Re: [ARSCLIST] Scanning LP covers

[Don Cox <doncox@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On 21/08/03, Copeland, Peter wrote:

> : (1) Aliassing occured between pixels and half-tone pictures, unless
> both excellent equipment and viewing-conditions were assured, so the
> operator could minimise the aliassing.

That is a well known problem, but solvable. I scan at 600 dpi, and then
apply a carefully selected blur using a program that shows you the
result on a sample area beforehand. Sometimes the best result comes from
applying different blur in X and Y - for example 3 pixels in X and 7 in
Y.

Other people can get better results than I do. For example, Jim Vadeboncoeur, Jr
publishes single handed a magazine consisting of reproductions of
classic illustrations from the early 20th C. There is absolutely no
trace of moiree in his reproductions, and the colour quality is
outstanding. AFAIK he just uses Photoshop.

http://www.bpib.com/imagesmagfolder/imagesmag/index.html





(2) The text (generally on the
> back of the LP sleeve) needed optical character recognition, (a) so it
> might be translated, and (b) so it might be sent down a wire to
> British Library listener, who might manipulate it to make it more
> readable, or conduct a word-search. The OCR software was almost
> impotent with proper nouns! (3) Five years after we did those twenty
> sleeves, the software was out of date.

The best OCR software I have seen so far is called ABBYY. It runs on
Windows.

Regards
--
Don Cox
doncox@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx