How To Scan/Photograph Stamps?

You also notice some images earlier in the thread that are no long there due to problems with their 3-party hosting sites

No good solution I guess

I was playing around today with the software settings with my dedicated flatbed scanner Epson V600, and thought I would share some of the results, conclusions, and opinions.



This is the dark and dull appearance one gets if software controls are turned off. The shade is not correct either.

The good news is the paper surface looks "real", and is not blown out by too much whitening. I would like to keep that feature while brightening the image somewhat, and have the appropriate shade.

To be continued...

After creating a dozen scans with different settings, this is what looked the best, in my opinion. It is the correct shade, and is bright enough, while retaining the paper surface characteristics.It appears more natural in agreement with the stamp.

The Epson settings were "Color correction" button on, the "Continuous Auto Exposure" was towards "low" (set at the second marker of eight markers), "show texture" was on, 2.2 gamma, unsharp mask was set at "low" (I debated between that and turning it off), and saved in jpeg with no compression. (I saved in TIFF also.)

To be continued...

This image scan was created by turning the "Continuous auto exposure" to "high", and the unsharp mask to "high". The image is grayer than the true color, and the paper is much whiter, blowing out the paper details. I suspect many collectors might actually prefer this image, but it doesn't look much like the real stamp.

Thanks for the comparisons Jim. I think everyone will need to go through the same exercise with their particular scanner as each brand and model will function differently and have different settings.

I scan everything with default settings. All stamps I scan at 1200 dpi and save as jpeg files. I switched recently from a clunky HP 3 in 1 scanner / copier / printer to a flatbed Canon Lide 220. I use Flickr for hosting to show better detail. Yes I suppose it could go the way of photobucket.


HP 3 in 1






Canon Lide

The HP unit is adding way too much sharpening.

Yes, you can tell if you look at the "white" around the perforation holes. The Canon one looks a bit more natural.

Ok, you got me. I'm trying to use Flickr to host my pictures, but can't figure out how to get them to show up here

I figured out how to get the link for the picture in Flickr, but when I paste it here, only the link shows up, but not the picture. How to do it?

Chris,

I showed you how to do it in your test section.

On Flicker, select the "Share" icon (the arrow next to the star), select the BBC code panel, then copy/paste the link in the post here. You will need to edit it to remove everything outside of the IMG BBC code tags for images.

Al,

This is the Flickr code I copied:

https://flic.kr/p/23bjk1v

Now, what part of that am I supposed to "edit"?

YOu want to copy as Angore mentioned the BBC code. Should be the last option on the right, BBCode. Then if you choose there is a drop down menu below that where you can choose the resolution you'd like it to be posted as. I use the Original resolution. The copy and paste the link her and then remove anything before and after the 2 [IMG] tags.

Your end result should look like this

[img]ht tx://blahblahblah.jpeg[ /img]

I added a space in the httx so it will show as text here.

Thanks for all the help everyone! Sorry I was a bit "slow" figuring it out

How's this look?

I think you got it Chris.

But did you notice the horizontal line running through the middle of the stamp? Your other scan images have that line also. Artifact of the scanner, or is the stamp in a holder (mount)?

Yeah, noticed that shows up better now that I have a higher resolution. Its the holder that I placed the stamp in. Like a page of a black stock book, but the size of a large index card.

Guess I need to find a different way to hold the stamp while scanning