The short version
Send your scans to Maxim by email. If your email is very large (>25MB, I think) then send multiple emails. Don't forget to tell me your forum name so I can credit you.
Please note the Licence we provide scans under.
Scanning guidelines
The short version
Scan to PNG at 300 or 600DPI with all image enhancement turned off. Clean up if you want.
The long version
- Configure your scanner to scan at maximum quality, either 300 or 600DPI.
- Turn off all image enhancement options you can find.
- Make sure the item you are scanning is pressed against the scanner glass, especially if you are using a "thin" scanner.
- Try to scan outside the edges so you can rotate and crop precisely in an image editor.
- Use a white background (e.g. the scanner lid).
- You can send us files in one of these formats:
- PNG format, original resolution with no editing, maximum compression. We will archive this image and produce a web-suitable image from it.
- JPEG format, original resolution with minimal editing, low compression. If possible, look for a "disable color subsampling" option. We will archive and process this as above, but it'll probably be a smaller (but worse quality) file for you to send.
- JPEG format, 150dpi or higher with all the editing you think is appropriate, low-ish compression to achieve a sensible file size (e.g. 500KB maximum for a game scan). If possible, look for a "disable color subsampling" option. We will probably publish this directly.
For items with many pages, scanning can be onerous. In general, we are happy to accept lower quality for these cases.
- For magazines, 150dpi is often sufficient.
- For monochrome manuals, it may be quicker and easier to scan in greyscale at 150dpi and to use the scanner software to crop, especially if the pages have white margins. See also the manual scanning guide.
What are we looking for?
- Anything we don't already have!
- This especially means Game Gear and SG-1000 scans, but pretty much anything that you can get into a scanner that is Sega 8-bit related.
- Better scans of things we already have. If you see a low-quality image, we'd love to have a high-quality one. If you see a dirty or damaged item, why not scan your minty new one?
- Any variation of a cover - down to the tiniest detail, if it's a variation then we want to document it.