Christmas Purchase, Penny Black, Blues And Red.

Morning - when you use the Optimizer, your goal should be close to the 250 mark. It's okay to go over 200. You play with the Width and Image Quality. It doesn't hurt to scan at 1200 or more.

Thanks for the help. I always thought people had better camera phones than me, but had no clue it was a program like this that was the real reason.

You also have to start out with a good image. I use a Canon Lide 400 scanner and only rarely load up camera photos. I think the program is mostly there to knock down the file size.

I solved the mystery, my lens needed a real wipe in addition to the optimizer-program!
Here is the new seahorse, with the unusual cancellation, I flipped the picture so it's easier to read it:


And the so called "smudged" one, which at least I think looks pretty good and not that bad at all! I will take pictures of the penny black later today, I'm heading out on errands.

It is not a bad copy. The cancellation is a bit smudgy. I am not sure whether these are four or five cancels, or whether this is a transfer of some kind. It could be someone tried to wash off the cancels. It is a bit unclear what cancels they were, but the shape of what looks like cancels suggests either parcel or fiscal. Such things do affect prices, even if they do not affect appearance.

Collectors prefer postal cancels, registration marks are less popular and fiscal cancels are even less popular. Still, that also is a personal taste.

Other than those things that are more or less conventions and do not say anything about visual appearance, it, indeed, is a pretty good looking stamp. I expect most collectors would be extremely pleased with your example. Nicely centred, overall good perforations (having one shortish perforation is considered quite normal).

I think, certainly, you did pretty good.

The 5s one is a stunner.

Yes it's nice. Thank you for helping me explaining the optimizer, now I know how to upload decent high def shots in the future. You have a good one!

Here comes the penny black. Someone wondered about a possible "inverted" letter B. I hope this is good enough.