[JVJ]

Looks like you're really working, Jon,
What's your projected completion date? I'm anxious to get the comics back and review the process. It SOUNDS like everything is going okay and that we can continue. Let's hope the USPS is kind to us (and the comics) on the return trip.

Look forward to hearing from you soon.

[JonTheScanner]

Jim I have left to scan:
Anchors Andrews 2-4
Fightin' Marines 6 7
Strange Terrors 5-6
Wild Boy 14 15 

That's nine comics (or the equivalent of 11 since Strange Terrors #6 is 100 pages)  I think I should be able to finish the scanning by the end of the weekend after this one. (Sunday the 23rd) so I should be able to get the comics into the mail before Thanksgiving and the holiday mail rush.  It's been a lot of fun (and work).  Couldn't have done it without all the editors and you of course. As it is, not all will be edited before I send them back so I'll need to check the raw scans carefully to make sure I didn't crop a page badly or skip one.

I'm looking forward to doing more.  And another big thank you.  And welcome back.

Only two problems I noticed were that Camp COmics #3 was missing it's centerfold, and one of the Wild Boys had a hole in the cover. But it was easy enough to find a front cover online and another comic had the same inside front cover which I c/p the still intact Wild Boy indicia onto.

Jon

[darwination]

Wow, you guys are doing great work here on some cool comics in short order.  Thank you to JVJ and Jon and all the editors for taking on this project!

[Yoc]

Very impressive team work guys!

I hope Geo, Jon or perhaps OtherEric if he joins in might make a stab at getting all of the Lev Gleason books with Wolverton gag pages in them scanned at some point.  We've got many already but there are a few holes.

[JonTheScanner]

Lev Gleason and St John are the two companies I'm most interested in actually with scattering of others.  Well Quality is of more interest, but JVJ has less there we don't have.

[Yoc]

Sounds good Jon. 
As you can see we only need Black Diamond West. #16,18-20.
Paper scans of Captain Battle Jr 02, Silver Streak Comics 020, DareDevil 12-22 as well as Horse Feathers Comics 01, Candy (Wise&Co) 01-03 would get us all of his Scoop Scuttle stories.

Here is a link to an excellent checklist of Wolverton for anyone interested.
http://www.angelfire.com/or/basil/words/checklist.html

-Yoc

[JonTheScanner]

No linky  :-(

[Yoc]

D'Oh!  Sorry Jon, now corrected.

[JVJ]

Take your time, Jon,
There is no rush. I kinda knew you were biting off a major chunk of work on your first go round. Do whatever you need to do to insure that your efforts aren't incomplete. Speaking of which, I'm afraid that there are likely to be the occasional pages missing on my comics. Sometimes it was more important to me to actually see the majority of a book than it was to have a complete copy. I'm a well-known cheapskate at my favorite dealers. I don't keep a list of which books are incomplete. Sorry.

Geo has put his stack into the mail and if all goes well we'll be sending more off to him. And OtherEric has been actively lobbying for a chance, so maybe we'll get three sets of scanners working. I REALLY don't want to do more than that as I doubt that I'll be able to keep track beyond three. Don't ask me why - perhaps it's old age setting in.

And I should mention somewhere on GAC that I'm fairly proficient at Photoshop (I use it extensively to republish four-color images from old magazines and do a LOT of color correction and repair on them). If I can help in that regard by answering some questions, I'll give it my best shot.

Good to be back and just let me know when you put the books into the mail.

Peace, Jim (|:{>

[JonTheScanner]

Will do, Jim, I've finished a few more and am pretty sure I'll finish with the week.

As for Photoshop, Have you ever converted a re-green 3-D comic to B&W.  By this I mean removing one of the images so it looks 2-D.  I've been trying for some time to get a good handle on how to do this.

[JVJ]

Here's a quick and dirty method for extracting a b&w image from a 3D color comic.
In Photoshop 7 or later

1. Scan in color at whatever resolution you choose (300 ppi is recommended)
2. Open the scan in Photoshop and click on the [Channels] tab (next to the Layers tab)
3. Click on the icon for the Red channel (or the Blue channel) whichever looks better to you
4. Click [Image][Mode][Grayscale] and answer Yes to Discard Other Channels question
in Photoshop CS or later:
5. Click the half-white/half-black circle at the bottom of the Layers palette.
6. Choose Levels
7. Click the white eyedropper and click on the darkest white area in your image
8. Click the black eyedropper and click on the lightest black area in your image
(note: these take some trial and error to get the best results)
9. Click OK and you should have your 2D image.

(note: in pre-Photoshop CS, just substitute [Image][Adjustments][Levels] for steps 5 & 6)

Give it a try. Here's a link to a 30 second effort on a Harvey 3D Adventures #2 page. With more effort and time, I'm certain that one could do a lot better.

http://www.bpib.com/temp/3D-blue.jpg

Hope this helps.

[Yoc]

Thanks for the PS advice Jim!

[JonTheScanner]

Now uploading to the FTP Strange Terrors #5 -- a JVJon scan.  I even did edits this time.

Pages 25-26 were missing from JVJ's comic. Since this comic had identical ads with Weird Horrors #4, I'm pretty sure the page I put in for 25 is correct.  Page 26 is still missing.  It is most likely another text page.

[narfstar]

Now onsite thanks

[JonTheScanner]

And now Wild Boy of the Congo #13 also a St John issue -- not to mention a JVJon production.

[rmdavidson]

Jon, I noticed at least one of the 3-D comics on site has one color almost completely faded out.  I have a pair of blue/red glasses from some other source so I enjoy seeing all these books in 3-D.  I wonder if there is some way to use a similar Photoshop process to boost that faded blue plate to make it more visible.  Maybe I'll give it a try someday.  Call it a "blue plate special" (looks down at floor shame-faced).

Are you thinking of making books available in a flat format? 

[JVJ]

I tried to reply to this once before, rm,
but it seems like every time I attempt to add an attachment, the post goes into never never land. Here's a link to a couple of tries I made in Photoshop to address your question:
http://www.bpib.com/test/3D/3d-test.html

I took the scanned 3D page and either ran the level command on the individual Channels:

Open the file in PS, click on the Channels tab next to the Layers palette, and click on the red channel. The displayed image should turn to grayscale. Apply [Image][Adjustments][Levels] and move the upper triangle sliders in to meet the ends of the histogram. This will increase the contrast of the red channel. How much will be a trial-and-error thing, I'm afraid.

Repeat the process on the Blue channel. Click the RGB channel to see the results of your changes. Another approach would be to add a Levels adjustment layer to scanned image and select the Red Channel from the drop down list and increase the contrast as above. Then add another Levels adjustment layer and apply the contrast to the blue channel.

I've not done this before, so I tried three different approaches. Whip out your 3D glasses and evaluate the results as posted on the webpage above.

[rmdavidson]

Thanks for the tips, Jim, and staying up late to post them.  Those results from the different techniques are quite varied and I guess the best would be up to individual tastes.  But they are certainly sharper and easier to see.  Now if I can just figure a way to keep from getting a headache after reading more than a couple of issues with those glasses!

Richard

[JVJ]

Plus a lot depends on your glasses, Richard,
Different colored lens from different eras would mean different settings on your Levels adjustments. Like I said, trial and error would be crucial to finding the right ones.

And since I'm here, Hey, Jon, how goes the scanning war?

[JonTheScanner]

Scanned the rest of Strange Terrors #6 (a hundred pager) today.  So every one of the JVJ comics is scanned.  I will check the unedited raw scans tonight to make sure I didn't miss a page or something.  Comics should go in the mail tomorrow or Thursday, Jim.  (I assume your address is the same.) 

For the rest of you the final tally is:

JVJon Project 62 scanned.  Editing by me except as noted.  The rest will be posted ASAP

posted (39):
Advs into the Unknown (ACG) #91 (editing by Snard)
Advs in Wonderland (Gleason) #2 3 4 5
Anchors the Salt Water Daffy (St John) #2 (editing by AgentUup)
Blazing West (ACG) #18 (edited by Snard)
Bouncer (Fox) nn (editing by Snard)
Buster Brown (classic newspaper strips) #1
Crime and Justice (Charlton) #3 5 9 10 11 24 (editing by Mouse5150)
Danny Blaze (Charlton) #2 (editing by Mouse5150)
Kilroys (ACG) #24
Lawbreakers (Charlton) #4 8 (editing by Mouse)
Lawbreakers Suspense Stories (Charlton) #12 (editing by Mouse5150)
Operation Peril (ACG) #1 10 15 (edited by Snard)
Police Trap (Charlton) #5 (editing by Mouse5150)
Police Trap (Charlton) #6
Spy Hunters (ACG) #16 18 24 (edited by Snard)
Strange Terrors (St John) #5 (missing 1 page)
The Texan (St John) #8
The Texan (St John) #2 3 9 10 11 (editing by Snard)
Weird Horrors (St John) #3, 4
     " #6 improved fc and ifc
Wild Boy (St John) #13

not PD (7)
Camp Comics (Dell) #3 (missing cf) (editing by Dell4C)
Raggedy Ann (Dell) 4C#23, 12 14 21 23 28 (edited by AgentUup)

scanned, not yet edited (16):
Anchors the Salt Water Daffy (St John) #3 4 (editing by AgentUup)
The Texan (St John) #4 5 6 (editing by Snard)
The Texan (St John) #13 14
Fightin' Marines (St John) #6 7
Fightin' Texan (St John) #16 17
Strange Terrors (St John) #6
Wild Boy (St John) #11 12 (editing by Mouse5150)
Wild Boy (St John) #14 15

[rez]

How'd that plain 3D MightyMouse scan rez posted a while back turn out in respect to how it could be if using the process you just described?

I tried to reply to this once before, rm,
but it seems like every time I attempt to add an attachment, the post goes into never never land. Here's a link to a couple of tries I made in Photoshop to address your question:
http://www.bpib.com/test/3D/3d-test.html

I took the scanned 3D page and either ran the level command on the individual Channels:

Open the file in PS, click on the Channels tab next to the Layers palette, and click on the red channel. The displayed image should turn to grayscale. Apply [Image][Adjustments][Levels] and move the upper triangle sliders in to meet the ends of the histogram. This will increase the contrast of the red channel. How much will be a trial-and-error thing, I'm afraid.

Repeat the process on the Blue channel. Click the RGB channel to see the results of your changes. Another approach would be to add a Levels adjustment layer to scanned image and select the Red Channel from the drop down list and increase the contrast as above. Then add another Levels adjustment layer and apply the contrast to the blue channel.

I've not done this before, so I tried three different approaches. Whip out your 3D glasses and evaluate the results as posted on the webpage above.

[JVJ]

I don't know, rez,
I never saw the Mighty Mouse scan. I think that the best person to answer that question is you. Try the scan again and compare the two methods. I didn't really give this problem much thought, and was pleasantly surprised that the first approaches that I thought of produced a fairly decent product. As you can see from the various results, there are innumerable variations on the the technique and your raw material (and your eyesight) might have a major impact on which works best for you. For instance, which of the three different outputs, when viewed with your 3D glasses, gives you the greatest illusion of depth? Perhaps none are better than what you created earlier (what's the link to your post and what was your process?). There might be some value to selecting the red (or blue) channel (CTRL click on the icon in the channel palette) and filling a layer above the background with red (or blue) withing that selected area. Among the wonderful things about Photoshop is the innumerable ways one can solve a problem. I'm looking forward to CS4 (which I just ordered yesterday). It takes advantage of 64 bit computers and can access more than 3 GB of RAM. Maybe I'll finally get to work as fast as I think...

[JVJ]

Yes, Jon,
same address, always (unless I'm in Paris). Man, does that EVER sound WEIRD. What a strange turn my life has taken in the last two years! I'm a very lucky man.

What's on the agenda for the next batch? As soon as you send these back, you should be thinking of what to do next. It's going to be a LONG process so we shouldn't let too much time pass between shipments, don't you think?

[JonTheScanner]

Jim,

Box is sealed, label printed, and it's sitting by my office door to drop at the Post Office on my way home.  2-3 Day Priority flat rate box, insured.

I'll email you details about what I'd like next.  I've already been thinking about that but have the list at home on my computer.

Once again thanks for your support of this project.

[JVJ]

The pleasure is half mine, Jon,
I love comics and the thought of scans of my books getting shared around the world gives me a really good feeling. I'll let you know when this lot arrives back and we'll talk about the next lot when you get a list together.

Peace, Jim (|:{>