Jonny Severn

A nice clean up job from this weekend

Just uploaded a new super high res scan for Nitro - Atari ST and Amiga.

So this was an interesting one I worked on yesterday. Typically old scanned media tends to have one or all of these traits. The box has faded over time resulting in a loss of contrast. The material has yellowed slightly, this is usually most noticeable in the light colours and white areas. Too much blue in the dark areas black areas. I suspect this is a result of the printing and then scanning process. It's literally a case of the process colouring the content. However, I'm not sure what had happened to this one ? And failing that I managed to find a better scan!

Atari ST

I’m currently looking at the Amiga and ST box art. The spectrum will come next ? that said, I’ve sorted most of the spectrum logos

Mercs box clean-up work from this morning. The original box looks like it has taken a beating

Everything gets uploaded as I do them. I've submitted about 3600 changes so far. I should be getting shares in Lunchbox for all this work The truth is, this has been a good distraction throughout the 5-6 months lockdown here in the UK.

Another Logo

Another super high resolution front cover image for Elite’s Paperboy.

Some of today's clean up work

A new update: I do love Bob Wakelin's Ocean covers

I've gone a bit mad / self-indulgence on this one. But it's a good game that deserves a decent box art image.

A few recent clean up /restoration jobs

Thanks dude

Here are some more examples of my logo clean up work:

This one is a good example, I had to overlay multiple scans to get clarity across the whole box.

Here are a few examples of some before and after clean up work.

I'm currently working my way through the Amiga game covers, obsessively cleaning them up and scanning in new artwork (if required and if I have the original). The plan is to then move onto the Atari ST covers then finally the ZX Spectrum covers. I suspect the ZX Spectrum covers are going to be the biggest challenge. But it's keeping me quite until the pubs open here properly next month!

Prior to the second lockdown in the UK, I finally got around to setting up my new MAME collection in Launchbox. To my delight, most of the automatically downloaded logos were super clean and looked perfect. High-fives all around. In the back of my mind, I’d wanted to add my favourite ZX Spectrum, Amiga, and Atari ST games to Launchbox. When the second lockdown hit and I was stuck at home, I had no excuse not to. I got over the technical hurdle of getting the older emulators running, but quickly noticed that many logos were missing or low quality. No surprise, since these systems are pretty niche and old. Being an art director in TV, film, and games for 20-odd years, this sort of thing triggered my artistic OCD. Luckily, I still have physical copies of many of the games, so I began scanning and cleaning logos. Before long, the project snowballed into other consoles like PlayStation, PSP, and GameCube. Misaligned discs, bad cut-outs, or ones that didn’t spin properly really bugged me, so I fixed those too. Here’s a rough breakdown of the work I’ve done by platform. When I get the time, I’ll share some of the disc templates in case they’re useful. ZX Spectrum I did a lot of work here, scanning original artwork and digitally cleaning logos to make them consistent. I also adjusted spacing so that the “visual mass” of each logo felt balanced in Launchbox. Notable examples: Robocop 1–3, R-Type, Overlander, Jet Set Willy. Atari ST and Amiga Generally in better shape, but common problems were low resolution, blurriness, and bad alpha edges from cut-outs. Many were designed for light backgrounds, so I created versions that work on dark backgrounds. Good examples: Venus Flytrap, X-Out, the Lotus series. SNES and Mega Drive (Genesis) Mostly solid, but I made a few tweaks here and there. PS1, PS2, GameCube This took the most time. I centred and cleaned disc artwork, often scanning from my own copies (e.g. Wipeout, Destruction Derby). Where possible, I pulled high-res box/disc scans online. I couldn’t cover every region, but aimed to ensure at least one decent disc per title, prioritising PAL/European editions. In total: around 75 GameCube, 165 PS1, and 265 PS2 discs. PS1 needed the most work due to inconsistent print quality. Game Boy and Game Boy Advance Game Boy media was generally fine, but GBA logos varied a lot in quality and spacing. I worked through about 400 GBA logos. I’ll probably do another pass on the ZX Spectrum, Amiga, and Atari ST logos, as I’m not sure I uploaded everything. Now that lockdown’s ending, I’ll ease off for a while. But I thought I’d share the obsessive work that’s been keeping me busy.