re-made box images vs. original box images

[TheTabman]

Some of the games, for example Shadowrun Genesis have very nice and pristine looking front/back box images which are remakes of the original, often lower quality box images. I wonder if it is okay to move these remakes to "Fanart - Box - Front/Back" and upload the original box images when available. Personally, I prefer the originals (as long as they are not tiny and highly compressed JPGs or 8-colour GIFs) but I think a official rule would be preferential to personal tastes.

[SentaiBrad]

Personally I would prefer if it were a remake to be a remake as the original artwork was. However maybe it would be best to have a Front and Back Box Art - Custom for re-created or completely fan created Box Arts? This way both get preserved. Our original intent is to try and preserve history. As much as I hate bad quality images I still say the original box should probably be the main one uploaded.

[FistyDollars]

There have been a LOT of these being uploaded for the NES recently, and I've been rejecting anything that's not the actual original printed box art, but claims it is. It's one thing to clean up some scuffs and coloration in Photoshop, but these are just straight up second attempts at creating the same image manually, and that's not what came with the games. Can't wait for moderator comments to be a thing.

[DudeManL57]

Ok I wanna make sure im moderating the box art correctly. In this situation should i accept the change.

[SentaiBrad]

I don't think the first image is a re-creation, just a bigger scan then touched up with a bit of over exposure or even potentially upscaled with filters. The new image is a bit darker and a smaller resolution, but the woman on the cover is not completely washed out in the first one. They're also both blurry so that argument is pointless as they're the same in that regard. So in this case I would accept the second image because the box art is technically of better quality even though the resolution is smaller.

[DudeManL57]

Thanks i thought the higher res with brighter colors would have been better but i see what your saying... thanks for clearing that up

[Steve-O]

I'm the one who has been uploading the sadly somewhat grungy Intellivision covers. Most, if not all, of the Intellivision boxes currently in the database are recreations from thecoverproject.net (the one you're asking about came from http://www.thecoverproject.net/view.php?game_id=5825). The x-by-2100 resolution is the giveaway, although if you look closely at the small fonts, you can tell they're not quite right. The backs of the boxes are much more obvious. I wish I could find better scans of some of these boxes, but Intellivision was a lot less prevalent than the 2600 back in the day, so there are far fewer sources available, especially for the backs. I've also been replacing a few Atari 2600 thecoverproject.net recreations here and there. These also look very nice, but they're a little too perfect, and the kerning of the fonts is usually a little off. Anyway, thanks for asking about those boxes rather than just rejecting them out-of-hand.

[Jason Carr]

Hey all, to be honest, I am hesitant to replace good, clear images with iffy ones in the name of "it's been photoshopped so it's not real". Ultimately, we want accuracy, but we're also looking to make people's collections look good. I think generally people will be more satisfied with an image that's been doctored to be impossibly good than one that has blemishes. As far as I'm concerned, if every element on the image is true to the original image, I would prefer to have doctored images that look clear and crisp, regardless of how much they've been doctored. So long as the image is 100% true to the box art, I would strongly argue that we should not replace the doctored images with imperfect, 100% real scans.

[Steve-O]

In this case, the elements on the image are not true to the original, since the only thing that is scanned from the original box is the art. Everything else is recreated using fonts that, though close, are noticeably different from the originals. Take a look at the two images for Las Vegas Roulette above, for example. The Intellivision logo extends all the way over above the R in Roulette in the recreation, but does not in the original. The text at the bottom is also laid out differently.

[Steve-O]

I should add that I have no problem at all with images that have been tweaked in Photoshop. If somebody wants to take an actual box scan and clean up scratches and smudges and other imperfections, more power to 'em! I'd just prefer to avoid boxes that have been constructed, Frankenstein-like, from spare parts somebody had lying around the lab.

[Jason Carr]

Yeah, I got you Steve-O. My personal preference would be to still keep the reconstructed images with slightly incorrect fonts, but I do recognize the issues with that. I think we probably need a new image type call Box - Front - Reconstructed, or something like that. Then once we make the changes in LaunchBox for images users will be able to choose whether they want reconstructed, or 100% accurate images.

[Jason Carr]

For now, let's do this. Let's not replace the images that are there, but feel free to add new ones. I'll add a new image type for the reconstructed images so you can change that as well. That way we can have both.

[Jason Carr]

Alright, I added Box - Front - Reconstructed and Box - Back - Reconstructed. Let's change the existing images to those (if they've been reconstructed with fonts and stuff) and then we can add new ones for the Box - Front category. :)

[SentaiBrad]

In this case, the higher resolution box art was doctored poorly though. The image was completely washed out! The smaller resolution image, while a bit darker, had more color and was easier to see some detail.

[Steve-O]

That is an incredibly reasonable way to resolve this question. Nicely done.

[Jason Carr]

Thanks Steve-O. :)

[FistyDollars]

Can we have the DB display a Reconstructed Box or a Fanart Box if there's no standard box available? Like a tiered priority system, or something to that effect? Because there are a LOT of games (especially digital ones) that don't have official boxes, which means there are a lot of games that will always just have blank white space in their entries.

[SentaiBrad]

Well the Tiered Image system, when Jason implements (if he does), should fix this right up. I think people are liking the idea of the Tiered Image system though, so he might. https://bitbucket.org/jasondavidcarr/launchbox/issues/719/tiered-images-to-help-fill-in-gaps-more Don't forget to vote on the tickets you guys want implemented.

[Jason Carr]

FistyDollars, the LaunchBox Games Database website should already display the reconstructed box as the main image if available. But yes, eventually this will be configurable in LaunchBox as well so that you can choose the priority of the various image types.