ix500 workflow. Scan directly to grayscale/bw or do it in photoshop postprocessing?

Book scanning methods that involve taking books apart.

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Scanallthebooks
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Re: ix500 workflow. Scan directly to grayscale/bw or do it in photoshop postprocessing?

Post by Scanallthebooks »

Thanks for your replies cday.
cday wrote:My question was just about what you wanted your final output page to look like?
Greyscale at the moment. ;)
cday wrote:Those options to adjust brightness and contrast, and any similar options if there should be any, are what I meant: if you do want a white page, it might with careful adjustment be possible to obtain one directly, otherwise adjusting the settings should enable you to obtain a better colour or grayscale image to enhance in PhotoShop...
Well they do help a bit. Here's a quick comparison of the different settings I threw together:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/zf59tyd72009o ... d.png?dl=0
cday
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Re: ix500 workflow. Scan directly to grayscale/bw or do it in photoshop postprocessing?

Post by cday »

I was really trying to ask if you wanted the coloured background of the page to be white in the final image?

Also, I'm not very familiar with Dropbox and haven't managed to download the new image you posted, although I had no trouble with the earlier one?? You should actually be able to upload the image to the forum and place it inline in your post, as I did with the earlier PNG above.
Scanallthebooks
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Re: ix500 workflow. Scan directly to grayscale/bw or do it in photoshop postprocessing?

Post by Scanallthebooks »

cday wrote:I was really trying to ask if you wanted the coloured background of the page to be white in the final image?
As of now I want it to be grey, not white. But maybe in the future I'll do some white backgrounds with black text.
cday wrote:Also, I'm not very familiar with Dropbox and haven't managed to download the new image you posted, although I had no trouble with the earlier one?? You should actually be able to upload the image to the forum and place it inline in your post, as I did with the earlier PNG above.
Ah. I've tried to attach the image to this post ;)

EDIT: Can't get it working...tried attaching the image but nothing appears. :?:
cday
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Re: ix500 workflow. Scan directly to grayscale/bw or do it in photoshop postprocessing?

Post by cday »

Scanallthebooks wrote:
cday wrote:I was really trying to ask if you wanted the coloured background of the page to be white in the final image?
As of now I want it to be grey, not white. But maybe in the future I'll do some white backgrounds with black text.
Your choice, other options are to preserve the coloured background of the original page, or to try for a clean white backgound if it can be achieved; a frequent forum request is actually for advice on how to 'improve' images such as your grayscale image... ;)
Scanallthebooks wrote:
cday wrote:You should be able to upload the image to the forum and place it inline in your post, as I did with the earlier PNG above.
Ah. I've tried to attach the image to this post ;)

EDIT: Can't get it working...tried attaching the image but nothing appears. :?:
The following short tutorial from another forum using an earlier version of phpBB may give you somes clues...
Scanallthebooks
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Re: ix500 workflow. Scan directly to grayscale/bw or do it in photoshop postprocessing?

Post by Scanallthebooks »

cday wrote:Your choice, other options are to preserve the coloured background of the original page, or to try for a clean white backgound if it can be achieved; a frequent forum request is actually for advice on how to 'improve' images such as your grayscale image... ;)
Improve? How so? Got any links? :D
cday wrote:The following short tutorial from another forum using an earlier version of phpBB may give you somes clues...
All I see when I attach the image is an option to delete the file. There is no "Place inline" button.
cday
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Re: ix500 workflow. Scan directly to grayscale/bw or do it in photoshop postprocessing?

Post by cday »

Scanallthebooks wrote:
cday wrote:Your choice, other options are to preserve the coloured background of the original page, or to try for a clean white backgound if it can be achieved; a frequent forum request is actually for advice on how to 'improve' images such as your grayscale image... ;)
Improve? How so? Got any links? :D
Well, 'improve' is subjective, and related to your original image as I haven't actually seen your later version yet...
Scanallthebooks wrote:
cday wrote:The following short tutorial from another forum using an earlier version of phpBB may give you somes clues...
All I see when I attach the image is an option to delete the file. There is no "Place inline" button.
I've checked and the button appears after short delay for my small test PNG and JPEG files, but what is the extension of the file you wish to upload; not all extensions are allowed due to security considerations, although it should be possible to upload any file if it is placed in a ZIP or similar archive, but it won't be displayed as an image then.
Scanallthebooks
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Re: ix500 workflow. Scan directly to grayscale/bw or do it in photoshop postprocessing?

Post by Scanallthebooks »

cday wrote:Well, 'improve' is subjective, and related to your original image as I haven't actually seen your later version yet...
Oh I just wanted to look at the threads you mentioned. The first pic that you copied contained my greyscale scans. All the rest are bw.
cday wrote:I've checked and the button appears after short delay for my small test PNG and JPEG files, but what is the extension of the file you wish to upload; not all extensions are allowed due to security considerations, although it should be possible to upload any file if it is placed in a ZIP or similar archive, but it won't be displayed as an image then.
It's a 4,5MB PNG file. Perhaps the size is too big? I've waited for a long time, but nothing appears apart from the delete button.
cday
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Re: ix500 workflow. Scan directly to grayscale/bw or do it in photoshop postprocessing?

Post by cday »

Scanallthebooks wrote:
cday wrote:I've checked and the button appears after short delay for my small test PNG and JPEG files, but what is the extension of the file you wish to upload; not all extensions are allowed due to security considerations, although it should be possible to upload any file if it is placed in a ZIP or similar archive, but it won't be displayed as an image then.
It's a 4,5MB PNG file. Perhaps the size is too big? I've waited for a long time, but nothing appears apart from the delete button.
It's a fairly large file and upload speeds are generally well below download speeds, so I expect it was still being uploaded when you quit: you could do a quick test by uploading a much smaller PNG or JPEG file and check that you do get the missing button for that file, then delete it.
Scanallthebooks
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Re: ix500 workflow. Scan directly to grayscale/bw or do it in photoshop postprocessing?

Post by Scanallthebooks »

Yup, that did it. This is 3,2MB so apparently there is an upload limit somewhere around the 4MB mark. ;)
scanreducedmore.png
cday
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Re: ix500 workflow. Scan directly to grayscale/bw or do it in photoshop postprocessing?

Post by cday »

Scanallthebooks wrote:Yup, that did it. This is 3,2MB so apparently there is an upload limit somewhere around the 4MB mark. ;)
The upload limit was at least 8MB a while back and I doubt if it has been reduced, although of course it might have been; possibly you just hit a bad time with your Internet connection or on the forum, or time seemed to pass more slowly the first time.

Looking quickly at the small images you've uploaded it's not too easy to see which looks best, what do you think, you're the ultimate judge?

There does seem to be a lot of noise on the page background, were the scans made using the ADF, or if you used the flatbed if there is one, is the glass really clean? Or possibly the noise comes from slight colour variations in the original page?

It might be best if you could upload one of the better actual images for anyone to examine and possibly try to enhance.
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