Basic Cleaning By Zidane Binktopia

[vangdeo]

Some basic things:


What you need:

* Adobe Photoshop CS and above, preferably CS3.
* Topaz Denoise [The keygen may get detected as a trojan, ignore it. If you need help with the installation, get on IRC.]
* A 2500px (height) HQ RAW from WSJ. (or higher, of course - resizing from smaller raw sizes will cause massive quality loss.)
* Some time and dedication, but most importantly the ability to read and follow instructions.

Spoiler for Hidden:

How it works:

We can do this really quick for those who know how scanlating works already, and more detailed for the real beginners.
* Rotate the image using the Ruler Tool
* Crop the black borders surrounding the page by using the Crop tool.
* Click F2 or manually load the first step of the action script which you loaded earlier.
* Level the page.
* Use the burn tool at 30% (shadows) to blacken the blacks.
* Click F3 or manually load the second step of the action script.
* Get rid of all the obvious dusts on whites, deactivate the level layer.
* Redraw borders, fill bubbles with whites and you are done

I realize that beginners couldn't really understand anything there, so let's go into detail now...

Download and watch this video: http://dl02.mangashare.com/school/binktopia_basic_cleaning_by_zidane.wmv
* Open a RAW Page.
* Use the Ruler Tool, Rotate, and then the Crop tool. (Watch the video tutorial for that.)
* Go under Image -> Mode and select "RGB Color"
* Dublicate the background layer.
* Go under Filter -> Blur -> Surface Blur... and apply the settings 18 /10.
* Go under Filter -> Topaz Labs -> Topaz Denoise and apply settings 1.15 for noise reduction, 0.25 for deblur.
* Drink a coffee if you have only 1gb or Ram (topaz takes some time).
* Convert the Mode back to Grayscanle, under Image -> Mode.
* Surface Blur again with 18 / 10.
* Dublicate the Background Copy layer.
* Set the mode of this layer to "Color Burn".
* Set the Opacity of that Layer to 20%.
* Level it slightly, and then merge it down on the Background Copy layer.
* You should have only a Background (RAW) and Background Copy Layer now.
* Go under Image -> Adjustments -> Levels... and level the page. Beginners often tend to overlevel the page in order to have less work burning. While underleveling is just as bad. Try several times to find a good result.
* Go under Image -> Image Size... and resize it to 1150px height with 72 resolution.
* Create a new Adjustment Level layer on which you completely overlevel the page.
* Create a new empty layer and use the Pencil tool to erase obvious (scanner) dusts on whites and blacks.
* Deactivate the Adjustment Level layer, and save your page as .psd.


You are done now, with the precleaning. What's left to do is treating details, like faded white lines, separating speedlines (sometimes they have dust inbetween that makes them look thick, use the line tool to fix that), erasing the text (on the layer where you erased dusts), and bordering the page.

[Rue]

This is pretty out-dated, but there's some steps you can learn concepts from.

[leonne]

ahh... been a while since the list time i saw you rue