Help Coding Stamp Scans, Please!

Blade, can you expand on this please
I am not sure I fully understand.
Thanks

Wonderful; definitely the way forward. And the purpose of File522 in your naming example?

Yes, sorry, added information previous page.

Welcome Conker and Blade. You will find a lot of good advice and caring people here (as you no doubt have seen already). There is a wealth of knowledge and experience here.

Thought I'd share a picture:



My wife bought me 14 new 4 ring folders. Only 13 fit on a shelf though; a good problem to have. Each sheet is now in a plastic sleeve, each page is coded with a unique 2 letter 2 digit code, and each page scanned with a jpeg having the same code as the physical sheet. Each folder is numbered with an index sheet above the folders. I've pasted the index below:




The best change that has happened recently is putting the Varios into plastic sleeves. Previously I tended to limit page turns as I could see some of the sheets starting to wear. Now I can turn the sheets to my heart's content without wearing them; much more enjoyable.

I recently bought 5 packs of 200 plastic sleeves from Officeworks (Australia) at about $5 per packet; back to school sales are on in Australia at present. Every folder I open, the first 3 sheets get sleeved to reduce wear; the first sheets showed signs of wear first. The rest of the folder will be sleeved when it is scanned.

The only problem found so far is with some of the more worn folders (many of the folders are second hand) one of the rings can slip out of the sleeves as you turn the pages; they are thinner than the Vario black card. This is only noticeable on one or two folders though.

You are too organised for this forum Peter,
go stand in the corner.

Yes Sir!



(Not my picture, and not a picture of me)

Ooo, there are more stamps in the corner.

Thanks Rod.

A puzzle, but not in the puzzle section

Can anyone guess the country I put in the wrong place and hence skipped it when doing the index.

For example, it could be (but isn't) Southern Nigeria or Southern Rhodesia as these occur between South West Africa (the last country in folder 12) and Spain (the first country in folder 13). As far as I'm aware, neither of these countries issued overprints (I'd love someone to prove me wrong here). The country I missed issued overprints.

That's better,
now, we want to see more mess, bulk cartons of what have you,
scattered packets, glassines and tongs.

You missed something between Pitcairn and Poland

Nope, there is no country between Pitcairn and Poland

Of course, had you used the Filing Cabinet Route
you would not have missed anything
and you would not need to print it out

Gibraltar perhaps?

Here is some feedback from a newcomer to this digitization world. Based on inputs here, mainly rod222, I have completed a small evaluation project. I scanned my small Australia collection and created individual stamp files - 256 of them. I named them
Sxxxx_xxxx_xxxx_xxxx (Scott cat.#_Year_Face value_Description) so far. I can always expand if necessary. (I am interested in year for future statistics on what I hope will be a much larger collection. I am going with a whole world, used concept.)
1. The images look better than the stamps!. I already found a few flawed ones very easily and was able to replace some with better quality from duplicates.
2. I am using 600dpi so far. Is there a recommended quality size in this hobby? I don't see much difference with a lower quality scan but want to confirm this before embarking on a lot of scanning. Folder size will be an issue eventually. These 256 items are already 49MB.
3.The Folder Search function tells me that I have 16 5c values as a first cut in determining if a new 5c stamp is not yet in the collection. However, is there a way to "Nest" Search functions? That is how many of these 15 were issued in 1966 for example? Only by making a temporary folder of these 15?
4. I have a sense that this idea of a virtual, digital collection has great potential.
5. I assume that use of Scott and other catalog numbers is OK at this hobby level?
6. It takes a lot of time to get 256 aligned, quality images. I should have timed the project but couldn't do it in one shot. I would estimate several hours though. Ways to speed up this process are of great interest therefore. I am using Gimp software which may have some speed up features which I haven't learned yet. Automatic alignment? Automatic breakdown of a scanned page of multiple stamps into single images?
Cheers

Conker.

Sxxxx_xxxx_xxxx_xxxx (Scott cat.#_Year_Face value_Description)

You need to expand on this, how exactly have you
used naming text?
I use prefixed zero in all my cat numbers and Currency
Cat#1 = SG0001
5c = 05c
to assist searching

(mind you, some catalogue numbers will soon be over 9999 I think)

I use year date surrounded by () to assist searches eg (1999)
otherwise currency will intefere
search (1999 to get dates.

600 dpi is fine, others here go to 1200 but your choice.
I save as *.jpg others do not
once again your choice *.jpg at 600 dpi should give you
a stamp around 250Kb

Scott numbers are OK providing you do not broadcast

Scanning
look for a recent post on "bursting" on SCF
you should be able to scan a page of 40 stamps
and have the computer automatically divvie
them up to singletons
I'll let the thread explain the intricacies of that.


I don't understand question 3
If your naming structure is good you should be able to
get a "subset" by a windows explorer search
have a split pane with the "details" in the right hand pane

years of the 5c are immediately identifiable

here is my example

Hmm,
I see your first problem
windows explorer does not allow you to make a folder search :(
so you will get every 5c stamp on your computer
You need image viewing software.

Rod222,I defer to your much longer experience with this folder based world and your much larger number of folders/files. Here is an example of my naming
S725_1979_55c_SurfFishing
(note use of underscores)
In my Australia folder of 256 files, doing a search with 55c brings only this one up and none of the 1955 year files so the brackets around the year don't add anything that I can see so far.
What does adding those zeros in cat# and face value add to your system? I think Search only looks for the string you enter?
This may be an OS issue. I have Vista; what about you?
I'm off to study the Help files on Folder Search and then on to adding Austria to increase my population size for further testing.
Thanks for input, much appreciated.

Conker: your system is similar to mine, however, I use an image viewer program called ACDSee 3.1 to manipulate and search my files. It came years ago as part of an HP printer software package that they threw in as an added bonus. However, it just gathered dust on my computer until Rod woke me up to its file management capabilities and I've never used explorer for that or any other function since.

Given that you are into used stamps you might want to consider distinguishing between issue dates (year) and postmark dates by using symbols as Rod has shown by his issue date brackets (). I'm a sucker for good cds cancels as well as dates that had historic and personal significance to me (e.g., family birth dates) and recorded this info when appropriate. The problem was that these latter dates (e.g., instigation of League of Nations) would be included with the issue dates if I was searching for stamps issued in 1919. If you don't include postmark years than a separate bracketing identifier system won't be necessary.