Quoting goblinsdoitall:

Quote:
-To get best results scan at 600 dpi (or higher)
-Disable all scan-"enhancements" of the driver
-Scan to an uncompressed format (like *.bmp) NOT *.jpg

For enhancing the scan-results I usually use two programs

1. Nero Photo Snap: For the basic corrections (rotation, cropping, gamma, colour)
2. Paint.Net: A nice little freeware for the more complicated corrections (dirt, distortions, moiré, etc)

When finished I resize to about 1400 x 1000 pixel @ 600 dpi and change the picture format afterwards to *.jpg ( this is always the last step to prevent unwanted artefacts).

Currently I scan at 1000 DPI.
I tried to remove all presets... And I have the alternative to save into the BMP format.

The software I use is ACDSee Pro 3. I find it fairly capable, as it has for example a cloning tool, which I use to remove damages or artifacts.

Quoting CharlieM:

Quote:
Actually the best thing, import into a program in raw format.  That being said -

1 - calibrate and find your proper gamma for your configuration

2 - scan your image at the optical resolution of the scanner (not the interpolated resolution)

3 - use software that you can set white and black levels, by selecting a spot that is black and white (upc label in region 1 usually works pretty well)

4 - most scanned images will develop scanner lines, you need to smooth these out.  I find it easiest during a resample to half the scanned resolution.

believe it or not, you really do not need to contribute much more than 100dpi to the online.  they usually look good, unless you want I higher resolution for you local DB.

* BE SURE, that what you are contributing has a marked improvement over the existing.  rating images is very subjective.  What one person thinks is better, will be worse to another user.  If you contribute, be sure to point out the improved areas, and if a person votes no, do not take it personally.  Take it as constructive criticism.  He may very well have noticed something that you missed.

**PLEASE, be sure to contribute the right upc/ean for the proper locality.  Your image could be the greatest image in the world, but if it is the wrong image for the profile, it will get voted down.

Just some friendly advice....


Charlie

How do I calibrate my scanner?
I checked the alternative to "calibrate at every scan".

What is the optical resolution? I can choose anything between 75-1200 DPI.

I don't think I can set whites and blacks with ACDSee Pro 3. =/
Also, when a scan turns out gray or just too bright, like it happens mostly, there are no real blacks present.

I have noticed that whatever I contribute, they are downsized, etc.
I know how invelos works.

It's the scanning I have had problems with. But I'm learning and trying to utilize my scanner better.
Anyway, I wish to have at least 200 DPI size scans in my own collection, so I can zoom and see the smallest text or detail. But much larger makes everything too slow to work with, in DVD Profiler, I mean.

Anyway. I will try to scan a few covers now, using the suggestions I got. And see if something wondrous happens.

Thanks a lot for all the input and tips you guys give me.

I think I'll stick to ACDSee Pro 3 for now. It's basic but still more advanced than a lot of other software, except those professional programs which takes a lot of time to learn how to use properly and effectively.

Anyway, this is what I did. I scan now @ 800 DPI, which I found was good. Scanning at 1200 DPI made ACDSee not able to recognize the file format. And the images were +300 MB in size.
(One nice thing is that it is so quick to save even a huge BMP file, because it's not being compressed. Neat.)

Also, I changed the gamma default value from 2.20 to 1.50. I tried various values, like 1.35. But then I lost quite a lot of detail, even if the blacks were OK. At 1.50, the blacks are "passable". At least in my opinion. I also wanted to still have as much detail as possible.

Then, I of course save my images into otherwise unaltered or "color adjusted" bitmaps.
I have also set the scanning software to remove moire and "unsharp masking"(?) - I'm not sure what that is or what that does. Also I have my software set to scan covers as "color documents".
Finally, the scanner is set to calibrate at every scan.

After having scanned, I save them, crop them carefully, reduce them in size into 700*~500 pixels and lastly I convert the images to JPG. I don't apply any sharpening. I might try that though, but I can't see anything except a negligible difference in the resized bitmaps vs the converted JPG's.

EDIT:
I tested to use sharpening with various setting and variables. However I think that what mostly is happening is that colors are abnormally altered and I just get an artificial look. So I will not contribute such images.
Anyway, the covers I tested on now are the ones for Labyrinth, UPC 5-035822-720930.
Uploading now!
Btw, my eyes are dead tired now, as am I.

Looked at your scan and have to say it does look good imho. 

Hmm, there are really other users that have better knowledge of getting the best results. But what you could try is playing a bit with contrast and brightness in small steps.*

If you do too much the original look gets often lost.

MikaLove: Here is a link to ACDSee Pro 3 Userguide (http://files.acdsystems.com/english/acdseepro/manuals/acdseepro-userguide.pdf)

And if you look at page 93 there is som info on using the image Levels tool, that can set black and whith levels. Hope this can help some.

This is mostly for people to choose between my contributed cover editing.

The currently contributed cover.
Cover
Here's my new edit of the back cover, with the overview text strengthened.
Cover

Quoting goblinsdoitall:

Quote:
Looks good (esp. white-level)
Just check if the bright white of the letters in the overview matches the original.

That's what I also thought.

Enjoy my new cover scans of UPC 5-017188-883399 (The Nightmare Before Christmas, UK R2 DVD)

A couple of hours' work produced this result.

Front
Back

It seems I am getting better...?
However it's sad to see the compression loss from BMP --> JPG.