A good idea Mel but unfortunately on this cover it is difficult as the skyline seen on the sweater in black then starts to blend in too much with the grey of the sweater itself. Also details of the sweater are lost.
@Arseen:
I actually posted the Waldo cover. I have to say for me personally cleaness (if that is even a word) and sharpness and colorness and so on are all very important BUT I'd never force someone to retype text or retake screenshots. To be totally honest I like it better with scanned text and original images. They may be not as sharp and clean as retyped texts and retaken pics but at least it's truly retail then. Still it has to be cleaned and sharpened as good as possible.
Very much agree on both there Tiketak.
The darkening of the HM2 cover makes it lose all texture on ALL the clothes (including Joe P's hat as well), completely ruins the contrast and existence of the pure black city scape against Culkin's sweater (something I actually took a long time at removing from the image so as to sharpen and make the log perfect, then put it BACK in to really make it stand out! lol) and generally muddies the entire lower half of the front image.
And I always want to preserve the original font and text from the retail scans........which is actually what takes me the longest with these, as I take and separate out chunks of text and typically re-draw over each and every single letter of the original text with whatever colour it is to make it more solid and pop out against the background colour it is up against.
The Waldo text in that white box didnt come out as clear as I normally would like but as it was a distinctive font, one that I tried and failed to match, I thought best to leave it as is so as to preserve the fact it is the actual text from the retail box........plus, I think Arseen's cover viewing 47inch HD TV is working against us here! lol, as it looks great unless you are zoomed in quite close.
I guess if I hadnt done what I did, and re-typed it using a font that doesnt really match then Arseen would be saying it wasnt a true retail cover due to the fonts not matching!
Anyway, many thanks for checking over and approving it Tiketak, look forward to making more the site can use.
