I’ve posted another issue of Kilobaud and am working on the next one. The first two that are posted were scanned and massaged to compensate for the old, yellowed paper, rotated to compensate for imperfect scans and generally cleaned up. The PDFs were exported at 200 dpi with a modest amount of JPG compression, just enough to keep file size under control.
The kicker is that this is a VERY time consuming process. Therefore, in the interest in time and general archival needs, I’m going to do things differently.
First, I’ve spent a good deal of time with VueScan (www.hamrick.com) to tweak the original image without destroying the quality. Sure, I use the supplied TWAIN drivers for convenience as that is what a lot of software supports. When I need the best scans possible, I use VueScan. I am always impressed how much more VueScan brings out and lets me dial in the image and it has impressed me again.
The result is that I’ve made a profile that makes the original scans look pretty decent. There will still be pages that show human error, those that are not aligned perfectly and show the edges of the paper, and the paper will still have some “character,” but it is be quite usable. After scanning a magazine, I’ll post it raw at either 150 or 200 dpi to “get it out there.” I keep the originals so that later I can optimize each image and then post those at 200 dpi.
So what about the 300 dpi originals? I’ll keep them separate. Think of them as the RAW originals.
Well, it’s back to work. Enjoy the Kilobauds! And don’t forget to check out VueScan for yourself.
