Scanning Experiment 2: Facit 17

Just like you sometimes have to "lie" to a digital camera, sometimes you have to "lie" to a scanner.

Better exposure level. Now a little too gray.

In this case, I inserted strips of white paper into the adjacent strips on the Hagner sheet. This made the scanner "think" that there was more pale material on the page, so it compensated by making the base scan darker. This version of a scan of the same stamps as before has not had any light removed.

However, I am still not happy with the lack of color differentiation. The two stamps-- which look quite different to the naked eye-- look very close to the same, on the scans.

At the moment, the scanner is on a "photograph" setting, which I figured would be the closest to the color requirements of scanning stamps. Maybe I need to look into different scanner settings.

I may experiment with this for a while, because if I am going to put a bunch of effort into putting these stamps on a web site, I want to put out good results.

Of course, the effectiveness of this web site is going to be limited by the quality and color rendition algorithms of the monitors belonging to the people who view the site. So it can never really be "perfect," and I don't even know if the color rendition of my own monitor is a good representation of what the broader population of stamp collecting computer users might see.

The color on these two is NOT the same.

Both of these stamps remain a little too pale/subdued, color-wise. What's nice, though, is that the paper color is about right. The paper on these is not bright white, but a yellowish cream. SO, getting closer...

So many things to DO, before I get started.

Scanned as two stamps surrounded by white strips.
Scan included part of white area.
Sharpen 40% to reduce noise.
Not color corrected.