Magic 2014 Core Set

[woogerboy21]

Thoughts?

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http://imageshack.com/a/img600/394/mtub.jpg

[skibulk]

The color on this is quite off. Compare to the official wizards gallery image. Yours has too much red/yellow.

[woogerboy21]

Yea, I bring in the color curves a bit more to make the color more rich.
I'm still stumbling on the steps you guys use for the color adjustments.
I'll keep trying to match the wizards image better to get your guys process down, though I think I like the richer color for my personal images.

Here's the same image with a full border:

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http://imageshack.com/a/img9/7954/mzv3.jpg

Edit:
Slightly brightened:

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Like I mentioned in the thread about helping the team. I have no problem with the scanning, cropping, perspective and cloning. I would be willing to do any of those steps. But the color adjustments and bordering I'll leave up to you guys to make your final product. That is why I was hoping to have the process split so the workload can be spread across various people.

[extreme]

I think it's too saturated - I think I put the -10 sat for your scans there . About the colors vs gatherer, I find Gatherer isn't always accurate compared to the real card. Greens are more yellow, for ex.
Also, clipped blacks. - less so in the last one.
There's also some kind of annoying interference pattern that isn't usually there at that size. Maybe jpg compression artifacts ?

[woogerboy21]

I think it's too saturated - I think I put the -10 sat for your scans there . About the colors vs gatherer, I find Gatherer isn't always accurate compared to the real card. Greens are more yellow, for ex.

I've noticed this as well.

Also, clipped blacks. - less so in the last one.

Clipped blacks? What do you mean by that.

There's also some kind of annoying interference pattern that isn't usually there at that size. Maybe jpg compression artifacts ?

Were can I look to see this?

[skibulk]

@woogerboy - just to make sure, try viewing your images on another monitor and see if they look the same to you. The images may look great on your monitor, but if it is displaying color inaccurately, it would look off to the rest of us. And we absolutely plan to spread the workload between multiple people. We're looking for four people to work an average of 3 hours per month each. So far we have you, Moomark, and possibly tanthrojen.

@extreme - that's too bad gatherer's greens are slightly yellow. You'd think that since they make the images from the actual cards, they would be accurate. I was recommending this because it should be close at least, and this method is monitor calibration independent. Oh well.

[woogerboy21]

I think I figured out the interference. Could it be caused by the interpolation method I am using? I was using Sinc. When you scale do you know the quality interpolation method you use? I think its default to Linear.

Might be off on this but was tinkering with the different options just now.

[woogerboy21]

@skibulk
I have actually compared it across multiple monitors on 3 separate machines. (Work,Home,Laptop) Each look very similar in the fact that the scans I've worked on are much richer green were as the gatherers greens are more light and faded. It would be interested to be in person and see what your seeing but chances are that will never happen.

Infact I do a similar step to your instruction steps and cut out the space on left and right of the color levels. I don't mess with the hue/sat levels (which is why I think extreme says its heavy saturated).

The only other things I see that are different is the unsharpen filter since the measurement scales are different between gimp and photoshop. When I have a chance ill take a look at the automation scripts you guys posted to see what setting are used when scaling in regards to the quality method used.

Unless one of you guys know off the top of your head.

Edit :
After some time educating myself I believe I will be using cubic going forward.

[extreme]

I use cubic (with sharpening) for resizing.
wait a minute, you are messing with the individual color sliders in Levels ? That leads to color shifts. Also, an increase in contrast - via levels - means an increase in saturation as well.
@skibulk - We've debated this issue to death for years. The easy answer is - we can't be color accurate, and we can only try to be around there somewhere without spending too much effort. This means that it's easier for everybody to have the whole set scanned by a single scanner with the same settings. You make the changes you deem necessary without going crazy, then you apply this on all scans from that set.
I think you insist too much on the color accuracy. There is no way to have it without a single scanner for everything and even then. So don't lose sleep and effort over it. If the colors are about right, it's ok.

[Huggybaby]

Don't they make a color calibration sheet for scanners?
http://www.ambir.com/Care

I think we talked to PresetM about that but never got anywhere.

[tanthorjen]

@extreme, @skibulk Hey guys, I just dropped you a private message. Check it out.

[woogerboy21]

wait a minute, you are messing with the individual color sliders in Levels ? That leads to color shifts. Also, an increase in contrast - via levels - means an increase in saturation as well.

The Scanning, Slicing, Cropping steps have no color adjustments made when I have done things. But when I go to make a card output similar to the one I posted in this thread, I do adjust the leveler bar and move the left / right side in to the edge of the color curve. If I want to get really granular I do it on a per color bases rather than the over-all graph. This is similar to the steps that are included in the automation actions of Skibulk under his slice-save / levels step. Keep in mind that the numbers used between the sides vary between card but there is a general left most value range and right most value range that can be used if the images come from the same source.

I didn't see it in the steps in Extremes actions so I doubt he does it with his. And I am not saying it should be done if you guys don't think it should be. I do it for image I have in my own personal collection. And your right Extreme, it does cause an increase in saturation. If you guys ever wanted me to do any color based steps I can gladly not make those adjustments.

Here is an example of what no level adjustment (left) compared to level adjustment (right) looks like. (Keep in mind I usually brighten the color adjusted versions I do but for the sake of example I didn't do that in these pictures.)

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Also Extreme, you said something about black clip. What is that?

[extreme]

shadows clipping, when you push too far the black slider to the right and irreversibly lose details in the dark parts.
I personally prefer the left image, but planeswalkers should be done differently - the lover part and the upper corners are part of the border and there shouldn't be any difference between border and lower part. I can see the cut now. I have provided skibulk with a template for planeswalkers and backgrounds and all, you can look in his folder.

[woogerboy21]

shadows clipping, when you push too far the black slider to the right and irreversibly lose details in the dark parts.
I personally prefer the left image, but planeswalkers should be done differently - the lover part and the upper corners are part of the border and there shouldn't be any difference between border and lower part. I can see the cut now. I have provided skibulk with a template for planeswalkers and backgrounds and all, you can look in his folder.

Yeah, one thing to note about the images I posted in the last post (comparison images). I didnt use your border frames, it was a simple canvas enlarge and fill with corner rounding filter. I noticed that the borders that are included in the .zip are shaded / colored differently than the outcome you would get with the fill / round filter method.

[woogerboy21]

How about this one (not a planeswalker). I must say, actions in PS are amazing.

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http://imageshack.com/a/img801/5763/0uxy.jpg