Comptiq No.255 can now be downloaded here: http://www.oldgamemags.net/infusions/...ad_id=7512


コンプティーク2003年03月号

andynick kindly submits Xbox Gamer issue 31......

..... and follows that with Mega Action issue 01. Brilliant!!

The January and February 1987 issues of Your Computer (AUS) have been added to the download section.

andynick submits PC Gamer (UK) issue 206. This is the last issue released by Future that did not get a digital release.

JabbaTheGamer and Jason also come to the PC Gamer (UK) party with issue 155 also added to the download area. OGM is THE place to come for PC Gamer mags methinks!!

Our dynamic duo also provide us with four new issues of PC Games (USA). Fabulous!!

Another great releases!

THX in special for those PC Gamer issues!

Two less...

Thanks! Another who loves the PC Gamer mags!

Jason submits two more issues of Australian PC User

We start the weekend off with another andynick submission with NGamer (UK) issue 66 now available to grab from the usual place.

Following hot on it's heals we also have some Xboxy goodness with Xbox Gamer issue 30 straight off his scanner.

Staying with XBox the next release comes from the JabbaTheGamer/Jason combo with issue 16 of XBN (Xbox Nation). In addition to that issue 17 receives a new, better quality scan....

Moving on to the greatest gaming machine ever created ..... the IBM PC ... next with Computer Games Strategy Plus issue 90 now scanned and available thanks to the donation of a print copy from J.Cameron. That's 125 issues of this title now scanned and preserved here. Getting there ......

On the subject of upgrades JabbaTheGamer purchased another copy of XBN (Xbox Nation) issue 21 as it had less sticker damage. Jason scanned the cover and I have edited some of the remaining damage out and uploaded the amended issue. If you don't want to download the whole magazine again there is a Mediafire link to the replacement cover on the download page for the issue.

Todays first release is Computer Games issue 119 and what a wonky cut piece of crap this was!! I've straightened up most of the double page ads because they were totally crap looking in side by side page viewing mode but other than that I haven't spent any more time on it!!

Space is getting tight, really really tight on two of the Mediafire accounts, so much so that I doubt many more issues can be added to them. I am trying to migrate some content over to the third account to enable me to keep all of a particular magazines issues stored in one location then altering the link to the new file and deleting the old files off the full accounts.

At the same time I am extracting non-OCR based PDF's into CBR files to keep scanned mags in a common format and as part of this I have been looking at files scanned with my FI-5650c and decided I am unhappy with the brightness levels of those files. This is due to the differences between the LED light elements on the Snapscan which are a lot brighter than the mercury lights in the FI-5650c. I have been playing around with brightness/contrast levels in Paintshop Pro and have managed to almost eradicate the "grey white" look without impacting the images. If anything they also look better. Note I am not trying to be Meppi and edit/re-edit files until the end of days, just trying to adjust my files to keep them in line with everyone elses submissions in regards to brightness levels.

First up is Xbox World 360 issue 88. This is because a new issue is incoming from Jason so it sort of made sense to migrate this off the old account. If you like the PDF by all means stay with it but if you want a brighter version then feel free to grab the CBR version and tell me what you think of it.

While I don't think it's necessary for you to re-edit all of your scans unless it just makes you happy to do so, I will say that I was honestly never that enthusiastic about the images that rolled off of the super-expensive A3 line of Fujitsus. I believe Marktrade's later scans were also made on such a scanner, and they always seemed overly dark to me, with a slightly soft focus that isn't as sharp as the cheaper Scansnap output, either. I have no doubt that they're great scanners, but I suspect their strengths lie not in magazines, but elsewhere.

Btw, I downloaded the CBR of the magazine to compare to the PDF, and was surprised to see that the CBR was 160MB larger. Since the image dimensions are the same, and increasing white on a page usually results in a slightly smaller filesize, I can only assume that the images were saved at a different compression level than the PDF which resulted in a filesize increase. I don't know what Paintshop Pro's settings are, but saving the files using the recommended compression level of 9 in Photoshop results in jpgs roughly 65% the filesize of the ones in the CBR, which makes them very near to the size of the files in the PDF.

The size difference is because I was using a higher compression level on my earlier scans. I know, I know .... bad karma and all that but at the time I thought less than 300MB files were preferable to better quality. My views have changed somewhat since then with 500MB my upper limit barring those monster friggin' PC Gamer (USA) type issues

As far as the FI series go mine was produced in 2008 and his wouldn't have been much newer... 2010 maybe ... so the lamps were probably the best of their kind back in the day. I never wanted to fiddle with my scans but when I got the IX1600 I suddenly realised the brightness disparity between my scans was going to play with my head!!!

As promised a new issue of Xbox World 360 is now available with issue 93 kindly purchased by JabbaTheGamer and with Jason providing the requisite scanning!!