Scanning great big fucking shit

[GaijinPunch]

Okay... there's a ton of cool shit out there that's eventually going to be way, way gone. Considering just about any part of Japan can be wiped off the face of the Earth minutes [knocks on wood] it's not presumptuous to think something like, Cave's rarer A1 posters might become even harder to find.

So, what's the answer? On a consumer level I see nothing larger than A3+ (which gives an extra small bit for overlap). One dimension of A1 is exactly twice that of A3. The other is 1 centimeter bigger than the other. This means that if the top of your scanner doesn't come off, you're going to have to perfectly seem that shit (very hard, I would think).

Anyone have anything to add?

[Lynx Winters]

I would suggest scanning them in sections and using your preferred picture editing software to piece them together, but there would be problems ranging from inconsistent scan quality to difficulty in the actual act of lining everything up correctly once it's all scanned.

Maybe there's a copy shop or something with a big scanner?

[GaijinPunch]

I would suggest scanning them in sections and using your preferred picture editing software to piece them together, but there would be problems ranging from inconsistent scan quality to difficulty in the actual act of lining everything up correctly once it's all scanned.

Generally this is where overlap comes into play. You overlap, use an alpha mask + gradient, and voila. This was my first or second attempt, and it was even folded so it was way harder. Not perfect, but it's very fixable. Neither this and this will fit in a A4 scanner (and I don't have one bigger yet). I'm sure you could agree there is no "stitcing" the Shenmue one w/ that background.

The problem I was is that you need overlap. A3 scanners have exactly half of the dimension one way. You'd have to take the top off to pull it off (possible, but cumbersome).

Maybe there's a copy shop or something with a big scanner?

A1 scans run 2500 yen each. The problem is, I don't know how they'd feel about scanning copyrighted work. It's generally for artists to scan their stuff. I actually found a place that sells an A1 scanner for about $10,000.

[ReKleSS]

Couldn't you use panorama software (i.e. for cameras) to fix it up automatically? I'd imagine variations from cameras would be worse than a segmented scan. Autostitch was recommended on Dan's Data, I haven't tried it personally.

[themachinist]

Are you sure you're not trying to scan your bare ass?

fake edit: jk

[GaijinPunch]

panorama

Not good enough w/ the lighting and shit.... although I have a good camera. You'd also have to get the poster to stay down somehow.

Are you sure you're not trying to scan your bare ass?

Cock, actually.

[ReKleSS]

I mean scan the stuff normally, then let the software deal with the stitching, rather than trying to tweak it in photoshop. You could probably scan your A1 poster in 3 segments to make the stitching cleaner.

Also, your A1 and A3 stuff sounds weird. ISO paper sizes are defined as A0 being 1m^2, with one side being sqrt(2)*the other, then each size halves the long side (so that you can get any size you need by halving or doubling). Wikipedia has a nice diagram.

[rtw]

I've got the same problem, for WOA I need scans of all the extras..

All is quite simple to do except the POP which is a royal PITA.

If anyone has a tutorial on the Photoshop, Alpha & Gradient stuff that would be helpful as well.

If someone who has the Espgaluda II POP and has access to an A3/A2 scanner and can do me a scan at 600DPI that would be very nice Thanks to zak Ibara is covered, just need to clean up the massive scans.

I'll check out Autostitch.

rtw

[neist]

You going to need to find a oversized scanner to use. Possibly even a drum scanner.

Cant really give you too many suggestions, but they arent very cheap and I doubt having something scanned is very cheap as well. Drum scanners are what they use to scan art for text books.

[Ed Oscuro]

Scanning and me are not friends...

Well, there's this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planetary_scanner

A DIY planetary scanner is certainly cheaper than a drum scanner, and nicer for easily-damaged things (like the folding manual in the Japanese release of Demon Sword, d'oh)

[cools]

Stitching together is easy. Takes time if there are 6+ pieces, but it's no hassle.

The two main problems are ensuring the scans are all done at exactly the same angle, and the paper is kept completely flat at the edges.

The second can be overcome by cropping edges (which you'll be doing anyway) and overlapping "flat" pieces in software.

The first is impossible to do with just a scanner and poster. You'd need to build some sort of rig to keep them aligned perfectly, and secure the item being scanned.

This is with a small scanner. An large format one solves all of these.

http://www.contex.com/english/scanners/ ... rview.aspx

Not cheap. You should be able to find somewhere that will rent you one, though.

[Fudoh]

Stitching scans together from multiple, individuals scans is actually really easy. Here's an example.

This one in scanned in one pass:
http://pms.hazard-city.de/einhaender_1scan.jpg

and this ons is done in two where the 2nd half was even rotated a bit in comparison to the other half:
http://pms.hazard-city.de/einhaender_2scans.jpg

It has been stitched together using a vectormask in photoshop and using a gradient on the edge of one scan on top of the vectormask.

I've done posters before this way and it's really easy

Fudoh

[GaijinPunch]

nice diagram.

That's where I got my info from. Look at the chart (not the picture)
A3: 297 × 420
A1: 594 × 841

297 * 2 = 954
420 * 2 = 841 <-- missing a millimeter here

If anyone has a tutorial on the Photoshop, Alpha & Gradient stuff that would be helpful as well.

It's very simple. You scan in multiple pieces (the more, the merrier, sort of) and overlap them. Then use a mask. It generally works like this. Let's say you have something that's 300cm long but your scanner is only 200cm long. Width is arbitrary.

-Scan from 1cm to 200cm, then scan from 101cm, to 300cm. You should have 100cm (about 33%) overlap, which is ample. Having 50% is better, but we won't bitch about that.
-Put the second scan on top of the other. Rotate it and all that shit, and set the opacity to about 50%
-When it's lined up, change the opacity, but keep a mental note of where the overlap stops & starts
-On the top layer, add a mask from the layers palette (button at the bottom)
-Go to the gradient tool, and select it from black to white (older versions of PS require transparent I think)
-Use the gradient within the overlapped space -- the direction matters, FYI
-Ooh ahh in amazement

There's no limit to how many pieces you can do. The more pieces the more the shadow problem which occurs from pieces hanging out of the scanner is alleviated. Perfect, no, of course now, but with enough dedication it can be good enough for the goal at hand.

The other options like what Ed suggested is that these posters are rolled up, and don't stay unrolled at all. Something is going to have to clamp it down on the corners to hold it there. Definitely not ideal.

The Daraku Tenshi example shown above was done in very little time. Less than an hour, and it was folded which is where most of the discoloration comes from. It was more or less a practice session anyway.

There are cheap A3+ scanners on Yahoo Japan, but they require SCSI-2, so I'll have to get a card, and explain to my wife what the gigantic hunk of shit in my house is.

POPS

These are amazingly hard not only b/c of the size, but b/c of the weird creases in them. You should buy whomever did the ones at WOA a blow job... he's talented.

[it290]

Just take it to a service bureau. There are a lot of places that specialize in repro for CAD and architectural stuff that will scan big stuff easily, using a 40" (or bigger) roll-feed scanner. Generally these services are quite cheap because they don't do the cleanup/color correction and so forth that places specializing in art reproduction do.

[rtw]

You cannot use a drum scanner on the POP's they are too stiff.

I started playing with a noise removal program:

http://www.imagenomic.com/

It removes a lot of noise but I am wondering if this causes a hight resolution printout to degrade in quality ? Instead of a dithering pattern we now get solid colour.

Here are two examples:

http://home.online.no/~totjabe/gp/

Is the noise removal an improvement ?

Played with autostitch on the Mushihimetama sticker, it blurred everything.

And lastly... anyone want to stitch togethere a MushihimeTama POP for me ?

rtw

[Fudoh]

And lastly... anyone want to stitch togethere a MushihimeTama POP for me ?

if you upload your scans somewhere and PM me the links, I'll give it a try.

[Fudoh]

The denoising tool you're using is BS. For reprinting any scans on CMYK dot-based printers (offset or color laser) you are still better descreening your scans. Using 600dpi scans with a descreening tool gives you enough room for playing with sharpening tools since you're downscaling to 300dpi before printing anyway.

[rtw]

if you upload your scans somewhere and PM me the links, I'll give it a try.

Thank you I will do that, just need to crop them a bit and upload the
package somewhere.

The denoising tool you're using is BS. For reprinting any scans on CMYK dot-based printers (offset or color laser) you are still better descreening your scans. Using 600dpi scans with a descreening tool gives you enough room for playing with sharpening tools since you're downscaling to 300dpi before printing anyway.

Thanks for the comments on the the denoising tool

Any suggestions on some good descreening tools ?

rtw

[it290]

You cannot use a drum scanner on the POP's they are too stiff.

Not sure if this was in response to me, but I wasn't referring to a drum scanner (using a drum scanner on printed material like this would mostly be a wasted effort anyway, as a cheapo flatbed has more than enough resolving power to get all the detail you're going to get out of the image), but rather a large format scanner which is essentially a 'flatbed on wheels' - the image passes over a small glass slit which contains the scanning hardware. You can actually run foamcore boards through a lot of these suckers, so bristol board or the like should be no problem.

[Fudoh]

Any suggestions on some good descreening tools ?

I use the scan software which came with my scanner (from Silverfast), it's rather high-end and does a very good on descreening.

[rtw]

Any suggestions on some good descreening tools ?

I use the scan software which came with my scanner (from Silverfast), it's rather high-end and does a very good on descreening.

Which SilverFasst product is this ? AI/SE/SE Plus ?

rtw

[GaijinPunch]

Exibit A (Size: B2)

Exibit B (Size: A1)

[rtw]

fudoh, please check your PM

rtw

[GaijinPunch]

They're awesome

I'm pretty close to linking this on the main site. But here's a sneak preview. They take ages to do, so don't expect a huge influx. I'll try to add one or two a week though.