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1969 Topps Football

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BostonIdol

New member
Mar 8, 2019
193
2
Seahawks terminate Doug Baldwin and Kam Chancellor on failed physicals. Chancellor was not expected to return and there were rumors at the end of last season that Baldwin might retire. I think I'll leave Baldwin in the 2019 set as a "capstone" on his career. I pulled Kam's card out of the 2018 set because he had already been ruled out for the season and Shaquem Griffin was the feel good story of the season.

2015_SEA_Doug_Baldwin.jpg 2018_SEA_Doug_Baldwin.jpg 2019_SEA_Doug_Baldwin.jpg

2015_SEA_Kam_Chancellor.jpg 2018_SEA_Kam_Chancellor.jpg 2018_SEA_Shaquem_Griffin.jpg
 

Shouldabeena10

New member
Jun 16, 2017
1
0
Great project and fun read. You can really feel your passion for the card layout and designs as you tweak the players pics and work out the small details. It gives you a real appreciation for what the Topps graphics team was facing back in '69, as it was just starting to become apparent that cards were evolving into more than just bubble gum backing.

What program do you design them in? Are you making card backs too? That would be pretty daunting as '69 had the solid black bleed with reversed type along with trivia notes, some scratch off boxes and a few puzzle back cards. Would love to see those if you're attempting them.

I noticed you printed some out. What thickness cardboard (pt) are you using and what printer set up do you have? The graphics look very sharp and high quality. Lastly, where are you sourcing your photos from? You got some good shots and I imagine just google searching could take forever, and the pay sites would be too expensive.

Anyway, really enjoyed the thread. Looking forward to seeing more. If you're ever interested in sharing some of your write-ups on the older football set breakdowns .. hit me up on Facebook. I run a couple of groups and pages for Vintage Football Cards and we are always looking for quality content. - Mike Tavenner (Facebook group Admin - Vintage Football Cards)
 

BostonIdol

New member
Mar 8, 2019
193
2
Thanks for the feedback! I sometimes wonder if it's just me and the Google bots following this thread. ;)

Here's a wonderful article on Butch Jacobs, the man who had primary responsibility for selecting player photos starting in 1973.

http://www.oldbaseball.com/refs/Butch_Jacobs.pdf

Jacobs' selections have had a big influence on me as I started collecting cards in 1976. He was in the right place at the right time as advances in photography were starting to make clear action shots a possibility, especially for outdoor sports.

I design the cards in Adobe Photoshop. I try to do the framing using vector graphics (fancy words for shapes instead of pictures) where possible so that the lines are precise. I export from Photoshop to lossless JPGs. I upload those JPGs here. I'm happy to confirm that FreedomCardBoard does not do any compression on those files, so anyone reading this has access to the best quality available. The thumbnails that you see do get compressed, so you may notice a slight halo around the edge of the solid backgrounds, but if you click on the thumbnail, you will see a perfect copy of the original file, suitable for printing at 150dpi to generate 3.5" by 2.5" cards.

I don't do backs. Backs meant a ton to us as kids growing up in the seventies because stats weren't easy to find outside of bulky copies of the Encyclopedia of Baseball, which doubled as a doorstop, but these days I can't justify the effort when there are so many resources online.

I used a fancy color printer at the office, but printed on regular card stock, which is thinner than trading cards. As mentioned above, using vector graphics and 150dpi resolution makes things look sharp. If I was going to print a full set, I would send them out to a print shop. Cutting them up is harder than it should be, even with the right tools. I know a guy who does pro wrestling cards for indy wrestlers and sends them out for printing. They look awesome, so I think I don't need to compete in that arena.

I source all of the photos via Google image searches. There are a few parameters and a few tricks you can use to speed the process.

Google_Image_Search.jpg

Set the minimum file size large enough that you don't waste time looking at great photos that are too small. I use "Larger than 640x480" as a starting point. The bigger the better. I also turn on "Show sizes", which is under "More Tools" so that I can see that info without having to click through.

If I am doing a current set, I set time to "Past year", which usually gets me the right team and uniform. The further you scroll, the more likely you are to get previous years, other teams, or other players from the same team, especially if you use team city or name in your search.

If I am looking for a BHNH (big head no hat) picture for someone who was recently traded or signed as a free agent, I will set the type to "Face" as shortcut, but sometimes good face shots get weeded out because they include too much torso, so I generally only use "Face" type when there are just way too many results.

Finally, and this is amazingly useful, for whatever picture you click on "Search by image" right below the title to the right of the preview. Often times the image that ranked highly in the initial search is smaller or is cropped in a way that is suboptimal (lots of print media sites still use landscape oriented face/torso shots that are cropped from portrait length shots). This technique has helped me greatly improve the quality (original size and clarity) of the shots I use, as well as giving me better cropping options.

The Facebook callout is helpful. I actually have all of my full sets posted there as galleries. I'll add you as friend and you will be able to see them all. Facebook actually does some compression on the images that users upload, so if you see something you'd like in lossless quality, let me know.

Galleries seem to be disabled here, so I have only posted a few of the several thousand cards in my collection as conversation pieces around specific topics. I started doing this seriously in 2014 and my current publishing plan should keep me busy for the next 10-15 years. Not sure I want to roll them all out as a series of daily posts, but though I would give it try. Also thinking about creating a collaborative set where everyone works from the same template, adding whatever players and teams they want. Collectors could decide for themselves which "variant" to include in their sets or they could collect them all.

2019_SEA_Russell_Wilson.jpg OR 2019_SEA_Russell_Wilson_ALT.jpg ???

Thanks again!
 

BostonIdol

New member
Mar 8, 2019
193
2
I want to illustrate the power of the "Search by image" technique.

Search Google Images for Dalvin Cook in the past year and you will see this result five or six rows down the page.

First_Result.jpg

I like the smile and the rich colors, but this image is way too small. I need at least 420-430 vertical pixels without scaling or cropping, preferably a lot more.

Further down the page, you will see another version of the same image.

Second_result.jpg

Great shot! Now I can see his jersey number, too, but this shot is still too short at 416 pixels, probably less than 400 after I crop out the space above his head.

So go back to the first image, click on it, then click "Search by image" and you will see five pages of results.

Search_by_image.jpg

Many of them are just duplicates, but on page 4 you'll find an image that shows the jersey number and is large enough to provide a lot of options for cropping and scaling to fit on the card.

Page_four_result.jpg

Here's the final result after cropping and scaling the image to fit the card format, and trimming out the background by hand using the eraser tool.

2019_MIN_Dalvin_Cook.jpg

For me this was a game changer because many of the images I like at a glance are actually available in larger formats.

Doesn't necessarily help with watermarked images as the algorithm considers the watermark as part of the image that should be matched, but I've gotten lucky a few times.

Thanks!
 
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BostonIdol

New member
Mar 8, 2019
193
2
Tampa Bay released six-time pro bowler Gerald McCoy. The Cleveland Browns are now on the clock.

2019_TAM_Gerald_McCoy.jpg ---> 2019_CLE_Gerald_McCoy.jpg ???
 

jackharrywa

New member
Mar 19, 2019
1
0
Brooklyn, USA
a game to play

now days every one is bussy with his cell phone i think physical games are more impottnt for mantely and physsical health,
we have to promote this culture
 

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