Scanning images for the discography |
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After you have read this page and made the scans, you must upload the images to your web site and notify either Anders or Rob of the URL in the Digital Nirvana Collecting Forum. Images sent by email are NOT BEING ACCEPTED until further notice.
I'd like for everyone to use these new guidelines so that everything looks a little more cohesive. The steps below are pretty simple, so you should be able to apply them to whatever graphics editing program you prefer. At the bottom of the page is a chart of the images from each item that are needed and the preferred sizes.
(For reference, when I write "small items" I mean 7" records, cassettes, CDs, and the packaging they come in. "Large items" refers to books, video covers, 10" vinyl, 12" vinyl, and LPs -- generally anything that produces large file sizes or does not fit entirely on the scanner.)
- I like to scan at 300 DPI, though for larger items that has to be reduced to 200 DPI or whatever doesn't crash the system.
- If the item you are scanning is a record, CD, or does not have straight edges, fill in the outer area with white. (Do not fill in the center hole of a CD or record.) While the underside of a lot of scanner's lids are white, it's not always the perfect white. The goal here is to make the background appear seamless against the page.
- Crop the image.
- Re-size the image. (See charts below.)
- Save the image as a JPG (JPEG) with some compression. This is a little difficult to explain since each program measures compression differently, but use enough that the image is a reasonable size (20-40 KB for small items and 40-70 KB for large items) and looks nice.
I use Paint Shop Pro and a JPG compression level of 20 (with the final DPI at 100) usually produces pretty good results. The guys at The Nirvana Bootography use Adobe Photoshop. They scan at 300 DPI, sharpen each image, then save it as a JPG with the quality level set to 6.
(Certain types of paper or artwork can be difficult to deal with because no matter what you do it just doesn't look very good. Try reducing the compression. Sometimes this can make the image look a little better.)
Feel free to scan whatever additional features or inserts you'd like. I can't promise to use everything, but I'll consider everything.
7" vinyl (example)
| SCAN |
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SET HEIGHT TO (pixels) |
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WIDTH WILL BE (pixels, approx.) |
12" vinyl (example)
| SCAN |
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SET WIDTH TO (pixels) |
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HEIGHT WILL BE (pixels, approx.) |
| Front of sleeve |
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350 |
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470-500 |
| Back of sleeve |
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350 |
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470-500 |
Book (example)
| SCAN |
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SET WIDTH TO (pixels) |
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HEIGHT WILL BE (pixels, approx.) |
| Front |
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350 |
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(depends on book) |
| Back (optional) |
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350 |
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(depends on book) |
Cassette
| J-card (unfolded) or Slipcover |
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Set height to 300 pixels. |
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Width will depend on item. |
| Tape |
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Set width to 300 pixels. |
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Height will be 190 pixels (approx.). |
CD in jewel case (example)
| SCAN |
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SET HEIGHT TO (pixels) |
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WIDTH WILL BE (pixels, approx.) |
CD in digipak (example)
| SCAN |
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SET HEIGHT TO (pixels) |
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WIDTH WILL BE (pixels, approx.) |
| Outer surface of digipak (unfolded) |
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350 |
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800-810 |
| Inner surface of digipak w/ CD (unfolded) |
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350 |
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800-810 |
CD in slimline case (example)
| SCAN |
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SET HEIGHT TO (pixels) |
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WIDTH WILL BE (pixels, approx.) |
| Insert (unfolded) |
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350 |
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850 |
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