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Glass Scans


Matty.n
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53 minutes ago, Matty.n said:

Anyone got any tips on making scans come out clearer? Tried Bitmap & 400 DPI and while it's better still doesn't seem right. Granted it's an old Epson DX3850 (So not completely flat, could this be why?)

Cheers

 

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The best focus will be on the glass of the scanner like a document would be, any large gap will make it blurry, so bearing in mind the graphics are printed on the back of the glass it will never be perfect

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I tried this on a A4 scanner and like wizard said a tiny gap between the two glasses makes it blurry. it has to be on a flat bed. I ended up taken mine to a local printers who had a A3 scanner but still the each glass had to be done in two half's as the scanner was only flat at one end then they charged me 50p a scan and put the images on a memory stick as i was sending them to Pook, and he had to stitch them together his end but all was ok.

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Didn't think of taking the thickness of the glass into account! Any opinions on the wand scanners? Would be looking at this one - https://www.amazon.co.uk/FLAGPOWER-Solutions-Portable-Business-Handheld/dp/B01G8DW7QC/

 

Failing that, pictures it is! More importantly... is anyone willing to take it on? :D Do have the cash decals, don't worry!

32747823_10155659356675748_9107128506470367232_n.jpg

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Upload away I'm sure someone will do this proud, I'd love to see a reg dx as said before not seen one for a while,  there's others who haven't released dx's for a while to.

As for myself I've enough to keep me occupied for a month or so, but if no one's taken it on by say July / August then I'll see what I can do.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Any news on this as I've artwork prepped for this, well the "off" stage but the centre feature board is a bit hard to read in places and I had to borrow the £70 decals from a flyer image I had as the image I'm using is from the £100 version

I've removed the top left reflections 

gallery_17577_105_242629.jpg

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  • 2 weeks later...

Great work on this layout!

Just wanted to add my 2p in relation to glass scans.

In my experience unfortunately the current cheap LED scanners just are not up to the job of scanning glass because there isn't enough light. Insufficient light = blur/lack of detail, the same way that detail is lost in dark images on a DVD.

For M1Adness layouts where glass was available I used a Xenon gas based scanner that I already had. The scanning surface still wasn't completely flat because like scanners now there was/is a small lip for you to line your document up with the edge so for glass edges a slight overlap is inevitable to keep the glass level. This wasn't really a problem as the edge of the glass is within the cabinet anyway and is usually the bit where there are small chips/blemishes in the edge finish. However it is A4 sized so typically for a Maygay top glass I had six to eight images to combine. Later layouts I built a small rig using a PSU from Argos that powered a string of lights taken from a real machine complete with proper bulb holders. So I was able to scan the image with lights off, then flick a switch and scan the same image with lights on. About 25% of normal power was ideal.

The issue with Xenon gas based scanners is that you need to wait an hour or so with the light on to allow it to warm up properly. Otherwise as you are scanning sections of the glass you will notice that the contrast changes slightly between parts as the bulb warms up which makes the overall stitching more challenging as you have to perform manual adjustments. However the results speak for themselves. For anyone watching todays Degsy video, Inferno wasn't glass, Wild Zone and Gladiators were. You can see the difference quite easily, although there was of course 5 years gap and my technique had improved somewhat! What may interest you on Wild Zone is the four targets in the top left and the pinball bumpers in the bottom right. These were all scanned via that Xenon gas based scanner which gives a nice depth to them. There is no way on earth I would have been able to scan those with the kind of cheap LED based scanner you get now. For another great example look at the layout I did of Spectre (BFM). That has dual layer glass! So I was actually scanning two pieces of glass on top of each other. The end layout result is incredible with great depth to the top glass.

Now bear in mind this was in the days where a 2 megapixel camera was cutting edge so for detailed images a scanner was the only way to go. Phone cameras now are incredible in comparison. Any paint package that allows skew adjustment can be used to straighten a camera image but the trick will be lighting. As much natural light as possible, avoid flash and no bright spots. Capturing in a single image will definitely help. No doubt others will be more skilled than me in regards to advice for this.

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