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Ishi Press Archives - quality of reprints
http://lifein19x19.com/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=13806		 Page 1 of 1
Author:  Shenoute [ Tue Nov 22, 2016 1:53 am ]
Post subject:  Ishi Press Archives - quality of reprints
Just to mention that I received a copy of The Breakthrough to Shodan as sold by Ishi Press Archives. This is a reprint of the original edition and, sadly, a disappointing one since image quality is very low.

It is still readable so if this is your only way of getting hold of this wonderful book, by all means go for it. If you have another solution, don't hesitate to skip this poorly done reprint.
Author:  kupus [ Tue Nov 22, 2016 1:42 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Ishi Press Archives - quality of reprints
Did you have a chance to see the original book? Maybe you were expecting too much if you didn't see the 1st edition.

Also, this can be the case (option 2):

Sam Sloan (who now owns rights to some old Ishi Press books) scanned an English 1st book edition,
worked a little bit on it and then print it out.

He didn't use high quality scanner / high dpi, and didn't bother to pay someone who knows a little
bit about publishing & PDF manipulation (assuming it was PDF), so the result is not so good image quality.

I own several (originally Japanese) books reprinted by 'all done in my kitchen and spare time '
(better word would be illegal) Chinese "publishers", and the quality vary from very bad to not bad/acceptable.
The price is several times lower then the originals, so can't complain much.

But some (illegal?) publisher are making new diagrams & text (eg, redoing books totally) and publishing high quality books.
Like this one from Taiwan.
https://goo.gl/cbTDTk
His edition of Improve Your Strength at Go 1 & 2 by Segoe Kensaku cost around $11 US (fraction of the originals) and looks great.

BTW, I've checked mine The Breakthrough to Shodan, Kiseido Digital Books PDF edition.
It's 300 dpi, greyscale (screenshot below) but printout is not bad.

I’m wondering did Ishi Press use it? (note added: Based on your description they didn't as it looked fine when I printed couple of pages)
(also, this PDF can be changed to black and white, cleaned and made it even better for printed book if someone wants to go that route)

All above reminded me of the English translation of All About Life and Death 1 & 2 by Cho Chikun.
I am 100 % sure that Ishi Press (different publishing company from this presently owned by Sam Sloan)
copied the original books, and then cut & glued diagrams into English text.. If you look at the books (if you own them)
you will notice how diagrams are positioned under the angle, and then letters 'a', 'b' , ... inside the diagrams are also angled.
That's because they glued letters 'a', 'b', 'c' over existing 'イ' , 'ロ' , 'ハ' (used in the original book).
That was the fast and easy way, and still much better looking then some Yutopian older books (where diagrams where printed on dot matrix printer and used in books).

I hope I didn't hijack your thread by writing about other stuff as well.

Attachments:
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Author:  Shenoute [ Wed Nov 23, 2016 1:30 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Ishi Press Archives - quality of reprints
kupus wrote:
Did you have a chance to see the original book? Maybe you were expecting too much if you didn't see the 1st edition.

Yes I have the first edition, I bought another copy as a gift for a friend. The first edition is well printed, while pages in the reprint have a slightly unclear, blurry aspect. Not much ink was used too, which means that they are more light grey than black. All in all, readable but not enjoyable (and this loss of quality is of course not advertised by any seller).

kupus wrote:
He didn't use high quality scanner / high dpi

Clearly he didn't :D


kupus wrote:
I hope I didn't hijack your thread by writing about other stuff as well.

No problem at all :D Thanks for the details.
Author:  Sundaay [ Thu Nov 24, 2016 5:49 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Ishi Press Archives - quality of reprints
I can confirm. I was about to buy some of the new reprints of the old ishi books, breakthrough to shodan was one of them but the text was actually so bad, blurry, grey and almost a bit pixelated I didn't think it would be enjoyable to read. The other books released by Kiseido around the same time had fine quality, so it seems only the old ishi re-releases are affected.
Author:  gowan [ Thu Nov 24, 2016 7:07 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Ishi Press Archives - quality of reprints
The new "Ishi" editions are not produced by the original publisher. Kiseido has issued Breakthrough to Shodan as part of its digital bookshelf of five books. It is possible to order individual books: http://www.kiseidodigital.com/kdb.html
Author:  kupus [ Thu Nov 24, 2016 10:19 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Ishi Press Archives - quality of reprints
That is correct, but I think Sam Sloan owns Ishi Press Archives and rights to some books published by the original Ishi Press.

Here is an interesing post on old rec.games.go from 1996
https://goo.gl/WdhF43
Sam Sloan was an attorney for Richard Bozulich (?)
"...Mr. Bozulich has free access to the services of Sam Sloan, his attorney,..."

Quote:
Kiseido has issued Breakthrough to Shodan as part of its digital bookshelf of five books. It is possible to order individual books: http://www.kiseidodigital.com/kdb.html

Yes, but some people (me included) like paper books.
It is possible for anyone who owns that PDF to print & bind it, but it takes some time, money/resources and the knowledge.

Sam Sloan could do that and Kiseido Digital couldn't prove that he used their PDF. [Disclaimer - I'm not advocating piracy, just stating a fact]
Instead, looks he scanned book himself (or hired someone).
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