*SIGH* another day, another scammer

[blowout]

It sure is. Any chance this image may have been doctored?

[Aman619]

thats not what I meant! I was just suggesting thats why it wouldnt open, since he may not have the same version. It may be a layered file saved in photoshop format, which wont open like jpegs and pdfs etc. w/o the software.

 

either way, the auctions look suspect.

[blowout]

thats not what I meant! I was just suggesting thats why it wouldnt open, since he may not have the same version. It may be a layered file saved in photoshop format

 

I misread your comment then, but why would you need a layered photoshop file unless some major scan alteration had been carried out?

[Susanville]

Maybe it is a scam but he sure is friendly with me. I got the pics from him (may or may not be the real deal) and have gotten three other emails from him about what else he has in his collection. He asked me what I'm interested in and if I wanted him to email me when he put up new auctions. He is most interested in acquiring an ASM #1 and is selling these books to finance that purchase. Says he has ASM and FF 1-100 that he's keeping (sans the ASM #1 of course) and is probably going to sell the rest since he doesn't care about them...

[murph0]

If he says the FF 1-100 is all high grade, then this story might've taken a turn into the "fishy" side.

 

Brian

[Susanville]

he didn't say grade and i didn't ask since he wasn't interested in selling them

[Aman619]

many scanners (people) have their scanners open the files in photoshop as a defaul for saving, resizing, color correcting the scanner's input tendencies (many scanners add to much blue, or yellow and re-balancung the colors isnt altering the book, just the scan of it.

 

So photoshop can be used legitimately without cloning out rips etc or brightening the actual colors of the book. Remember: photoshop is just a tool; it doesnt kill people, scammers kill people.

[murph0]

That's a very odd story in his X-men 4 auction (didn't notice this was #4, thought it was #44) he claims to have a fairly good group of keys however they cover a couple different eras. Yet his goal is to buy Spider-man #1? Very odd..

 

Brian

[blowout]

So photoshop can be used legitimately without cloning out rips etc or brightening the actual colors of the book. Remember: photoshop is just a tool; it doesnt kill people, scammers kill people.

 

Hey, I'm not saying you can't use Photoshop in a legit way, but psd files don't usually end up being created unless the user generates layers or masks.

Basic resizing and color correction wouldn't promt photoshop to ask for a resave in a psd format. The regular scanned tiff or jpeg file would remain.

I have a feeling that anyone who ends up with a psd file has done a little more than re-size an image.

I'm not saying its proof of a scam, but that it rings some warning bells.

[sckao]

 

Post a link to the PSD file and let's take a look.

 

There's a lot more information found in a PSD file than in a GIF or JPEG. Might shed some light on the comics....

 

 

[murph0]

What if his system is just set up to "save as" that file type? Would it prompt for this file type if he were cropping the image?

 

Brian

[Aman619]

okay.. but actually th erecent versions of photoshop actually do create new files with an extra white 'background' layer. So they do start out with 2 layers...and if you just hit 'save' it defaults to a .psd file, which wont open etc....

 

Its frustrating and can probably be turned off somewhere but.... I ran into the same problem with a series of files and had to keep deleting the darned extra layer before saving so they'd be importable etc.

 

Im good at photoshop and would create my scans there if I were selling. Do you trust your scanner to make a good enough scan w/o color correcting? Or do you just go with the raw scan since it is totally un-altered --even if that menat that the colors and lighting are 'off'?

 

I think you can 'fix' a scan w/o 'cheating.'

[blowout]

Do you trust your scanner to make a good enough scan w/o color correcting? Or do you just go with the raw scan since it is totally un-altered --even if that menat that the colors and lighting are 'off'?

 

Scanners in general are actually pretty bad at reproducing colors as they really are, so color correction of a scan is ok in my book.

The other thing to remember though is that colors are displayed very differently depending on the viewers monitor setup. So even a scan that looks gorgeous on your own screen my look terrible on someone else's. For this reason there is not a great deal of point spending huge amounts of time color correcting a comic book scan.

Interesting point you make about the latest version of Photoshop defaulting to a psd. I am using version 6, which does not do this. The extra white background layer sounds like a real pain, and just another way for the manufacturers to get you to upgrade to a bigger HD to store the inflated files.

 

If this guy is running Photoshop 7 I'll give him the benefit of the doubt, although I would expect someone who is running the latest version of a high end graphics program like Photoshop to be computer savvy enough not to upload a psd file to the web.

[Room 237]

Hi, I've been a photoshop pro for 12 years and I am very sure I can spot a retouched or colour corrected file...

 

 

Send me a link to the file and I will check it

 

btw, most, if not all scan software will NOT create a .psd automaticaly, its usually defaulted to .tiff

[Susanville]

it may or may not be relevant but the two pics he sent were in different forms. the back cover was a psd file and the first page was a jpeg. odd? and, just to clarify, there were in an email to based on my request of them.

[Aman619]

47K so what do you look for? When I clone I think I do a pretty clean job, but Ive never taken a "detective's eye" view to check out any artifacts I may leave in the file if they arent going to print that way.

 

I suppose since a comic book is printed in dots of color, thats one way to check. You could zoom in and see if the cloner was patient and meticulous enough to make sure that he lined up the clone tool so that the dot pattern was perfectly lined up. Aside from that,I cant think of too many other things to look for......

 

what else would you check?

[supapimp]

OK, he sent me scans of the back covers, who wants to host them since i don't know how to do that. he also asked why i requested scans of the back covers?

[Room 237]

email them to me at angelo@fortysevenonline.co.uk and I'll sort it

[ImageMask]

he also asked why i requested scans of the back covers?

 

Why would anyone want a scan? Your about to drop your monthly mortgage money on a BOOK and wanna make sure it's legit...MAYBE! He want's to fund a ASM 1 from the sales so ask if he would buy it w/o a scan of front and back and check the answer. So .psd, .jpeg, .tiff, yada yada yada who cares. If he is legit I'd rather be the ' for not bidding rather than the ' out a grand.

[comicwiz]

I always use the TWAIN scanning plug-in provided by photoshop for all my scans. There is nothing wrong with using Photoshop. In fact, Photoshop allows far more control over color calibration, and this is why I opt to use it over any other scanning software on the market.

 

It is more likely the case that these images were assembled/found on the internet or ebay. The X-Men 4 looks far too blurry, and the heavy smoothing indicates that this seller took a web-optimized image, and tried to increase the image size. One way to find out if the seller has the books, and that the images he has on auction are of the books he is actually selling is to ask for a 300dpi scan of the X-Men 4. The image he has right now is probably 72dpi at best, and could never possibly bumped up to 300dpi without showing severe blurring and smoothing. The only way to get a proper 300dpi image is to take a scan of the book with those settings on your scanner configuration. If anyone manages to get a 300dpi scan, simply open the file in a program like Photoshop, and it will tell you exactly how many dpi's within the image settings. Otherwise, just PM it to me.

 

Oh, and it would be best to ask for it in a PSD format.