Print

[Yoc]

I know I've seen those higher resolution covers but darned if I can recall who did them.
Sorry I can't be of more help.

-Yoc

[narfstar]

I have done a few in 300dpi. Here is Blazing #5
http://goldenagecomics.co.uk/index.php?dlid=5928

[JVJ]

Thanks, Narf,
I downloaded it and the first thing I noticed is that it's fully twice the KBs of most of the other files I've downloaded. Not a problem, but what are you providing the end user for all the extra overhead? What is the advantage you see in the higher resolution files?

From my perspective, there's certainly the ability to display the pages larger. I can't even reach the limit of enlargement on my 17" laptop screen. Is this an advantage for end user? Certainly if you want to scrutinize the printed page at high magnification it is. But for reading the book and looking at the pictures in a normal fashion, I can't see what it is that we're getting for the extra overhead.

Here, again, I'm not the target audience for the scans, so I don't really know what other people want. Comparing the scan of Animal Comics #1 which appears to be done at 150 ppi with Blazing #5 at 300 ppi, I can't imagine ever looking at EITHER of them at their highest resolution.

Here's an analogy that I think is VERY apt:
When I prepare artwork for my magazine, I've asked the printer what resolution he wants. He's told me 400 ppi is what he needs, so that's what I give him. IF I were to give him 500 ppi CYMK files in my files, he's actually just going to reduce them to 400 ppi when he renders them for the file that goes to make the printing plate. That extra 100 ppi doesn't get used and merely makes my files larger.

In the case of Blazing #5, when the display software that readers use to view the downloaded comics puts the image on the screen, it, too, reduces (downsamples) your 300 ppi jpeg to whatever settings are default in the reader. Since I have VERY limited experience with this, I'm extrapolating MY own experience with CDisplay to other readers, so this might not be universally true. But with CDisplay if I have it set for [Options][Configure][Image Sizing Options][Fit Height (C + H)], I see the entire page on the screen. From there I can copy the image to the clipboard and paste it into a new file in Photoshop.

Animal Comics #1 turns out to be displayed full page at 11.444" x 8.139" at 72 ppi.

Blazing Comics #5 displayed full page at 11.444" x 8.083" at 72 ppi.

None of that extra "overhead" is visible or usable at full page on my screen.
So I set my display configuration to [Fit Width (C+W) ] and then copied to the clipboard and brought into a new file in Photoshop.

Animal Comics #1 displays at 28.083" x 20" at 72 ppi (or 13.5" x 9.6" at 150 ppi.)

Blazing Comics #5 displays at 28.292" x 20" at 72 ppi (or 13.58" x 9.6" at 150 ppi)

The resolution of my monitor is 1440 pixels, so a full-width display is quite large.

My point is that BOTH files have plenty of resolution for a reasonably-sized monitor display and that all that extra ppi that's in the Blazing file is largely going to be unused and probably never even NOTICED by the people downloading the file EXCEPT when they look at the size of the file and see how long it's taking to download it.

It's equivalent to me sending 800 ppi files to my printer. He really is only going to notice it while he's in the process of transferring the files from my disc to his system where he's going to throw away all that extra data that he doesn't need. My files will be bigger than everyone else's and they still won't be helping either me or him.

Play with what gets displayed on your viewing software and see if it makes some other difference that I'm unaware of.

I think I'll shut up now.

Peace, Jim (|:{>

[narfstar]

Thanks Jim, I think you just let us know that more is not always better. I think it was a general "perception" that 300ppi had to be much better than 150. I will stick to providing 150ppi tiffs to Rez and using 150jpg for display. Saves time scanning.

[narfstar]

Cowgirl Romances #5 is available in Fiction House from the IW reprint. Today we have Ozzie and Babs 13 from Fawcett c2c scans

[OtherEric]

It depends a bit on the file; some books I'm MUCH more likely to use the zoom on the comic reading software.  I find this particularly likely on early comic strip reprint books; but it also comes up on Lev Gleason books a fair bit.  Those I'll go for 200 PPI rather that 150 normally; I know it makes a difference on some of them.  But on lots of books it's not necessary.

[JVJ]

That'll work, narf,
but I still would urge you to scan at 300 ppi tiff, save that file for posterity, then convert it to a 150 ppi tiff to send to rez. The extra few minutes of scanning MIGHT pay off big in a couple of years. (They might NOT, too, but having a 300 ppi archive record of a book is IMHO a good thing. YMMV.)

For instance: what if in 2012 it actually becomes economical to print on demand and someone will offer a service to recreate your comics for you, in color, two-sided, saddlestitched, for 25

[OtherEric]

I can't speak for Narf, but that's what I'm doing now.  I have folders on both my computers marked "JVJ raw scans" with 300 PPI raw TIFF's in case we need them later.

[citaltras]

I agree that for printing is is worth to have a 300 ppi file version stored somewhere.

But for digital comics books filesize is an issue and
the best format for me is 200 ppi saved as jpg quality 50-60.
That gives files sizes of about 500-600 KB per page, or  18-20 MB for a cbz
is the ideal size for a 36 page comic book.

There are many comics around there over 1MB per page, in total 40-50 MB or more is too much.
Very hard to download with a slow connection (for instance many fiche).
Also it takes more time and physical memory to your reader program to load the file
(specially if it is stored on a DVD).
So I use to reduce the size  of many of those files to almost one-half,
since on the screen you are not able to see the differences.

JVJ: thanks for providing so many comics scans from your collection. Sure I'm going to enjoy them.

[JVJ]

You're welcome, citaltras,
and thanks for the file size info. Can you tell me why you chose 200 ppi instead of 150 ppi? I'm not certain that it makes much of a difference when viewed full page or full width.

Peace, Jim (|:{>

[citaltras]

On screen there is not much difference between 150 dpi and 200 dpi, but the
latter has more pixeles and in theory allows the reader to make safer
modifications to the images if needed.
But be 150 or 200 ppi, at the end the quality or resolution of the final digital files
for reading should be determined by these 2 factors

1-File size not exceeding 600 or 700 kB per page. 500 KB is better.
   This can be achieved by saving as:
   200 ppi jpg quality 40-50 or less
   150 ppi jpg quality 60-70 or less

2- Image quality for reading, should not be deformed by too much compression.


Cit

[narfstar]

A pre-code gem. This panel would never have made it after the code.

[darwination]

As always thanks for all the work, Narf.  In particular, I'm thinking of Love Problems and Advice Illustrated 12, gracias.

A quick chime in on the dpi issue.  Working at the pixel widths that we use (typically 1280) there is almost no file size difference between 300dpi and 150 dpi.  Most scanners these days just leave their files at 300 dpi.  There is a school of thought that reducing the dpi at the last step can help eliminate moire, but I don't think that is neccesarily true.  The more times you alter and resave a jpeg, the more compression artifacts you will get.  A lot of files that are trimmed for size considerations by scan collectors and reshared show much more "blockiness" and other compression artifacts than the original scan.  There are plenty of scan collectors out there that like to take scans and resize them, run them through jpeg cleaners, etc. out of concern for filesize, neatness, order, and so on and so forth (some collectors might be said to have clinical personalities, heh heh).  Having a target size for a .cbr does not take into account the varying complexity of comics and printing processes.  A digitally produced modern comic scan for instance will have far less pixel information typically than the same sized golden age page that has aged, is on textured paper, and was printed with by different mechanical processes.  I share larger files (by the current standard, in three years I very much doubt it) of 1680 width at 300 dpi jpegs at 8 quality.  I sometimes feel sheepish about 40MB files, but you can zoom in on any panel of one of my scans and see the art with crisp lines.  There are already tons and tons of comics out there that were scanned in the days of dial-up that are being or will be rescanned.  Scan lovers just aren't satisfied with some of the smaller scans out there.  When it comes to golden age comics, every rescan means possible damage to a valuable item, so I don't think it's a bad idea to think ahead a few years...

Anyways, I'm rambling here...

Cheers,

Darwin

[citaltras]

Of course the final size of the file depends on its contents, but I still think 1MB per page
is too much for the average golden age comic book. If you are not going to zoom in, just
read it on screen there is no noticeable difference between a large 300 ppi file and
a 200 ppi saved as jpg quality 50, with almost half the size.

Note that I am not speaking about 150 ppi, but about 200 ppi, which should be the
next step on the standard digital comic resolution.
The quality of the final scan is potentially very good, if the original scan is so.

[narfstar]

Lucky Comics #1 and Key Comics #2 raw scans from the JVJ collection. Who thought the Key was a good idea for a hero? Who thought he should be the lead feature? My idea of the second dumbest "super" power after the Buzzard. By issue three he became just a narrator. Issue one promised his origin in two but it was not there. Uploading now be there shortly. 200ppi scans

[narfstar]

JVJ Bee29 the Bombadier now available in unsorted.

[Yoc]

Nice

[narfstar]

Thanks to Bill K for another great book and willingness to share.

[darkmark]

This one's an unexpected treat in that the Black Cat story gives us Harvey's first superhero team, the Black Cat, Shock Gibson, Captain Freedom, and the Girl Commandoes, known in later text stories as America's Star Heroes.    This was the only time they appeared in an illustrated story, though.  Thanks, Narf and Bill.

[boox909]

I tell my non-net friends about GA-UK an their mouths drop open!!! 

[narfstar]

Two JVJ books from Cambridge. They did not put out much. Why in the world did I request these comics when who ever heard of Navy Heroes or Hurricane? EXACTLY! it is their obscurity that made them appealing to me. So you get to see Navy Heroes and the single long humor story in Hurricane. For good measures we have Marty Mouse an unknown funny animal book. If anyone can identify this please let me know. These are all raw scans.

[JVJ]

Two JVJ books from Cambridge. They did not put out much. Why in the world did I request these comics when who ever heard of Navy Heroes or Hurricane? EXACTLY! it is their obscurity that made them appealing to me. So you get to see Navy Heroes and the single long humor story in Hurricane. For good measures we have Marty Mouse an unknown funny animal book. If anyone can identify this please let me know. These are all raw scans.

The Marty Mouse is a reprint of an issue of Ace's Monkeyshines Comics from circa 1948. The earliest issue with a Pat and Mike lead-off story that I have is issue #17 (Nov. 1947). Up to issue #15, the lead feature was Marmaduke Monk (it WAS titled "Monkeyshines" after all). So, it's not #17, 19 (which, BTW, has one of the only two Ace Frank Frazetta story that I know of - the other is probably in issue #18), 20, 21, 23, 24, 25, or 27 (which is the last issue). That leaves #s 18, 22, or 26 (or an unpublished #28) as possibilities.

Since the Pat and Mike strip appears more similar to the later issues (and because I MAY have issue #18 reprinted in one of the 100 page issues of Fun Time in 1953), I'm opting for issues 22 or 26. Anybody have them to check?

Peace, Jim (|:{>

[narfstar]

Thanks Jim the GCD does not have any Monkeyshines indexed. I also posted Marmaduke Monk 14 a reprint of an earlier Monkeyshines. Any ideas as to which issue it is?
http://goldenagecomics.co.uk/index.php?dlid=6871

[JVJ]

Thanks Jim the GCD does not have any Monkeyshines indexed. I also posted Marmaduke Monk 14 a reprint of an earlier Monkeyshines. Any ideas as to which issue it is?
http://goldenagecomics.co.uk/index.php?dlid=6871

It IS and it ISN'T issue #13 from Feb. of 1947, narf. There are 14 pages excerpted between the end of the Harry the Horse story and the beginning of the Tuffy Bear story, and a two-pager excerpted after the Pete the Peke story. So the guts were RE-printed by IW and were not old books with new covers.

Peace, Jim (|:{>

[narfstar]

Courage Comics continues the non-super scanning of JVJ books. now up in unsorted for your perusal.