The version I posted is impossible to suffer from any of this because: 1 - It's all the pixel data from the original scan, just with a small amout of blur from the descreening software to remove the halftones. Not a recreation. 2 - The color correction is important and can be done on the scanning software or afterwards. 3 - Having dusty, off-colored scans don't mean they aren't more accurate. Again, these can be done at the moment of scanning but usually the image correction software on scanners do a bad job at this. So yeah, recreations have no place on the wiki but I fail to see the harm in color correction/removal of dust.
The harm is that color correction is subjective to what whoever does it is perceiving in their monitor (and even personal tastes), so the results of manual color correction will always be different: Proper color correction involves calibrating the scanner before the scans are done and then applying the resulting color profile to them. There's no actual benefit in doing that (its purpose is not to be displayed in an exhibition or have a replica of it printed) so why spend time in something that may very slightly alter reality anyway? EDIT: But the halftones are right there on the real covers and are noticeable in plain sight, they shouldn't be removed...
Proper color correction involves calibrating the scanner before the scans are done and then applying the resulting color profile to them. Color correction also involves that, but not only that. Inks fade over time, specially yellow and cyan after long exposures to UV light. The good of having CMYK halftones on the original scan is that you can approximate the tones to that was actually printed, even if the actual color of the dots are faded, because each ink has a set color. About the subjectivity of the color correction, yes it exists, but there are professionals that use methods to set boundaries and pinpoint the original colors with more precision. Of course it's not perfect, but it's very acceptable, because color variation happen not only between editions of the same gambe but within the same printing batch due to how much ink was on the cylinder with the color plate at the moment of printing. In the examples you posted, I can already say 3 is wrong. It's overly saturated, and that made the Orange on the 'you'll never gues...' label go off the CMYK gamut, that orange just can't be printed. 1 and 2 have similar hues but in order to determine the correct gamma, one can check for the presence (or absence) of black dots on Sonic's blue (which can be either originate from black ink over Cyan and Magenta, or Yellow ink over cyan+magenta, which looks like a very dark brown). Considering classic Sonic assets are scarce, archiving good quality images isn't a bad thing.
Scanning theory is all well and good, but scanning practise is a rare commodity. I don't want to start putting people off - scan all of the things. In fact we could scan things more than once different hardware.
Also worth pointing out that we're unlikely to do things "properly". https://archive.org/details/@hubz?and[]=sega This lad has been uploading 1200dpi, 48-bit images to archive.org. But in TIFF format, each scan is half a gig. I don't have the equipment to manage that - call me in 10-20 years. I think realistically the Retro wikis are more about "documentation" than "preservation". Do what you can with what you have.
For what it's worth, my approach to scanner dust is to just make sure the scanner looks clean before scanning. You're never going to get everything, a clean before use is good enough. And don't put fingerprints on the glass! Use fingernails on your finger the other way up to lift and move things.
Or maybe... save a decent-res JPG for the wiki and add a link to the high quality stuff in archive.org. Takes less time than tweaking each scan for removing imperfections, even.
You're not alone on this, I did mentioned this a little earlier in this thread: Even when using a good scanner and proper scanning etiquette, nothing's gonna be perfect. The only way we can all get to that level is by somehow getting a hold of whatever these companies used officially (templates, artwork, other software, etc) before they're sent off to be made.
I know we're talking about EU scans, but I realized I have a Japanese copy of the game from the "Plus 1" Mega Drive bundle (when the game got bundled with Japanese consoles) laying around, which I purchased way back around 01 or 02. But upon closer inspection, as clean and good as the boxart looks, I don't believe it's legit art. Looks more like a custom insert someone made (perhaps due to the fact that the bundled version doesn't look to have ever come with a proper case?). It's the official art from off of the actual Japanese MD Plus 1 console box, but cropped and scaled to fit in the case. I could work on a decent scan, if anyone wants to check it out. A search on Google hasn't turned up any other boxart like it so far, though.
I have a Made in Japan variant in my collection. I got it from a vendor at a convention a few years back. I don't know any of the telltale signs of whether or not it's legit, but I've scanned it regardless. If this is a blatant fake let me know. https://segaretro.org/File:Altbeast_md_us_cover_made_in_japan.jpg (sorry for barraging the server with a scan that was way too big at first -- I scaled it down just a bit! if this is a good scan, feel free to pretty it up or whatever is needed)
Here it is: https://info.sonicretro.org/File:Sonic3UK_MD_EU_cover.jpg For a direct comparison, this is the old scan: And here's a scan which, like Hubz's, follows the VGPC guidelines (no manual alterations to the colors have been done whatsoever, just had to embed the color profile of the calibrated scanner): The second one probably took less time to make since the scanner was calibrated already (takes a couple of minutes anyway) and no alterations had to be done besides straightening it out, cropping and shrinking it's size to half for the wiki. EDIT: Now that I look at both samples again, somebody might have been tempted to clean up those dots inside the white circles... but they're present in both scans, so they're actually part of the illustration! EDIT 2: Link to original raw scan: https://archive.org/details/sonicthehedgehog3europemegadrive1200dpi48bit EDIT 3: I'm not sure if the images in the wiki are updating correctly. EDIT 4: Replaced the pic which was in the wiki with the pic which Master Emerald provided below.
You have to remember the source image for the treatment I made was this, which alread had the highlights cropped out and was oversharpened by the scanner: I managed to reduce the oversharpening by a bit, but highlights can't be recreated that easily.
And the downside of halftones is that if they aren't removed or at least blurred before rescaling they generate banding/moire that isn't present on the original artwork: Here's the entire scan on the wiki with halftones removed. The image has better quality than the original and is only a fraction of the size, too.
But even if the halftone areas look better up close when blurred, what you see is also different than what was actually printed, which is what these scans seek to preserve. Think of it this way: It's more useful for preservation without the extra work, everybody wins!
