret Squirrel View Post
If it were a repeatable problem (like the exact number of pixels of extra white in each scan is always the same), then I'd write a Python script that called into Gimp or something, so that I could automate the process.
Hmm, too complicated. If you have to use Python then import ImageMagick and use that. In fact you can 'script' it from virtually any language:
http://www.imagemagick.org/script/api.php
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Old May 23, 2010, 09:11 AM
Cedille Cedille is offline
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Thanks for nice recommendations. I'll manually crop at least the booklet front.
Quote:
If it were a repeatable problem (like the exact number of pixels of extra white in each scan is always the same)
Well, I doubt it. I assume the booklet is a bit too slim so the inside of my scanner cover which is white is mirrored, and the pixel length can vary.
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Old May 24, 2010, 04:55 PM
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IrfanView is a free image viewer with a simple way to crop, but it's also an image viewer, but free to use.

At least I crop my images, except the Romancing SaGa scans I added. I didn't when I first scanned them and just didn't feel like it when I came around to adding them.

Also it seems like the list is outdated for scans to be 'upgraded' slightly. I know I added the Grandia Povo & Deus scans, except I didn't replace the cover, but it was probably fine to leave it since the edit was oct '09 and I added them pretty recently. I think the quality is fine, too. Maybe someone should update the list as I don't mind scanning to add if I have the album sometimes (though it's just lazy for me not to go through it myself to see what could be added).
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Old May 25, 2010, 01:44 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by mercenary09 View Post
Also it seems like the list is outdated for scans to be 'upgraded' slightly. I know I added the Grandia Povo & Deus scans, except I didn't replace the cover, but it was probably fine to leave it since the edit was oct '09 and I added them pretty recently. I think the quality is fine, too. Maybe someone should update the list as I don't mind scanning to add if I have the album sometimes (though it's just lazy for me not to go through it myself to see what could be added).
It is bit outdated, and I really should go through it again someday. When I have some time.
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Old May 25, 2010, 02:43 AM
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Well the list of scans that needs an upgrade is quite huge, so a list is nearly impossible to make.

Our priority is to fill unscanned entries. (generally when there is only the Front cover or Case Front/Case Back only or no cover at all)
Then, we need to complete sets with missing scans (often obis, registration cards, goodies)
Then, upgrade quality.
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Old Oct 26, 2010, 07:00 AM
kyubihanyou kyubihanyou is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Myrkul View Post
Well the list of scans that needs an upgrade is quite huge, so a list is nearly impossible to make.

Our priority is to fill unscanned entries. (generally when there is only the Front cover or Case Front/Case Back only or no cover at all)
Then, we need to complete sets with missing scans (often obis, registration cards, goodies)
Then, upgrade quality.
LISTEN TO THIS MAN

Here's my little scan request list. [LINER NOTES ONLY]
http://vgmdb.net/album/1209 SRCL-3120: X-Men: Children of the Atom Arcade Gametrack
http://vgmdb.net/album/1796 VICL-2176: X-Men vs. Street Fighter
http://vgmdb.net/album/2491 CPCA-1005: Marvel VS. Capcom: Clash of Super Heroes Original Soundtrack
http://vgmdb.net/album/2492 FSCA-10017: Marvel Super Heroes VS. Street Fighter Original Sound Track & Arrange
http://vgmdb.net/album/2990 SRCL-2822: Super Street Fighter II: The New Challengers Arcade Gametrack
http://vgmdb.net/album/4340 SRCL-3451: Rockman: The Power Battle Arcade Gametrack
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