Outline · [ Standard ] · Linear+ Scanning Tutorial

[rob]

Scanning Turorial

Written for dvdcoverart (defunct)
This scanning tutorial is meant to cover the basics of scanning and cleaning up a cover for submission to our site.  It assumes you are using Adobe Photoshop as your image editor, but the instructions are general enough that they can easily be adapted for any other capable program, like Paint Shop Pro.  This tutorial has a fair amount of large images, so modem users be forewarned.

 Step One: Preparation

Make sure both the cover and scanner surface are clean.  If needed, spray a paper towel with some Windex or similar, and wipe off any dust/dirt.  Remember, any dirt/dust particles on the cover/scanning surface will show up when you scan, and will need to be removed later on.

Flatten the cover as much as possible before putting it in the scanner to avoid nasty curves and reflections around the spine area.  If scanning a snapper, be sure to remove the cover from the plastic case by unhinging it at the back.

Carefully align the cover in scanner bed at a corner so the edges are straight (that way you don't have to rotate it much if all later)

If necessary, place a heavy object on top of the cover to keep it as flat as possible (phonebooks, 3-5 laserdiscs work great here)

 Step Two: Scanning

Scan the image at 300dpi.  Make sure any sharpening settings your scanner software may have are set to the lowest setting (how much you can control this varies by scanner software).  If you scanning software automatically crops to the area it thinks it should scan, make sure it isn't cutting off the edges.  It's usually best to back it out slightly and then crop as needed later.  If your scanner software has a 'descreen' option, you may want to enable it, as it can do a good job of removing Halftone Dots (covered later).  Try scanning once with it on and once off, and see if the result is better or worse.

Step Three: Cleanup

The first thing we need to do is rotate the image to its proper orientation, and make any minor rotation adjustments so the scan is level from left to right.  As we can see in the picture below, the scan needs to be rotated 90 degrees clockwise, then a another 1 degree or so to level it. Determining how much adjustment is needed to get a scan perfectly straight is a tricky thing, and requires a bit of trial and error. Sometimes you need to use fractional degrees to get it just right.

After rotation, the image is now perfect straight.

Next we crop any excess from the edges, being careful not to cut off any of the cover.  It helps to zoom in on the cover to at least 100% when doing this.  When you go to crop you will be able to tell if you rotated the image properly in the previous step, because if you didn't you will be cropping more at one side than at the other when looking left to right or top to bottom to get

If you look closely, you can see that there is still a little white at the corners, since they are rounded.  We will take care of that later on.

 

Now we remove the appearance of halftone dots.  Halftone dots appear as a result of the processed used to print the original cover.  There are a few different ways of removing them - I will show the two most common.  The first is what I will call the "blur + sharpen" method.

halftone dots:

First we blur the image slightly using the Gaussian Blur filter.  The only adjustable parameter here is the radius.  What we want to do is remove the appearance of the dots without loosing too much detail.  I find a radius of around 1 pixel works best, but you may need to adjust it slightly depending on the cover or scanner used.

Next, we sharpen the image slightly using the Unsharp Mask filter, to offset some of the detail masked when blurring.  Set the amount to 50%, the Threshold to 0 levels, and the Radius to 2 times whatever value you used for the Gaussian Blur above.  The halftone dots are slightly visible still, but will not be when printed.

The second method uses the Despeckle filter.  Applying it repeatedly will increase the effect, but if you aren't careful too much detail could be lost.  Usually applying it twice is what I would recommend.  This will leave a slightly "processed" look, which can be removed by applying a very small amount of Gaussian Blur (Radius of about .4 - .6).  The first picture below shows the original at the top with Despeckle applied twice; the second has a small amount of Gaussian Blur applied after despeckling.

Next, we sharpen the image slightly using the Unsharp Mask filter, to offset some of the detail masked when blurring.  Set the amount to 50%, the Threshold to 0 levels, and the Radius to 2 times whatever value you used for the Gaussian Blur above.  The halftone dots are slightly visible still, but will not be when printed.

Next, fill in rounded corners if necessary.  Sometimes you can get away with just sampling a nearby color and using the paintbrush tool, but for best results I recommend using the clone tool instead.  This insures a uniform look because often times it can be hard to get the sampled color to match perfectly.

Before and after shots, using the top left and bottom right corners:

After shot of the entire cover:

Clean up any dust, scratches/scrapes that are visible on the cover, using either a sampled color and the paintbrush, or the clone tool.  The area around the spine will probably need the most attention.

Notice the wear marks around the lower spine especially:

Little nicks like the one below are bound to pop up everywhere.  They need to be fixed though as they will be obvious when printed out

Spines will need lots of repair, even for covers in good condition.  The Clone tool is invaluable here.

the big picture:

 

Step Four: Color Correction

Many image editing tools have an auto color function which will automatically adjust the red, green, and blue channel levels as well as the brightness and contrast.  Sometimes they work pretty well, but for best results you will want to adjust these manually (Feel free however to use the Auto Levels or Auto Color function and see how close it comes to the actual cover.  If it's spot-on, then you're home free).  Use the Levels tool to independently adjust the high and low cutoff points for the red, green, and blue channels individually.  If necessary, adjust the hue slightly so that your scan matches the actual cover.

The colors look pretty good, but the blacks could be darker, flesh tones are slightly off, and the orange looks a little more yellow than it should (compared to the cover)

Looking at the histogram of the Red level, there are no sudden drop-offs, so we can leave it be for now
The Green level histogram shows a large drop-off right around 20.  So we drag the left slider to bright the lower cutoff up to where the drop-off begins.
The Blue level histogram also shows a large drop-off right around 20.  So we drag the left slider to bright the lower cutoff up to where the drop-off begins.

after those adjustments, the black level is now black (as opposed to dark grey), and the orange is orange.  Flesh tones are spot-on.

With this cover, the changes weren't drastic, but they were noticeable.  Depending on your scanner hardware/software, the type of material the cover is printed on, etc, you may need to do different amounts of adjustments.

 

Step Five: Resizing

Resize the image to 3240x2175 (or as close as possible without distorting the image.

single: 3240 x 2175 pixels (spine: 170 pixels)

double: 3305 x 2175 pixels (spine: 235 pixels)

triple (slim): 3384 x 2175 pixels (spine 314 pixels)

4/5 disc: 3508 x 2175 pixels (spine: 438 pixels)

6/7 disc: 3661 x 2175 pixels (spine: 591 pixels)

ThinPak single: 3150 x 2175 pixels (spine: 80 pixels)

ThinPak double: 3172 x 2175 pixels (spine: 122 pixels)

Fox 5-Star Collection, single width: 3240 x 2175 pixels (spine: 170 pixels)

Fox 5-Star Collection, double width: 3305 x 2175 pixels (spine: 235 pixels)

Columbia Tristar Special Edition (Photoshop PSD format): 3240 x 2175 pixels (spine: 170 pixels)

As seen below, the cropped scan came out pretty close to what we need, so only minimal adjustment is necessary.
Making sure that the Constrain Proportions box is checked, we first adjust the height to its correct value, because it is close to its correct value than the width.  Doing this gives us a width of 3230 pixels (10.766"). which is only 10 pixels off from what we want.
Because it's only a 10 pixel difference, stretching it to 3240 pixels wide will not have a visible impact on the cover.  So we will go ahead and uncheck Constrain Proportions and set the height to 3240.

Hit ok, save the file with minimal JPEG compression (Photoshop setting 11, PSP setting 1) and you're all done!

[Jordan_Safc]

Thanks Rob M8

[JRaVeN]

Nice.. Its good to know!!!

[BUBBA]

May I add that it helps to brighten some covers a bit as some come out a bit dark.
This happens more so when scanning a CD or DVD label.

[tribalisticuk]

Don't know how you feel about this but I never scan at 300dpi I tend to go for 321dpi or another odd number as I have found this tends to eliminate a lot of herring boning and other scanning problems, you may want to try this if you are still struggling to get a good scan.

[SpaceZombie]

Resize the image to 3240x2175 (or as close as possible without distorting the image.

I don't want to master you, just suggest. I usually get very large pix when using the 300dpi option when importing a scann in Paintshop Pro, there is also an option if your scanner came with an software to choose the size your self...

Very good tutorial

[tinymd]

I have a little addition to Step 3. There is actually an option in Photoshop to get the image very straight without using trial and error. It is a bit hidden but it's there:

Under the Eyedropper tool (vertical toolbar) is the Measure tool. Click and drag it past anything in the image that you know is straight (a horizontal line, a line of text, etc.). Then go to Image > Rotate Canvas > Arbitrary... and you'll see that the exact figure is filled in the field. In hundredths of percents. I don't think it will rotate more than 90 degrees so you'll probably have to do a 90 cw or ccw first but after that it gets it straight in one go and in less than a minute. A lot better to do it this way because the image degrades every time you rotate it..

Great initiative to put a tutorial like this up here. Tnx

[timmyjoe42]

Are there pixel size recommendations for cd covers?

[mitch-m]

Excellent mate thanks for this will be using this a lot.

[M2plus]

Hello,

When I try to print it, I get the html codes instead of the pictures. How can I solve the problem

[BigApe]

As an addendum to Max's excellent tutorial can I also point out that you should remove the covers from their sleeves (this applies to both DVD and CD style cases) before scanning. Also, if the cover has any stickers (you know the sort - Roy's discount video rental, Special offer-50% off - that sort of thing) either remove them (so they don't leave a mark) before scanning, or scan another cover!

[Arbuckle]

Thanks for an excellent tutorial...

[Provos]

Not to be a pain but most of the pics are missing from this tutorial so it is a little hard to follow is it possible to repost it or to attach it in pdf format?

[BigApe]

Provos - are you still having trouble? It looks OK to me

[tweetybird]

That's really strange - I can't get the images either, except one.

[BigApe]

Are you guys useing Firefox or one of the IE's?

[tweetybird]

I have both.

[kylumi]

This is a very good tutorial which was made by Scott over at DVDCOVERART (not defunct)...............it is considered to be the best available!

[dgl]

had a read of your tutorial (which was good and informative) but have you played with GIMP ? and open source imaging editor.

I am using Linux and not really some you'd call artistic at all.

cheers,

dave.

[Aractus]

It's interesting to read your tutorial. I do a fairly detailed scan myself, and my technique is slightly different but works very effectively.

1. Preparation:

Ensure a clean surface.

For amaray covers, put the cover in the case in reverse for a few seconds (closed case) and take it out. Be very careful to ensure the spine lines up exactly to prevent damage to the original cover. It will now be very flat.

Align the cover as straight as possible, using "preview" a few times (usually takes me 3-4 times) before scanning.

Make sure any filters like "unsharp mask" are disabled before scanning.

2. Scan

Scan at 600dpi. This makes it much easier to remove halftone dots.

Save image.

3. Cleanup

Load image in PSP, and apply filter "edge preserving smooth" - usually at a setting of "9". Then resize image "50%" using "smart size" and use filter again, this time on a lower setting (usually 4).

Sometimes this process will distort fine text, which must be replaced from the original image (resized by 50%).

A very light unsharp mask sometimes works well here. Your imae will *always* be softer than the source, so don't over-do it.

Split the image into Front (1535 x 2188), Back (170 x 2188) and Spine (1535 x 2188), and then ensure the applicable areas are centred. Straighten images and text if necessary using resize and distort tools available to you.

Most text (not over any images) can be restored by 1. converting to monochrome (using whatever source has the highest contrast be it "R" from RGB or simply "V" from "HSV"), increasing the contrast, and then recolouring the text (or background) to its original colour.

Solid backgrounds should have a solid colour.

Contrast may have to be adjusted, also some colour correction can be applied.

Recombine image, and save. In PNG format most covers should now be around 6-8MB in size, depending on how much images are used throughout.