Looking To Create A Scan Archive of Origin Box Covers
A few days ago, Stefan Eriksson created a post on the UDIC Facebook page asking if there were high quality scans of the covers of the original Ultima games available that were suitable for making posters.
I’m constantly on the road for work, but I was able to provide the following image from my personal collection.
(click to see the original in its 2000 x 2800 pixel glory)
I’m looking to create an archive of high quality scans of the original box covers for a number of old Origin releases, and I was wondering if there are any fans out there with access to a good scanner and the original source material whom are willing to contribute. The originals would have to be without creases, major color defects, or stickers of any sort.
The collected scans would then be put on display here at the Origin Gallery for all to enjoy, with credit given to the contributor.
If anyone is interested, please contact me at jeffhoeksma@gmail.com, or post here in this article using your proper email address. Even if you have just one item to scan, all help would be appreciated.
This sounds like my sort of project although my scanner does have a tendency to leave a green streak on black areas when scanning in colour these days. I did a couple of 1200 DPI scans recently of Savage Empire covers recently if they are any use. You can grab them from :-
http://www.pixsoriginadventures.co.uk/SavageEmpireCover.jpg (has the blue specifications sticker)
&
http://www.pixsoriginadventures.co.uk/SavageEmpireSNESCover.jpg
Looks good. I can totally use the SNES Savage Empire scan. The PC Savage Empire scan won’t really cut it though, there’s a big sticker on the front and the box is pretty scratched up. It’s really tough finding boxes that aren’t scratched or creased or have original stickers. I had to photoshop some errors out of my Ultima I scan.
Have anything else?
Pix, didn’t you do the box scans a while back? I remember you posting something like this in the old forums of aiera.
That was only Ultima games and the scanner I had at the time was arguably worse than the one I have now. I haven’t kept hold of those scans either.
I’ve definitely no shortage of Origin games to scan in, the problem with this project is going to be stickers as Origin put them on most of their games and I don’t expect many collectors would be prepared to remove them. I would guess that the placement of the oval platform stickers on the early games is fairly random so it might be possible to photoshop two boxes together for those.
I’ll have a route through everything this morning and scan whatever looks Photoshopable.
I see. Anyway I got those scans you did back then. So if you or anyone needs them I only need a place to upload them.
I had been off and on working on fixing up the old covers someone scanned for me a a year or two ago. They were not the best quality due to the scanner he used but I have made the best of it so far. I have also been trying to recreate many of the old logos and such.
Have anything you’d like to share?
I was planning on pushing a few of them to the thegamesDB.net within the next few weeks. Some of them, like Martian Dreams, had stickers so large I never worked on. If new scan due pop up at 1200dpi I could make use of them and make a clean version.
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/85057128/u1redux300.png
Here is a half size cleaned version of Ultima 1. I will be putting vectorized logos in afterwards
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/85057128/u1.png
Hope this works for people printing posters.
I will work on Ultima 4, 5, 6 next
Good work!
Auric’s Ultima Moongates (www.moongates.com) has some nice quality scans though they may not be in high enough resolution for you (they are at 72-300dpi).
Look under Ultima History. There are box scans for U5-U9, the Underworlds, and all the U7 expansions. (But no U7 box, just the expansions.) The scans have been cleaned up quite a bit too – check out the Serpent Isle box to see what I mean.
They make nice screensaver images…
Those screenshots are nice, but trust me when I say we’re going for a lot bigger and a lot better than those. Also no stickers.
here are two more… Ultima 7 Silver Seed and Ultima 3.
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/85057128/ssfront.png
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/85057128/u3final.png
the last 2 links do not work, but god am I amazed at this first one.
Please contact me when you have the next ones
francois.poisson@videotron.ca
the last two seem to work, does anyone else have this issue?
Worked for me
My Collection – http://gomi321.com/ultima/
The following scans – http://gomi321.com/UltimaScans/
Quest of the Avatar PC – http://gomi321.com/UltimaScans/QuestOfTheAvatar-PC.JPG
The Official Book of Ultima PC – http://gomi321.com/UltimaScans/OfficialBookOfUltima-PC.JPG
Ultima VI Cluebook PC – http://gomi321.com/UltimaScans/UltimaVICluebook-PC.JPG
Ultima VIII Cluebook PC – http://gomi321.com/UltimaScans/UltimaVIIICluebook-PC.JPG
Exodus NES – http://gomi321.com/UltimaScans/Exodus-NES.JPG
Exodus Cluebook NES – http://gomi321.com/UltimaScans/ExodusCluebook-NES.JPG
False Prophet SNES – http://gomi321.com/UltimaScans/TheFalseProphet-SNES.JPG
Black Gate SNES – http://gomi321.com/UltimaScans/TheBlackGate-SNES.JPG
Runes of Virtue 2 SNES – http://gomi321.com/UltimaScans/RunesOfVirtue2-SNES.JPG
I’ll just pop this out of the moderation queue…
I’ll have to take a look at all of those later. I got some fantastic results editing the Ultima VII SNES box.
I’m pretty happy with this: https://ultimacodex.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/TheBlackGate-SNES.jpg
I’m still working on these for anyone paying attention
Good, good!
And yes, the project is still very much active. I actually have to post a bunch of stuff from Dungy in the near future here…
Wyatt, is it possible for you to scan that Black Gate one at 1200+ dpi? Makes a huge difference
I am uploading it now. You need any of the others redone?
Forgot to add the link
http://gomi321.com/UltimaScans/TheBlackGate1200dpi.png
i’ll let you know
Hexxer, im still hoping you will release a good Ultima 5 Scan!
I would like to at some point but I don’t really have a place to host the files I was uploading here. Honestly speaking, I thought no one was paying attention.
I can provide you an FTP drop, if you like…