The remastering process is different for publishers, some better, some worse.
I have quite a few PS Artbook anthologies of 1950?s comics. Those appear to be cleaned copies of printed pages, but not really remastered. Considering the price of 1950?s comics in the collector?s market, PS Artbooks are great if you like reading from paper. I?m guessing it?s good photoshop work.
I?m currently buying the small, softcover Marvel Masterworks. It?s white paper, and the color is ok. Again, versus buying originals it?s fine for me
DC put out some compilations on newsprint. Those looked really nice. The Atomic Knight book compared well to the few originals I have. I wish they?d do more in this format
Drawn and Quarterly and Fantagraphics reprint compilations always look really nice. They avoid garish coloring, preferring muted tones similar to color on newsprint
I purchased Return to Romance, a compilation of Ogden Whitney stories by New York Review Comics. That reproduction technique was a thing of beauty. It was like reading a brand new ACG comic.
I buy IDW?s Superman newspaper strip reprint hardcovers. They?ve done something interesting in that they take Sunday pages, which are originally muted color on very cheap newsprint, and change the intensity to resemble comic book coloring. It?s quite the process, and a notable shift in appearance, but they do a great job pulling it off.
There are a lot of companies doing pretty bad work representing past material of all types. I?d rather focus on who?s doing nice work and supporting them with my cash.
But I think the original point is well taken with Marvel. I was buying their Golden Age archives for a while, but stopped because they just flat out looked awful. I?m not going to throw $75.00 at a company that can?t even make their own historic product look decent.
Last Friday, I bought Sundays with Walt and Skeezix. Sunday pages published at full size with incredible color repro. Wow! I?m slowly going through this beauty. I tend to read the text, and then just stare and marvel at the art. Best production job, slightly topping the recent release of Tops by Gilbert through Fantagraphics.
Lots of really great reprint stuff out there.