My first try at cleaning

[dosetsu]

lol at HQ scanlators and agreeing. Go figure things out on your own and stop co-signing to what another person said.

People who talk down on the burn tool are just that, people who co-sign to what other person has said, which are generally people who just picked up an art program to "scanlate" manga.

Learn the program you're working with, rather than follow tutorials. Trail and Error is pretty much a godlike process, it lets your form your own valid opinion on things rather than speak what other person has said.

For Mr.IHatetheBurnTool, "proper" levels this image for me.

[GGpX]

Learn the program you're working with, rather than follow tutorials. Trail and Error is pretty much a godlike process, it lets your form your own valid opinion on things rather than speak what other person has said.

Wrong ordering.

You read the tutorials to learn the basics of manga cleaning, then you explore different possibilities via trial & error.

[dosetsu]

More or less I meant to a T. But even so, if you spent time playing around with the tools and learned exactly what they do, what do you need a tutorial to tell you the same?

I'm speaking in general, not just manga (Which is were the majority of this fails).

As for the edit itself, it's fairly decent, consdering what you had to work with.

[ddadain]

GGpX is correct.

You don't just start learning how to edit manga on the bat. Even if you knew how to use Photoshop from the very start, it doesn't necessarily mean you automatically know how to edit mangas--editing them is quite different from editing normal things: more nit and grind required.

Reading tutorial from people who've already "done the research" is a better way of doing things as they've already tried and tested their techniques and have had firsthand experience on getting good (HQ) results. Well, this excludes speed-scans because no art is really involved in that (Lols, sorry if I'm blunt, but it's true: Speedscan => Speed >> Quality = Sh*t quality). Reading how HQ groups does things is the best way of honing your skills as a scanlator. Once having acquired the editing skills required to do HQ, doing LQ speedscans are a breeze to do.

I don't believe I've seen your work anywhere dosetsu, so either you show me any work that qualifies you to talk as big as you did, or don't comment on the validity of my statements.

And as for your page, there's an easy way of leveling it without hassle. Divide the page into two parts, removing the top non-blacked part from the blacked bottom half. Apply two different sets of leveling into them. This method is called MASKING. Unfortunately I don't have Photoshop installed in my laptop, but that is how I would have tackled that page. And, FYI, I've gone through the self-learning process--I've done the work, so to speak--therefore, assuming your logic is correct, my opinion becomes a valid one.

Besides, I know quite a number of people that would agree with me about the use of the Burn Tool. In fact, they'd probably say using the Burn Tool is Epic Fail. Don't think that I, having been a member of this forum for a very long time now and having released quite a number of scanlations myself, doesn't have the credentials to talk as authoritatively as I did.

Zzz...

General statement: Noobs: they annoy me

---

And GGpX,

Honda cars aren't that bad -.-

[illiteracy]

The burn tool has its place in manga editing, although it's mostly limited to redraws. It's extremely helpful for blending colors to match gradients.

[wade69]

Lols,

I'm sorry if I'm stubborn, but there's no proper way of using burn tool.

For one, if you burn the edges of lineart even just a little bit, it becomes sharp. The contrast becomes too striking.

Besides, with proper leveling, the need to burn is nullified.

Another thing is burn tool is what makes LQ releases sLQ. I don't know with you guys, but I'd much rather see grey dust rather than overleveled and/or overburned sh*t (Censored for the kiddies ).

Learning how to properly use the Lasso tool and the Pen tool EFFICIENTLY, unlike most people here who finds them kind of difficult to use, you can surely IMPROVE your overall scanlation skills and scanlation quality all at the same time. Using the shortcut (cough*massacre*cough) of the burn tool is NOT the way to go.

Well, IMO at least.

Although, I believe many HQ scanlators will agree with me.
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Okay, example:

Here's a typical raw image and clean:

Now, case in point Kekkaishi has A LOT of greys. And unlike many Jump mangas, they aren't your typical uniform grey greys... Mostly, they are gradient greys that go softer or harder depending on the shadowing. Fact: that's the Yellow Tanabe's art style.

Another case in point is that many times, magic wanding the blacks will include some grey areas and if you burn them, you mess up all the shadowing effect they were suppose to give off = ruining the art itself.

And why is there no proper way of using the burn tool? Because you just assume that everyone's a noob scanlator that uses it or something?

Even if it does make the edges sharper its going to be fixed when you resize the raw... And usually its only people that don't know how to use the burn tool that burn the crap out of parts like that.

Leveling can't clean a whole page, there is more than one type of scan out there, magazine and tankos. And both have different styling of cleaning.

You only see sLQ stuff from people that have no experience of others that just haven't quit got the hang of scanlating yet.

The pen tool and lasso tool do work for tight spots where the burn tool will only mess up because its too tight and dark greys. But the burn tools works fine for just black spots where you won't even need to use the pen tool or lasso tool. Like I said before the burn tool works fine for stuff like this and there are tons of scanlators that use it and produce quality scans all over the place. Don't knock something just because you don't know how to use it.

I bet theres more HQ scanlators that use the burn tool than you think. Though many of them don't even work on magazine scans just tanks and you don't really need to use a burn tool for that.

Magic wand is a piece of crap tool thats one tool I saw you should never use since it can mess with the greys and the art.

From the sounds of it you only work with tankos which require less skill than magazine scans. And many people/groups that release MQ/HQ scanlations will agree the burn tool is a fine tool to use to those that are skilled with it.

[dosetsu]

GGpX is correct.

You don't just start learning how to edit manga on the bat. Even if you knew how to use Photoshop from the very start, it doesn't necessarily mean you automatically know how to edit mangas--editing them is quite different from editing normal things: more nit and grind required.

Reading tutorial from people who've already "done the research" is a better way of doing things as they've already tried and tested their techniques and have had firsthand experience on getting good (HQ) results. Well, this excludes speed-scans because no art is really involved in that (Lols, sorry if I'm blunt, but it's true: Speedscan => Speed >> Quality = Sh*t quality). Reading how HQ groups does things is the best way of honing your skills as a scanlator. Once having acquired the editing skills required to do HQ, doing LQ speedscans are a breeze to do.

I don't believe I've seen your work anywhere dosetsu, so either you show me any work that qualifies you to talk as big as you did, or don't comment on the validity of my statements.

And as for your page, there's an easy way of leveling it without hassle. Divide the page into two parts, removing the top non-blacked part from the blacked bottom half. Apply two different sets of leveling into them. This method is called MASKING. Unfortunately I don't have Photoshop installed in my laptop, but that is how I would have tackled that page. And, FYI, I've gone through the self-learning process--I've done the work, so to speak--therefore, assuming your logic is correct, my opinion becomes a valid one.

Besides, I know quite a number of people that would agree with me about the use of the Burn Tool. In fact, they'd probably say using the Burn Tool is Epic Fail. Don't think that I, having been a member of this forum for a very long time now and having released quite a number of scanlations myself, doesn't have the credentials to talk as authoritatively as I did.

Zzz...

General statement: Noobs: they annoy me

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And GGpX,

Honda cars aren't that bad -.-

HQ group this, HQ group that. The only thing I'm reading from you is "I can tell you what other person has said."

[illiteracy]

Magic wand is a piece of crap tool thats one tool I saw you should never use since it can mess with the greys and the art.

The wand is nice for selecting the white areas in text bubbles as well as the margin. Generally I'll use that, switch to rectangular, select the text, contract by 1px or so, and alt+backspace. It works pretty well for getting rid of any extra light dirt, although whether or not you can use it depends on the mangaka's style.

[ddadain]

HQ group this, HQ group that. The only thing I'm reading from you is "I can tell you what other person has said."

Lolz... I rest my case.

And for the burn tool. Yes, there ARE times where it CAN be used, BUT it's never the best choice. Blackening blacks with the burn tool rather than the brush tool WILL/may (depending on your experience and/or skill) lead you to sharp edges. Using the brush tool will give you uniform blacks + the edges are already contrasted to blend in with whites. SEE, why use it when you can use SOMETHING BETTER!

o-o

Atleast, when I redraw, I never really needed to use the burn tool. I was consistent with my use of pen tool, stroking, filling, brushes, copy layering, etc. of varying hardness, sizes, angles, shapes, etc. to get the desired results. No need to burn.

[dosetsu]

You never BURN stuff nor use MAGIC WAND [Contrary to its name, you don't just swish it to make your problems go away].

I'm sorry if I'm stubborn, but there's no proper way of using burn tool.

And for the burn tool. Yes, there ARE times where it CAN be used, BUT it's never the best choice...

WAT?

Don't change the flow of your "logic" to something else just because no one agrees with you. In the simplest terms this means, don't do what you've been doing, which is he-say she-say, co-signing to what someone else has said. If you can't keep you own 'argument' consistent to what you were saying, don't offer "advice."

Lolz... I rest my case.

The only case you were able to rest, is the case of making yourself look silly, Lolz!

I'm done with this.

[reinen]

To vildogvold, probably by now you have some general idea about the cleaning stuff. You could try for a bigger raw, e.g: this(nice cover btw) or this one. You might want to try the pages with redraws involved, since you have to look the big picture (zoom out :P). Hope it helps.

[ddadain]

Please read my whole post to get my point.

1st post was talking about BLACKING BLACKS WITH BURN TOOL. MY POINT: NEVER-EVER USE IT TO BLACK BLACKS

SYNONYM OF PROPER: GOOD, CORRECT, APT, SUITABLE, RIGHT, etc... LEARN ENGLISH YOU BOOB. When I say "proper" I meant SUITABLE. There's NEVER a scenario when the BURN TOOL is the MOST SUITABLE thing to use.

WHEN REDRAWING, OBVIOUSLY THE BURN TOOL CAN BE USED, if you're a bit too slow to understand. Duh! YOU CAN USE IT ANYTIME YOU WANT to NOT ONLY IN REDRAWING. BUT 1st POINT STILL STANDS, IT'S NEVER THE MOST SUITABLE/BEST TOOL TO USE, so WHY USE IT AT ALL?!

Zzz.

This is why I hate noobs. They think they're so smart. Their arrogance gives evidence to their true nature.

[Andy6000]

I'm sorry if I'm being a bit rude for no good reason, but ddadain, it seems you're supporting your arguments with the weight of your post count. You've been here for a long time, you've done scans, you've read this, heard that. Even if you are as incredibly experienced as you've stated, practice does not make perfect. Practice makes habits. Whether the habit is good or bad is completely unrelated to how much you've done it.

The burn tool is a viable option for blacking blacks, adjusting tones to match gradients on redraws, all sorts of things. You may not be the best with adjusting the strength of the burn and not touching the edges, but that does not mean that it is not as viable a tool as the lasso or the pen.

Relevant material in your original post...

You never BURN stuff nor use MAGIC WAND [Contrary to its name, you don't just swish it to make your problems go away].

The ONLY way to go about doing a PROPER cleaning job is to MANUALLY fill in the blacks by using the LASSO TOOL or PEN TOOL.

I don't believe it was too inappropriate to assume you had no liking to the burn tool in any situation whatsoever. Figured I'd point that out.

And before you ask, no you probably haven't seen my work, I started editing in December of last year. I'd like to think I'm not so bad any more.

Oh right, and the countless applications of caps lock you seem to adore using do nothing to further your point.

Probably should've been more subtle with a first post, eh? Oh well.

[vildogvold]

Just want to say thanks to everyone that had some positiv critisism to say about my try at cleaning.
And i will agree that I did make it overleveled, and there was without a doubt much more that could be done to it.
At the time where I made this post I had only worked with photoshop for maybe 4 hours. And I still have lots to work on right now before I will be satified with my work.