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Assistance in scanning and printing a B&W comic book for binding

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Matt Stevens	Assistance in scanning and printing a B&W comic book for binding	Lead	[-]
Posts: 157 (08/22/08 3:22 PM) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite	Tags : warlock 5, custom, binding, bound, scan, scanning, scanned, over, sized Last year I sent my a full run of WARLOCK 5 (including signed issues) to David Banks to have bound at Capital and the results were amazing. Unfortunately, I find myself reading it so often I may wear it out! This is it... So I said, just bind a full time reading copy. Well, then I said, why not scan the pages and print them out, oversized, for an Oversized hardcover? The problem is, finding issues with true white pages is proving impossible. The series was printed on the cheapest pulp available at the time and most copies have darkened or turned yellow. I do have a few issues that are white, but most are not and in trying to track down white paged copies I have been met with great disappointment. A couple of the issues are very rare in high grades I do have those issues in NM/M (perfect CGC candidates) with white pages, but I cannot bring myself to take them apart for scanning. Not after more than an entire decade in search of them (no lie). So how do you take a scan of a page that is no longer white and Photoshop it to the proper white, without losing the graytones that are part of this books art? This series was airbrushed B&W, as you can see, and really something to behold. I want to have the highest possible quality scans and copies. Here is what most scans look like using grayscale settings... Clearly that is not acceptable. Nope. Looks like crap. Darker even then the aged page is. On this page I was able to somehow get the scanner to scan it differently and it turned white, but I was only able to get that to work once and no amount of fiddling and retrying produced similar results... The nuclear blast effect of that page has less gray tones, so nothing was lost here. Look at the Capital bound volume pic above to see just how incredible gray tones can be. Maybe one of you can give me a tutorial in Paint Shop Pro or Photoshop (less familiar with this program) on how to take these scanned pages that are from darkened and aged pages and manipulate them to look brand spanking new. I want the whites to match the white of brand new paper this would be printed on. And of course, which paper do I use?! No idea. I'd imagine I'd go to David and Capital for this, so feel free to chime in, David. The goal is a one of a king oversized version of the series. I'd likely want a die that looks exactly like how the title is printed on the cover (see way above pic) and would need help with that as well. I would bring the art as close to the edges as possible to maximize the size. Am I attempting something that is impossible? I know it will be time consuming. That's OK. Right now I am scanning 300dpi and grayscale (not B&W). I assume that is the correct method. Exactly where and how to print is something I will have to tackle eventually. Cost is always an issue. But Greyscale should be less trouble then color I imagine. I hope! Thanks for the help. Last Edited By: Matt Stevens 08/23/08 6:12 PM. Edited 2 times.
Steve Topper		#1	[-]
Posts: 576 (08/22/08 10:17 PM) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite	Matt, I have to run in a little bit but I might be able to answer some of your questions. First, do you want white for the borders and want to maintain the grayscale for the actual panels? If so, I'll can tell you how I would do it. Otherwise, I would have to research it a bit. The die, do you want the logo only or the entire cover image. Logo is easy enough, the entire image with the various geometric shapes -- not so easy. Have to run now, but will keep checking in
Matt Stevens		#2	[-]
Posts: 158 (08/23/08 6:01 PM) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite	Hey Steve, to answer your questions... Yes, white border and keeping all the grayscale that is in those airbrushed panels. I'll want the actual printing to expand as close to the top and bottom adge as possible so that it's really big. For the die, just 'WARLOCK 5' as it appears on the covers. I understand that thick letters do not press well, so this logo is perfect since it is basically the letters in outline. Hopefully I am explaining that right. As luck would have it, I went through my long boxes and found a stash of issues I didn't know I had and they included some copies with white pages. So only issues 12 and 13 are an problem. #12 is off-white to white and every copy I have of #13 is pretty much darkened, as you can see from the scan. Too bad since it is my favorite issue. Here is another page, this time scanned in color document mode... Clearly yellowed. Closer to what it should look like, but absolutely no cigar. Last Edited By: Matt Stevens 08/23/08 6:24 PM. Edited 2 times.
travazz		#3	[-]
Posts: 124 (08/23/08 7:51 PM) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite	Here is my stab at cleaning up the image for you. Don't know if it's exactly what your looking for, but hopefully it helps.
Matt Stevens		#4	[-]
Posts: 161 (08/23/08 8:20 PM) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite	The question is, how did you do it? I'm going to upload a full sized version for anyone who wants to experiment.
travazz		#5	[-]
Posts: 125 (08/23/08 9:32 PM) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite	This was fairly simple, especially since it's black and white. Here is my step by step. I am using Photoshop CS3 Extended 1. Open file in Photoshop 2. Go to Image/Adjustments/Levels (The Level's screen will pop up) 3. There are 3 eye droppers on the bottom right of the pop up. Click on the first eye dropper that is black, then click on the darkest/blackest area of the picture. Nevermind the 2nd gray dropper. Click on the 3rd eye dropper that is white, then click on the lightest/whitest area of the picture. Click ok to save 4. Next click Image/Adjustments/Black & White 5. Change the preset to Maximum White and press ok. 6. Save That is all I did with the image you supplied.
dpbanks	Reluctance	#6	[-]
Posts: 648 (08/28/08 3:43 PM) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite	I have been reluctant to weigh in on scanning and binding projects. I am currently working on two of them. The first is a Jack Kirby project. It contains art and covers to all 40 Kirby issues of Kamandi in one oversize book. I am only making two copies. One for Highlandray and one for myself. The second is an eclectic horror anthology with source materials from around the world. We tried to do it as a normal binding project but since the source materials varied in size it came out poorly. So we decided to go the scan and bind route. My reluctance comes from how time-consuming these projects are. Every time I finish one (I have done 9 of them) I say never again! I have over 2 years in the Kirby project. Then afterward I get an idea to do another project and the internal debate begins. Come on Dave, just one more. No I don't want to do it. Sigh. So beware If you think bookbinding is addictive, scan and bind projects are worse! Much worse. I have found an extra copy in my files of the Kirby Demon project. If you want to see what a scan and bind project can be like make me an offer. Best offer received by Monday, September 1, 2008 gets it. dpbanks http://www.singleboundstudios.com/sbsblog.html
James Friel		#7	[-]
Posts: 7656 (08/30/08 3:32 AM) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite	I have the last 40 Roy Raymond, TV Detective stores scanned--I've always been an admirer of Ruben Moreira's art, and there simply are no collections. This would be Volume 3 of 3 (not that there's much prospect of my ever doing a Volume 1--and Volume 2 looks like it'll be a long time coming.) I'm also working on getting all of the Lee Elias Green Arrow scanned. Eventually, I hope to produce that as a single volume, as well as a Ramona Fradon Aquaman volume of stuff that wasn't in the Archive, and perhaps a Tommy Tomorrow volume too. This never would have occurred to me to do, except that scanning the first Ms. Tree material (which originally appeared in magazine size) and reducing it for my first volume of Ms. Tree went so well.

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