Date   : Mon, 23 Jun 2008 16:27:59 +0100
From   : dm.hunt@... (David Hunt)
Subject: The Micro User

> Andrew wrote:
> > To be honest, it does seem a shame to destroy any old Acorn magazines
> > given the non-permanancy of the web.
> 
> Yep, although the way I see it, people scan stuff to preserve it - sharing
> it
> on the web is merely a side effect (after all, the 'net isn't really fast
> enough yet and 'online' storage not cheap enough to really share good
> quality
> scans - some drop in quality from the original scanned versions is almost
> inevitable)
> 
>  > I'd prefer a slightly distorted
> > image and the knowledge that they still exist in a well-kept library.
> 
> Do we have that knowledge? :)  I know NMoC have all the earlier ones, but
> I'm
> not sure about later issues.
> 
> I'm all for slightly distorted images on the web - but I still think
> people
> should be making the effort to scan at the highest possible quality.

I cannot see any reason to go beyond 300dpi, as I can plainly see the colour
grain of the print at 300dpi. I scan at 600dpi/48bit colour and the
resulting TIFF is around 250Mb. At the extra resolution, I can perform much
more accurate colour correction and also the editing of flaws, such as
stains, rips, folds, cuts is easier. I then downsize to 300dpi/PNG for
storage.

For the purposes of reading the pages, 300dpi PNG is complete overkill. An
image at 1200x800 (100dpi) when saved as a lossy JPEG, is perfectly
readable, even small text and weighs in at around 300kb vs. 20Mb for the
original PNG (300dpi) file.

Regarding storage of paper copies, I know Oxford, Cambridge and the National
Library have copies. Quite when they would be scanned, is another matter. We
can add so much more to the magazines than just an image on a website. Just
think of the possibilities of linking all of this together with cover disc
images, videos of games, pictures of kit etc.

I have a pile of MUs, half a metre high, that need scanning! Perhaps, in my
lifetime, I might reach the end ;)

I need to work through the pile and see which issues are missing, I don't
know what the last issue is, I suspect it is sometime in the mid 90s, just
as everyone I knew was either using a PC, Amiga or a Mac, who were BBC or
Archimedes owners before.

Dave ;)