[jococo]

Cleaning and Repairing images is it worthwhile. Remove the background fade from pages, Repairing covers etc

I'm wondering only because I have a lot of free time if cleaning and repairing all the images/pages of any particular comic is worthwhile. I find it makes better reading but that's just me. Input? before I take on this task

[paw broon]

Hi jococo.  There are differing opinions on this.  I'm a fan of reading hard copies of comics whenever I can and when I scan comics, I don't do anything other than a bit of cropping and straightening - and the straightening is only when the page has slipped a bit on the platten.  That way, the digital comic gives a sense of its real condition.   When you read a hard copy of a Charlton title for instance, you get all the imperfections that makes that company so appealing to me, so a scan of a Charlton with squinty pages and roller marks and badly folded covers is much closer to the real thing.
Other folk prefer a scan to be as perfect as possible and put in a lot of effort to achieve that.
Of course, a lot of us don't want our scans to be footered about with, unless with permission.
Now I'm curious to read other views.

[movielover]

Oh, that's a slippery slope. Personally, my advice would be if it makes easier reading, then only do it on your personal downloads. A number of uploaders do not care to have their edits changed. In addition, some scanning groups will flat out tell that you can not edit their members books without approval.

[jococo]

Thanks for the replies so far and it's only been a half hour or so A very prompt and courteous group here.. Indeed.

I've been looking around here and basically all the advice is the same and I thoroughly understand. Now having read what I have ..  what I think I'll be doing is keeping a copy of both the original and the cleaned copies together. I prefer the cleaner images with pages intact - so that's what I'll go with.

[paw broon]

That's the best way, I would think. 
Yes, when I think about it, we are a reasonably courteous lot.  Probably bcause a lot of us are a bit older.
Personally, I've had enough of rudeness in other parts of life and on CB+ we can have discussions and differences of opinion without descending into insults and nastiness.  And the longer we keep it that way, the better, in my opinion.
By the way, YOU don't have an idea who the artist is on the Dick Turpin strip that was commented on today, do you?  'Cos I'm struggling with this one.  I'm sure who it isn't, but it looks as if the Turpin figure is different from the rest of the art.  But I could be havering.

[jococo]

Actually I'm a quite old guy myself, Children in their mid 40's with plenty of G'Children and  one big reason why I'm asking these questions. .

No, I'm not an avid reader or follower of the comics  more of a  old computer geek so to speak so I cant answer your question.  But I do sit and go through many issues from time to time. I read and really enjoy the color and artwork. I'm always wondering how they did such a fantastic job likely before I was even born. Comics, of course they were the rage back when. But regarding my cleaning issues in my efforts to clean many or a number of these I would also like to print and bind/staple to give  to the children. I say bind because I'm thinking of putting many or a series together. Who knows?  Maybe they will save them Maybe they will read them. Maybe I can get them interested  so to get them away from those cell phones for more than 60 seconds. I have the room, Time and ambition to get it done and gong to give it the old college try. Just looking around for proper paper, printers, info etc.   I also have a significant other  who doesn't even know what a computer is who I'm sure will throughly enjoy the romances So I've got my work cut out

BTW Today is the first day I visited the Forums. I guess I've signed into the site  the first time about 6 months ago. Browsing around today your very  correct, A very polite group and big difference from other forums.
A welcome surprise to say the least

[narfstar]

Well Jococo since you are fairly new here, you probably have not seen that I give an open invitation to edit my scans if you wish. I prefer the imperfections but I know others like crisp and clean. Now if you would really like to help you can look for any narfstar RAW scans. I buy low quality books, tear them apart and put them through a document feeder. I do not take the time to straighten and crop them. So they need help. There are some who have edited them and I appreciate it. If you look for RAW scans you may find some looking for your attention. I just got a box in the mail from MILE HIGH today  I will be scanning and posting them. Your help in editing would be appreciated.  thanks

[Captain Audio]

In mechanical drawing class we had a sort of dry cleaning pad to remove finger prints and other marks from our drawings.
Silly putty was once used to clean soot from wall paper but unfortunately it absorbs the ink from comic strips and comic book pages as well. You can transfer a clear print of a comic panel to silly putty. I never really noticed whether this diminished the images on the paper. Perhaps it could do more good than harm in cleaning up a comic book. It might be worth a try.

If the page is clean a faded image can be mpre easily digitally enhanced. At least I would think so, but my image manipulations have all been restoring old photos or creating faux drawings and paintings from photos.
GIMP is pretty good for that sort of thing.

[Mark Braun]

Hi all: I scan with Photoshop, adjust to CMYK and simply kick up the highlight a bit, middle colors slightly lighter and shift the black to compensate the "duller" colors. I also leave it alone except for this as a script; we're the archivers of a lost, imperfect form that, until the 70s, wasn't considered for a back-market; comics got returned like magazines. If t wasn't for countless kids who saved 'e, we'd be collecting stamps or whatever...