CARD SCANS NEEDED for the CCGHQ Team

[extreme]

(extreme) updated 02.2012
Requirements:

a) have at least 1 complete/almost complete set that hasn't been done yet in MINT condition
b) have/can borrow a scanner (other than a cheap HP all-in-one. If you have a HP all-in-one, don't: you are wasting your time).
c) are willing to spend a little time scanning and uploading it.

PLEASE READ THE FOLLOWING CAREFULLY, IT IS VERY IMPORTANT.
These are the scanning instructions in order to start.

- Don't scan everything you have, there are very big chances that you've worked in vain.
- Do NOT send final HQ pics, just scans.
- Please make several (3-5 cards) test scans before proceeding.
- Test scans need to fulfill the following requirements:

-Please use MINT cards. Scratched/worn cards are very difficult to correct. If damage is limited to borders don't worry, they are not used (except for Unglued and Unhinged sets). If you have several identical cards, use the least damaged one.
-Clean the scanning glass and the cards often, it is very important that there is as little dust as possible. This can best be seen in the dark areas of cards, where every tiny little speck of dust or scratch becomes horribly visible.
Dirt tends to accumulate on cards and is usually visible in the textbox as black spots, and also if you look at the surface of the card you will see the clean surface clearly reflecting light and the dirt as black spots. Dirt can be easily removed with a damp cotton ball or q-tip.
Don't worry, cards are water resistant (of course, this doesn't mean they should be put in an aquarium).
It can’t be stressed enough how important it is that there are as little dust/scratches/hairs/dirt/printing defects as possible.
-Make sure the cards are PERFECTLY FLAT against the scanner glass. Some scanner lids are not perfect and they do not press on the cards enough, letting them "bulge".
This leads to geometric distortions in scanning. This is bad.
-Don't try to perfectly align the cards horizontally/vertically. More or less horizontal or vertical is good enough, provided you scan all the useful part of the card.

For normal cards:

a) scan at 600 dpi, and you'll probably need to go to some sort of "advanced" button in order to get access to the following options:
b) all autos turned off (no auto color, no auto sharpening, no auto exposure). If your scanner is calibrated, of course use that profile, but then if you know that, you will surely know how to scan correctly at 600dpi.
c) No descreening (i.e. no "newspaper" or "magazine" setting or something like this, if you have this kind of options use "color photo" instead)
d) use exposure (or lighten/darken as it is called sometimes) carefully and sparingly:
do not cut any highlights and shadows, all the details in blacks or whites are needed, i. e. all the exposure range that the scanner is able to squeeze from your card.
The only easily-explained solution for that is to use manual exposure which usually has 3 sliders: blacks/shadows, midtones/gamma and whites/highlights. Leave midtones alone, put the shadow slider to extreme left and the highlights to extreme right (this should work with probably all
scanners, unless there is a weird scanner manufacturer who calculates backwards and left does the opposite than right). Some scanners have brightness and contrast sliders. Lower the contrast.
Anyway, you should have a picture that is slightly (or in some cases more than slightly) less contrasted than the card, i.e. black is greyish and white is less white than it should be. This is GOOD, don't worry. There should be no deep black and no blinding white.
e) leave sharpening alone, no sharpening is ok. An unsharpened picture can be sharpened, but not the opposite.
f) output as "millions of colors" or "24 bit color" or "true color", it's the same thing.
g) save as jpeg and be very careful about jpeg compression. 90-95% is enough, do not try to compress more (80% or 70%), information will be lost (a lot of it). We could use Tifs or pngs, but they are horribly big and a little-compressed jpeg is probably the best solution.
h) save the settings you used (a profile, or if impossible, just do the same thing for all other cards you scan, but it will be very annoying to repeat it every time). It is VITAL that you use the same exact settings for all cards you scan !
i) Upload the test scans on rapidshare (or anywhere else you have FTP access) and post the link.

-Please observe very carefully all of the above, each of them is very important and the lack of one can lead to useless results.

If all will be ok, the usual way to work is to scan 9 cards on a page, with little spaces between them, for ease of scanning, without overlapping cards.
Perfect alignment is very unnecessary and it only takes more time for the scanning person, all cards are corrected anyway. The only thing needed is that the full inner part of the card is correctly scanned.
Borders are cropped anyway, don't bother.

For foil cards besides what I said:

-LED scanners are usually useless for scanning foils. Once you see it you'll know why: horrible multicolor banding.
-The best foil scans have neutral reflections - white or grey in the shiny logo. This is achieved by rotating the card (0, 45 and 90 degrees, then it's the same) and choosing which one is the most neutral possible. A full card color cast is NOT easy to remove because parts of the card are not shiny and will be wrongly corrected.


Basically, what we won't be able to do in the near future is :

Summer magic (we'd be delighted for a Serendib efreet or a blue hurricane).
alternate 4th
unique cards

If you can help....

[Mr.C]

You could make a LQ Summer Magic File with the images on the Rarities site, hypothetically. It is better than anything that we will have, at least for a while, anyway.

[Gaspare]

portal 2 and 3 can be removed from the list I think

[extreme]

portal 2 isn't in hq yet. but yes, 3 is.

[Gaspare]

My bad that's right only portal 3

Thanks for the hard work to all of you guys

[Mr.C]

Got a potentially usable scan of a Portuguese 4th Ornithopter. Sent extreme a PM.

[DJFriar]

I have an entire Unhinged and Unglued set. What cards are needed, or do you need them all?

Edit: I should add I have a complete set of the normal cards. I don't have many foils, and I'm not sure what "alternates" are...

[extreme]

no, it's ok, we got this covered, thanks

[Mr.C]

So, now which scans do you guys need, since it's all done?

[extreme]

first of all, from you a portuguese ornithopter at 600dpi and a Nightmare

then the sets at the end of my first post:
Alpha
Summer magic
alternate 4th

[Mahamoti]

Here is my wish list:

Unhinged Alternate Foils
http://www.slightlymagic.net/forum/viewtopic.php?p=4666#p4666

Tenth Edition Alternate Foils
http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtgcom/arcana/1374

English Salvat cards
http://www.magiclibrarities.net/135-rarities-salvat-magic-encyclopedia-cards-spanish-cards-index.html



Oversized 6x9 Cards
http://www.magiclibrarities.net/rarities-6x9.html

Box Topper Cards (both side)
http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtgcom/arcana/385
http://www.magiclibrarities.net/rarities-box-toppers.html


PresetM: Any status comment?


and of course
Alpha
Summer magic
some promo

[A.R.]

Agree with Mahamoti D! Also I would add:

- World Championship Decks
- Tip Cards (we currently have only Eventide Tip Cards)
- non-English cards with an alternate art
- all non-English promos

[Huggybaby]

I want tip cards and the tip sheets that come with precon decks.

[extreme]

we have tip cards for:
eventide
10th
shadowmoor
portal
shards soon.

Are you telling me only eventide got released?

[Huggybaby]

Yep, AFAIR.

<edit> I don't grab stuff unless I know for sure it's ready. If those others are ready, I can post them. It would be easiest if I stick them all in one package.