Typesetting advice with typesetting please

[student_sol]

Hi, I'm new to translating/cleaning/typesetting (= newbie

so any help will be very much appreciated!


I have 3 questions that I want to ask to translators/cleaners/typesetters...


1. what should I do if I run out of space to fit all the words into the speech

bubble? Or can't find enough space to cram the words in without writing

them on top of drawings? I tried reducing the font size and the spacings

but it just ended up looking ugly and cluttered... It could have something

to do with my choice of fonts but I hate it TT Would people mind if I just

redraw the bubbles to make them larger?



2. Is 'shortening' the translation by leaving out the less important bits

acceptable? I'm not talking about those lengthy literal translation, but

occasions when I simply cannot fit the words in due to nature of english

lettering system. (when the speech box is a narrow vertical rectangle and

there are lots of details in the background) Or should I just faithfully

try to convey everything the manga says?



3. Whenever I rotate the textbox in photoshop (CS2), the texts will

get distorted... It's horrible. Could this be due to my crappy laptop,

or am I doing it the wrong way?

 

[Teaparty]

Re: [beginner] advice with typesetting please

I don't see how rotating the text can distort it in any way, as long as the text layer isn't rasterized. When you rotate, use the text tool itself and not the select tool -> free transform. Make sure to set anti-aliasing (Anything will do except 'None').

Most scans I read have the text rotated 90 degrees for vertical text. Though if you have more than one"vertical" box, make sure they are either both rotated CW or CCW. You don't want the readers to have to break their necks trying to read your text.

I've never shortened someone else's TLs, but I have for my own. I think as long as the original meaning is still in the sentence, it's fine. Removing names, tone, or punctuation isn't recommended.

Putting the text outside of the bubble isn't recommended. But if you have to, make sure to stroke the text to separate it from the background. This doesn't apply to all text though, I have done it for shouting/yelling/some kind of fighting technique and I think it fits well.

Redrawing the bubble... to be honest, I've done this once. I doubt anyone could tell though. But for some manga, the bubbles have weird shapes. I say, as long as it looks like you never touched it, go for it!

A lot of people will probably disagree with me, but the general rule should be: as long as you're comfortable with it, go for it.

 

[student_sol]

Re: [beginner] advice with typesetting please

Thanks for the advice teaparty As for the texts, it turned out that I didn't set the

anti-aliasing ("smooth") like you said... mine was at "sharp"


and about the vertical text, do we have to draw/fill in the "blanks" by ourselves

when we rotate the vertical box with lots of background detail?

 

[Teaparty]

Re: [beginner] advice with typesetting please

Wait, maybe I didn't quite get what you meant by vertical text.
I was talking about something like this. The first vertical box is very thin, so the english text will need to be rotated unless you want half-a-word on every line.
Or did you mean like this where the text overlaps some of the image? If you're just the TS, you shouldn't be asked to do any redraws. That's the cleaner's job.

Edit: Oh but if you're an editor and you're doing the cleaner's job as well, then yes, redrawing it to make it look better is of course, recommended. But if you're new, there are ways you can get around that. Make the text bigger so it overlaps even the background is one way, as long as it's still readable... Or you can just leave it blank, but it'll likely be rated as a LQ or passable MQ depending on how much white you leave behind. You can read some manga on materials of various ways of redrawing or hiding the original text. In any case, it's just practice makes perfect. =/

 

[student_sol]

Re: [beginner] advice with typesetting please

I meant the first example... But the second one looks tricky too!

What should I do if the panel has a lot of background detail?

If I rotate the text box on the left in your first link, won't some part of the

person's torso be missing unless I redraw them somehow?

Oh and unfortunately I'm a one man team

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Edit: Thanks for the help

 

[Teaparty]

Re: [beginner] advice with typesetting please

Hah! I'm a one-man team as well! Hi5!
I'm not a perfectionist though lol. I only do scans depending on how I want to do them, and I pretty much never care who says what.

The boxes already have frames, so stick with them! Don't make your text stretch outside of the bubble. And I think where most new TSers make mistakes is that they make the text too big. Like they need to fit the whole bubble with it. (I did this too...) But yeah, the boxes in the first one should be big enough to fit all the text even at 1200px height. No need to redraw. Reshape your text so that it fits.

Oh okay I get what you mean now that I have a clearer mind.
You should be rotating the text not the actual frame that's in the RAW.
Go from this to this.
My fault for saying rotate text box. I was talking about the text's "invisible box".

 

[student_sol]

Re: [beginner] advice with typesetting please

Ooooh I see what you mean. So we're meant to rotate the text itself...

I feel so dumb that I couldn't think of such a simple solution XD

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edit: haha, nice to see a fellow (?) one-man team!

 

[tradedaemon]

Re: [beginner] advice with typesetting please

Why don't you just make the box fatter? Stick an inside strike on a rectangle shape about 2-3px and you're good. I'd avoid rotating text 90 degrees if you can help it, especially if it's pertinent to the story. If anything, go outside the borders rather than rotate it, since it makes reading easier. And if you have access to the translator, I'd go to them and get them to rewrite the tsl if it's too long. You shouldn't try to shorten it up yourself, since you don't know what your changes will do to the original meaning. Changing the % width of the text down to 85-90% also makes fitting the text easier.