View Full Version : first clean...

November 05, 2007, 01:25 PM
hey there, I recently browsed through my old naruto mangas and thought I might be able to make them look better. I'm new at this, so constructive criticism would be highly appreciated.

http://img220.imageshack.us/img220/5995/testah3.th.png (http://img220.imageshack.us/my.php?image=testah3.png)

November 05, 2007, 04:43 PM
Looks very good! You did all the right moves and even redid the borders, so yeah, great job!
My recommendation would be to get yourself some HQ RAWs so you can really let your skills show because even after the cleans the image is still blurry as a result of its original RAW. I would also recommend you use all all caps for the Translator's note. You might want to use some faux bold+italics for emphasized words...eg..I am named Konohamaru.

November 06, 2007, 11:16 AM
first of all, thanks for the input.

the page in the above post is from naruto chapter 2, which is from 2000 i think....i didn't find a hq raw anywhere. :s Also as my "skills" in this case where mostly applying a few very simple filters (except for the gray parts, which i let shine through from the original, because they looked crappy after using the filters), so i'm not so sure a hq raw would actually help that much :p

i'll do all the text in caps now, really looks better ^^.
as for the emphasizing part, i'm using paint shop pro 5, where each textblock can only have 1 style (font/size/...). So i'd have to do the alignment towards the other words of the sentence by hand, which i figured isn't worth the extra work....


November 06, 2007, 03:58 PM
wow, I didn't know you were using paint shop, which is an awesome program...but I hope you'd be able to get your hands on PS for typesetting purposes :P.

OTOH...if you would like to hone your scanlation skills, a group I know which does HQ scans and also provide training is TMI-Scans. (I'm not related to them in any way, lol) But in retrospect I should've joined a group like that, I would have learnt a lot. This is the link to their latest release http://mangahelpers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=20948 =D

November 07, 2007, 08:15 AM
well ps wouldn't be that much of a problem, as there is a trial and there is vmware/virtual pc *hint*......i actually like my psp since it is easy to use and can handle all the stuff i've needed so far (except for the typesetting issues).

i don't have a fixed schedule right now, so i probably won't be able to help out every week at the same time, but i'll think about it.

Vato Loco!
November 07, 2007, 05:26 PM
Actually, I don't know what silver sea is talking about but this is horrible. I don't know what made you think that only filtering this image would make it look good, but this just looks like an over smoothened, over blurred piece of trash. The page wasn't rotated before you did the borders. Most of the close line art has started to blur together, the whites still have a fair amount of dust on them, you put borders on the edge of the page where there shouldn't be any, and there are still traces of the original borders around the new ones. Really, this looks like it went bad as soon as you thought to apply filters to the image. This is also the reason I resolve myself to never show filters to people before they know how to clean to HQ quality, and even then I'd still have to go into deep consideration about it. Just go into the Cleaners Compendium (http://mangahelpers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1276) and commit it to heart. And also look through the unblessed guide in order to learn to get rid of gutter shadows.

November 07, 2007, 10:12 PM
lol. what made you think i was aiming for hq. it's pretty obvious that i wasn't. considering the "raw" cleaning it to hq would have been a shitload of work. i'm more or less ok w/ how it turned out and i'm basically here to get a few tips.

but now that you've put it that way, piece of trash and all, i'm feeling so down, i'll never do anything like cleaning again..............not.

to make it clear, i don't mind you saying you don't like what i did, but you could have said that w/out sounding like a total asshole. Oo

btw: the filters used were Highlight/Midtone/Shadow, Brightness/Contrast and finally some antialiasing, making the black parts black and the white parts white. it definitely looks better than before, so why should i not use filters.

November 08, 2007, 05:34 AM
Ooops... looks like this thread took an awkward turn. XD;;

@Hakai: I didn't expect Vato's outburst, but since he has 20 times more knowledge than me in scanlation, and he gave a detailed troubleshoot of your work, I feel that he's really helped you with a lot more constructive comments than I possibly could have. In fact, I feel guilty for not spotting those problems which he listed because I only work with HQ RAWs. And also I wasn't paying close attention. DD:

Hmm....maybe I can clarify what he meant by "trash". It's got nothing to do with the ego. There are rules in any kind of publication that images that are pixellated or blurry can't be used. Same for school or work. We can't submit a paper with a pixellated photo right? We'd be failed for such an image...Or if we put a blurry image in the sales copy, our career is over... It's in that vein. Looking closely, I would agree that the lines in the RAW, bad as it is, was still sharper than the filtered version.

Hmmmmm....it does "look" better because its high contrast, but actually the resolution has deteriorated, so...its not better. If I were you I would probably do a second try attacking all the problems that Vato pointed out and convince myself of the truth of the matter. You could then put both scanlations side by side and compare. It'll be easy to judge which is better. :D

I'm looking forward to your second try!!

@Vato. Thanks making those points...it learned me. :P

November 08, 2007, 07:59 PM
I don't really get what you're trying to say. what do you mean by being used? if i follow through w/ your argumentation, a lot of speed scanlators like toriyamas world did totally useless stuff by releasing lq scanlations like they did, if you look at the the before pic, it's blurry at the edges! i know a lot of people who would disagree with you on that!

i did! i intended to do so already. all i'm saying is: it's at the best impolite to call someones work, on which a fair amount of effort was spent on, a piece of trash. if that is the way the people of this board talk to each other, i don't think i want to post here any more.

but as it hopefully wasn't meant as bad as it looked to me, here's my v2. it is not rotated since i was too lazy to redo the borders for now, but i'll consider that from now on. i'm aware of the dust on the white parts, but as stated above, that would take more time then i'm able to invest atm.

http://img221.imageshack.us/img221/8859/naruto210wb8.th.png (http://img221.imageshack.us/my.php?image=naruto210wb8.png)

well i actually don't know where i put borders that weren't there before, except for maybe the left border of the bottom left panel. on that it looked to me like the line was just blurred in with the bending at the edge, especially since it begins at the same point as the panel above, which has a border at that site.
i don't know where the traces of the old borders still show either. that shouldn't be possible as the new borders were placed touching the old ones from the inside.
could you plz point those last 2 points out again?

btw: the reason for adding some antialiasing at all was the pic looking like this after doing the contrast/... stuff:
http://img473.imageshack.us/img473/5634/naruto210en8.th.png (http://img473.imageshack.us/my.php?image=naruto210en8.png)

i think i found what you meant with old borders still showing, i guess it was at the bottom right balloon.. heres v3
http://img231.imageshack.us/img231/6541/naruto210dt6.th.png (http://img231.imageshack.us/my.php?image=naruto210dt6.png)

November 09, 2007, 06:47 PM
Hey hey Hakai, lighten up! You need to read a kick-ASS comedy that I just read called "Tsumikabatsu" (http://mangahelpers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=21046) XD

Ass much ass I can say this without soudning like an Asshole, I can't comment on your version 2 because my usual computer that has PS on it went Kaput. But I'm glad you were a good sport and persisted in improving...no matter how many people give feedback, the decision is always your own, so good luck! ^_^

BTW, do you need tips on finding HQ RAWs? You can go to Bomber's RAW request thread:http://mangahelpers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=14255 That's how I get some of my RAWs.

Another hot area is the RAW forums. I noticed that the Square Jump RAWs were supremely scanned by Asakura -- you'd probably love the greys you see there so...here's the link.