Intellivision III Brochure Restore

[Bobbybobkins]

Unfortunately the original seems to have been scanned at a teeny tiny 72ppi, you'd need at least 600ppi to restore a scan back to printable quality. I'd work on getting a better read of the original before I spent any time "restoring" what is basically a thumbnail.

Do you mean the image at the beginning of the thread? If so, sorry, I had trouble with posting an image that was the right size to be posted. The originals are much bigger than that.

[mthompson]

I'll try to clarify. A scanner such as the one someone might use in their home often cuts off the edges of documents placed at the extremes of the scanning bed. Unless you have an original brochure for reference, there's no way to know if some parts of the original were cut off either during scanning or when the person prepared the images to post online.

 

As an example, here is a page from the PDF file (which is what you'd need to use to get the necessary resolution – hopefully it hasn't just been scaled up in Photoshop). I've reduced the image size to post here, but it's obviously been placed on the scanner slightly crooked. It needs to be straightened, and lost image area added.

 

 

As for reprinting this brochure, unless the print shop can print edge-to-edge on the paper, the image needs to extend beyond the margins at least 1/8" so that the paper can be trimmed to the finished size with no blank paper (white) showing around the edges. Image area needs to be added to allow for this to happen, but it's not hard to do.

 

Mattel most likely would have done this brochure in the standard U.S. letter-size paper, 8.5" x 11". If the scans available are a bit off, they'll need to be fixed up before printing. I might be willing to tackle this project, but it would take awhile and be laser printed rather than on a printing press like the original.

[Bobbybobkins]

Thank you for explaining this to me. Now I understand. If you know what needs to be done, I would be very appreciative if you contributed and made these scans nice and straight. Also, is the PDF too small as TheRedEye stated, or is it usable? If it is, then we may have a very glaring error on our hands.

[JohnPCAE]

As for printing it on a printing press, there is also the issue of "spot colors" (I used to work at a printing company). You have the normal "process colors", cyan, magenta, yellow, and black, but customers often ask for special "spot colors". A spot color is usually derived from the Pantone list, but there are other sources. In some special circumstances, a spot color can be proprietary: Coca-Cola red and IKEA blue are examples. If you really want a high-fidelity reproduction, one thing to do is get high-magnification scans of the original to look for any spot colors. A spot color will be a solid hue rather than a mix of CMYK dots.

 

As for the page borders, using "bleed" is extremely common if not mandatory: that's where a color fill extends past where the trimmer will trim the pages. In my experience, anywhere you see something other than white reach to the edge of the page, there is *always* bleed baked in.

 

In case anyone is wondering, my job was to write and maintain software that took Postscript output from programs like QuarkXpress and PageMaker and turn them into something a CREO platesetter could understand. I had to be conscious of bleed, folding schemes (called "signatures"), page creep, binding styles (perfect-bound, saddle-stiched, etc). There are a lot of little things you have to account for, including paper thickness.

Edited August 8, 2017 by JohnPCAE

[Bobbybobkins]

As for printing it on a printing press, there is also the issue of "spot colors" (I used to work at a printing company). You have the normal "process colors", cyan, magenta, yellow, and black, but customers often ask for special "spot colors". A spot color is usually derived from the Pantone list, but there are other sources. In some special circumstances, a spot color can be proprietary: Coca-Cola red and IKEA blue are examples. If you really want a high-fidelity reproduction, one thing to do is get high-magnification scans of the original to look for any spot colors. A spot color will be a solid hue rather than a mix of CMYK dots.

Hmm, very interesting. Are spot colors very obvious on a scan? Or do you have to look very close on the original to notice them?

[JohnPCAE]

It depends on the scan resolution and how fine the process color dot pattern is. Sometimes you will get a moiré pattern that shows you where process colors were used. A spot color, on the other hand, will never show a moiré since there is no underlying dot pattern. The best way is to use a magnifying glass.

Edited August 8, 2017 by JohnPCAE

[Bobbybobkins]

It depends on the scan resolution and how fine the process color dot pattern is. Sometimes you will get a moiré pattern that shows you where process colors were used. A spot color, on the other hand, will never show a moiré since there is no underlying dot pattern. The best way is to use a magnifying glass.

Ok. Thanks for the clarification. I just hope that the scan is high resolution enough to see patterns.

[TheRedEye]

Do you mean the image at the beginning of the thread? If so, sorry, I had trouble with posting an image that was the right size to be posted. The originals are much bigger than that.

 

No no no, your image is as large as the original! What I'm saying is that the PDF posted in the other thread was only scanned at 72ppi, and at a lossy JPG format. I think time would be much better spent trying to get better scans of the original (600ppi TIFF of each page) than trying to touch up what is already a bad scan.

 

If that bad scan is all that ever exists, great! But to me, if the original is still available, I'd want to figure out how to help make proper scans from it instead of spending your time working on an inadequate scan.

 

EDIT: To further clarify: no, you will not see the dot patterns at 72ppi at all. If you were to print those scans, they'd be very blurry, as they're less than 1/4th the resolution of the original artifact.

Edited August 9, 2017 by TheRedEye

[Bobbybobkins]

 

No no no, your image is as large as the original! What I'm saying is that the PDF posted in the other thread was only scanned at 72ppi, and at a lossy JPG format. I think time would be much better spent trying to get better scans of the original (600ppi TIFF of each page) than trying to touch up what is already a bad scan.

 

If that bad scan is all that ever exists, great! But to me, if the original is still available, I'd want to figure out how to help make proper scans from it instead of spending your time working on an inadequate scan.

 

EDIT: To further clarify: no, you will not see the dot patterns at 72ppi at all. If you were to print those scans, they'd be very blurry, as they're less than 1/4th the resolution of the original artifact.

Ah... Well, then, we may just have to work with what we have, as the odds of contacting the only 2 people known to have the ability to scan them AND getting them to re-scan it in at a very high resolution are very slim to none.

Edited August 9, 2017 by Bobbybobkins

[+KylJoy]

I am trying to get a better scan or borrow the doc. Do not hold your breath, though.

[Bobbybobkins]

I am trying to get a better scan or borrow the doc. Do not hold your breath, though.

[GraziGamer]

I am trying to get a better scan or borrow the doc. Do not hold your breath, though.

 

Great!

[mthompson]

I am trying to get a better scan or borrow the doc. Do not hold your breath, though.

If it could be scanned at 300 DPI with a descreening filter applied, we should be able to make excellent copies.

[GraziGamer]

The ideal to work fine would be 600dpi, so we could get more details and have more freedom to "redo" it.

[Bobbybobkins]

The most important thing is how high resolution the scanner scanning will go. Odds are, the owner of the document probably didn't try to scan it in at a very low resolution. This may have been the highest resolution possible at the time. I just hope that it can be scanned once more AND that it will hopefully be at least 300dpi.

[mthompson]

I've spent a lot of time cleaning up the scans in the PDF and am having my local print shop do some test runs. There's still some work do to make the images presentable and eliminate or reduce jpeg artifacts, scanning imperfections, discoloration, missing image area, etc. But the resolution is adequate for printing at full size. It won't ever be perfect, but it should be pretty nice. I'll post pictures soon.

[Bobbybobkins]

I've spent a lot of time cleaning up the scans in the PDF and am having my local print shop do some test runs. There's still some work do to make the images presentable and eliminate or reduce jpeg artifacts, scanning imperfections, discoloration, missing image area, etc. But the resolution is adequate for printing at full size. It won't ever be perfect, but it should be pretty nice. I'll post pictures soon.

Great! I can't wait to see how it turned out.

[+Lathe26]

Will these repro images be marked as such?

[mthompson]

Will these repro images be marked as such?

 

If people think it's a good idea, I can put something small on the back page.

[+cmart604]

 

If people think it's a good idea, I can put something small on the back page.

I think you should just to be safe. This is very rare and I'd hate to see someone get ripped off thinking they were buying an original

[Bobbybobkins]

I think you should just to be safe. This is very rare and I'd hate to see someone get ripped off thinking they were buying an original

I agree. Although, according to mthompson, it seems that it won't be exact, so there may be a telltale sign to tell whether it's a repro or not, but I guess some small text on the back wouldn't hurt.

[mthompson]

With the source material we've currently got, there will be telltale signs that this is a reproduction. But it's pretty good. I'll change "Printed in U.S.A." to "Reprinted in U.S.A." on the back and add "August 2017" as well.

 

BTW, KylJoy: if you're making progress on getting better scans of an original brochure, please let us know ASAP and I'll put this on hold.

 

Here are the results of my first test printing. I'm still doing touchups and corrections based on what I'm seeing on the printed page. Some of the small text is a little soft, but there's not a lot I can do about that. But it came out even better than I thought it would. Eight and a half by eleven is an impressive size for this piece.

 

I guess at this point it would be helpful to know how much interest there is in making reprint brochures available. Cost should be in the $5 to $8 range, depending on quantity. They'd have to be shipped flat, and I've yet to find out how much postage that would be sent in a 9x12 fiberboard mailer.

 

EDIT: My phone's camera makes some of the type look blurry in these photos. Sorry about that. It's actually much better than what you can see here.

Edited August 15, 2017 by mthompson

[+cmart604]

I'd be in for at least a couple. That looks great.

[Bobbybobkins]

Are you going to make the retouched files available, or are you just going to sell them?

[m-crew]

I'm in for 1 !