Album covers 33 ⅓ - Because it sounds better than 33 ½

Cool! Glad you likes!

My assumption is monitor difficulties they don't realize they have. It can also be bad scanners. Color over saturation is easy to fix via Photoshop so all isn't lost. Color blindness can affect people that way but I'm thinking it's likely the former two issues.

Ed

 

Newly added:

Maurice White - "Maurice White" (front, back, sleeves, labels)

http://vinylalbumcovers.com/maurice-white-maurice-white/

Ed

 

What's funny is that his sweater looks more life-like than his face does!

I never heard this album beyond the hit single. I should check it out one of these days.

 

I guess many people stretch out the levels to get the blacks as black as possible and the whites as white. It's not always called for and it's not always a good thing, but it looks good pretty often and can give the image a nice depth. Whenever I crank the levels really far and clip the lightest and darkest areas, I usually have to reduce the saturation as well. I guess most people don't consider this or even enjoy the rich colors.

It looks as if you have a subtle moiré pattern in that cover. Kinda odd, that shouldn't be an issue with 12'' cover scans scaled down to that size, or at least I haven't experienced it yet. Is your scanner's sharpening option activated? Maybe that's what's causing it.

 

It does? I just looked pretty closely and I don't see it. No sharpening is activated at the scanning stage and never is. I want the truest rendering I can get so nothing is done at the scanning stage. Any resizing, color work, or sharpening is done in Photoshop.

Incidentally, I always have the cover right in front of me when I make any adjustments as I want to remain as true to the actual image as possible. When I do something that looks better but isn't true to the image, I undo it and try something else.

Ed

 

In truth, I haven't either. "Stand By Me" is great, though, so the purchase was justified. Much of it was done with Martin Page and Brian Fairweather and Diane Warren co-writes two tunes on it so I've been reticent to listen to all of it. I likely should. I haven't put it away yet so I'll likely check it out tonight.

Ed

 

It's really subtle, but it's there. Can't you see that criss cross pattern that is all over the face?
Your scans are incredibly sharp. You can actually see the screen pattern in some of them (like Barry Manilow's Swing Street; it also has a bit of a moire pattern that looks like horizontal stripes).

Maybe I don't have any issues because I scan 12" covers at only 300dpi? I stopped scanning them at 600dpi because GIMP will crash when I try descreening images that large.
Later I found that I don't even need to bother with descreening as the finished images look fine at 1000x1000px. I'll try that with a 600dpi scan and will report back.

What kind of sharpening do you use? I sometimes use the "bicubic sharper" resizing algorithm (I particularly like it for grainy images, to keep that grainy look), but no sharpening other than that.

Staying true to the original image sure is a good plan, but it can be quite a task. Touching up wear and flaws can be really tricky sometimes, especially on dark, laminated covers. And colors are quite a minefield. Are you working on a calibrated monitor?

 

Turns out 600dpi works for me as well, but sharpening can really mess things up. The patterns I was able to produce were really subtle, but that will depend on the cover.

 

I looked again and I do see it. It's subtle, you said, but it's there. I scan at 300 dpi (no reason to go bigger as you've said). I do a bilinear resize down to 1200 (bigger for sleeves so text can be read and 500 for the labels) and then sharpen. Not sure what to do about the subtle moire'ing. Any ideas?

Oh, yeah, I'm using a Mac Cinema display 27-inch. Fantastic monitor that gives me a very true representation of what I'm actually doing.

Ed

 

BTW, thanks for checking out the site, Electric one. I've learned something new because you did...

Ed

 

What your scanner puts out at 300dpi must be a fair bit sharper than what mine gives me, so I have to use a 600dpi scan to reproduce your issues.
Bilinear shrinking really brings out the moire in my test image. Better use bicubic. Adobe recommends bicubic sharper for shrinking, but that looks oversharpened sometimes; I often get halo artefacts on text.
For sharpening it's probably better to use unsharp mask instead of sharpen. You can adjust it so that it doesn't bring out any issues.

You could also scan at 600dpi and then descreen using this plugin or this method, but it's probably overkill. The results can be awesome, though.

If your scanner has a descreening setting, you could try turning it on for a 600dpi scan. It will probably add a fair bit of blur or noise (you coud also do this manually), so your image will be blurrier than it needs to be, but you're sizing down a lot, so it might be ok.

I'm not sure if your Cinema display would benefit from calibration. According to some they come pre-calibrated.

You're welcome. I always enjoy vinyl cover scans.

 

I think I solved my issues. They were a result of bilinear resizing. You were totally right. When I went to bicubic resizing, the images took on a softness that is more accurate to the actual image. The moire'ing also disappeared. I'll use this method going forward. Thanks for the help!

Ed

 

Awesome! I'm looking forward to seeing even better scans from you in the future!

I'm not sure what the issue is with bilinear shrinking. The way I understand it, an artifact of bicubic resizing is a slight sharpening, while bilinear is supposed to soften the image a bit. K

 

It looks great Ed. Thank you for taking all this time, I`ll enjoy this site very much I`m sure !!!

 

Newly added (many years later):

Pentatonix - "Pentatonix" (front, gatefold, back, inserts, labels)

http://vinylalbumcovers.com/pentatonix-pentatonix/

Ed

 

Newly added (I've been working on labels, hence my absence here):

Cheap Trick - "Dream Police" (front, gatefold, back, inserts, labels)

http://vinylalbumcovers.com/cheap-trick-dream-police/

Ed

 

Newly added (how long has it been?)

Al Jarreau - "L is for Lover" (front, back, sleeves, labels)

Al Jarreau – L is for Lover | Vinyl Album Covers.com »

Ed

 

Newly added (sort of):

Barry Manilow - "Barry Manilow" (now also featuring the Arista reissue titled "Barry Manilow 1") [front, back, sleeve, labels]

Barry Manilow – Barry Manilow | Vinyl Album Covers.com »

Ed

 

I'm on a roll!

Newly added:

Phil Collins - "Hello, I Must Be Going" (front, back, gatefold, sleeves, labels)

Phil Collins – Hello, I Must Be Going! | Vinyl Album Covers.com »

Ed

 

Newly added:

Ahmad Jamal - "Jamal Plays Jamal" (front, back, sleeve, labels)

Ahmad Jamal – Jamal Plays Jamal | Vinyl Album Covers.com »

One of my very favorite albums by anyone!

Ed

 

Just added:

Phil Collins - "No Jacket Required" (front, back, sleeves, labels)

2016 also added with promo sticker.

Phil Collins – No Jacket Required | Vinyl Album Covers.com »

Ed

 

Newly added:

Prince - Original Motion Picture Soundtrack for "Purple Rain" (front, back, sleeves, labels)

Prince – Original Motion Picture Soundtrack for “Purple Rain” | Vinyl Album Covers.com »

Ed

 

Many years later...

Newly added:

Luther - "This Close to You" (front, back, sleeves, label)

Luther – This Close to You | Vinyl Album Covers.com »

Ed

 

Newly added:

Richard Simmons - "Reach" (front, gatefold, back, instruction booklet, labels)

Richard Simmons – Reach | Vinyl Album Covers.com »

Ed

 

Haha I remember my mom had/has this album!