Graded Card Scanning Guide - Take a Look!
 

I have been working on scanning my PSA cards over the last year or so. Over that time I have run a number of questions past some of you and requested feedback from some more of you. I decided to compile a guide showing some guidelines, tips, tricks and workflow I received from you and other sources.

I compare the Epson V600 and Canon 9000f, both of which I own. Ultimately, the guide uses the V600 for the main workflow.

Let me know your thoughts, revisions, etc. I am open to feedback. Thanks!

Edit 6/25/2021:
REV 04: Added Section 6 covering IrfanView – Batch Image Processing.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Eum...ew?usp=sharing

https://i.imgur.com/24JRcBc.jpg

Wow, that's an excellent tutorial! I have a Canon CanoScan 5600f and have been trying to get even better scans with it -- your guide has some good tips. Very thorough, even if you focus on the Epson a bit more.

Based on advice from a fellow collector, I recently started using the unsharp mask after the scan using a photoshop-type program and realize all my old scans now look slightly blurry. I have been going 130% amount with a 1.0 pixel radius and 0 threshold at 300 dpi. I will have to try the 0.4 radius to see what that looks like.

I might also recommend suggesting CollectorFocus.com as another site to display your cards, similar to the PSA digital album suggestion at the end.

Well done and thanks for sharing!

Great breakdown. Got anymore organizational type articles?

Nothing at the moment. Engineer by trade so I have a number of Assembly and fabrication focused SOPs. :)

As long as you have not already sharpened the scan when you scanned it, you can come back and use a Photoshop type program to sharpen it up. My goal was to avoid any post processing, so I worked with Epson Scan enough to get an output I was happy with.

I will check out collectorfocus.com. I may have in the past, but I will give it another look. Thanks!

I checked out collectorfocus.com. All my images exceed the allowable dimension of 2048 pixels wide or tall, mine are 2132 tall. I would have to resize them all to set this up unfortunately.

Thanks for taking the time to do all this!

Although I don't have the scanners you talk about, I am thinking hard about upgrading mine as I am not happy with the scans it takes. After scanning my latest P/U last night, in an SGC folder, it is more clear than ever now, it is time to upgrade.

I'm not sure if Leon would allow it, but I think this should be posted in more sections, or at least the home page as my gut tells me very few on this site frequent this modern section?

I posted this over in the Net54baseball Vintage (WWII & Older) Baseball Cards & New Member Introductions forum a few days ago. There wasn’t too much traffic here... little better there.

What scanner are you using now? I got my V600 used on eBay.

It's an H/P Photosmart C4780, scanner/printer in one.

This is by far the worst scan this printer has taken (Flickr link below) so maybe I best try to clean the surface again as maybe there is a film on there that didn't come up last night when I cleaned it again before scanning?

Trying some new scans in hopes they show better?

Nope, and looks like I now left a piece of lint on the screen. :mad:

The C4780 is a CIS scanner. When scanning PSA, SGC, etc cards you should really look for a CCD type scanner. That is the first point in my guide, section 1.1.

Issue is, the CIS scanner will not give you the clarity you need on a graded card not matter what you do. Please compare to my image here:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/vbpwk2z1me...%2001.jpg?dl=0

I made some updates to the guide and re-linked it in the first post.

Happy new year everyone!

VueScan
 

Nic,
You mention VueScan in your article.
I’m considering the pro version to be able to use my windows 10 laptop with my canon scanner , for which there isn’t a Win10 driver version.
My win7 laptop crashed/crapped after a 13 year run so I am going to have to figure out a modern scanning method.

Anyway, besides allowing the scanner to work (obviously important), is the software a good recommendation?
I have been using ULead PhotoImpact for all these years too, and it also is past its life cycle for Win10 without ponying up.

What do you think about VueScan value?
Thank you in advance!

I use Paint Shop Pro as my graphics program with Win 10 and you can scan either in 32 or 64 bit mode; it supports most major scanners I believe. I used Vue Scan for a bit using Win 8 and it was OK but kind of clunky in operation.

Hi Brian. Once you get used to VueScan you will find it fairly easy to use. I don’t think that the images produced were as good as the stock Epson software that came with my v600. Give the trial version a shot and see what you think.

New REV posted.

Edit 9/14/20:
Added a section on scanning Apps and added to the holder preparation section.

Thanks!

Edit 12/10/20:
Expanded Section 1.1 on scanner examples to include some higher and lower end models. Also noted the model PSA SecureScan uses. Added section 3.3 on display gamma.

See the first post for the download link.

Edit 6/25/2021:
REV 04: Added Section 6 covering IrfanView – Batch Image Processing.

See the first post for the download link.