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I noticed that many people were looking for a more basic cleaning lesson to work on while going through the older cleaning challenge threads. And knowing that Shannaro is in need of decent cleaners I decided to start out with a basic Naruto page. For starters I am not affilated with Shannaro in anyway. I can help you get better and probably get good enough to pass their test but I have no say in who passes Shannaro's test. Since I can't work with them directly in cleaning perhaps I can help them by teaching you guys what you need to know to help them. This lesson/challenge will be mostly tutorial style since I find having images and good guidelines the best way to learn the techniques so you can practice them and get good at them.
Our goal for this challenge is an HQ page. That means that you can't just level the page and call it good, and you shouldn't run it through any filters. If you want to join an HQ Naruto group you won't be allowed to use filters anyway so we might as well get that out on the table right now. A couple of other don't do's are do not use the burn and or dodge tool. These tools have a nasty habit of damaging lines, especially when the person using them isn't very experinced. Something else to keep in mind, bringing a single page to HQ level even from an HQ raw takes time. There aren't any easy buttons for this challenge. Expect to spend at least 2 hours cleaning this page if you don't have any prior experince.
I will only clean one panel of this page to demonstrate the techniques we are going to be working with. You should clean the entire page.
All images will behind spoiler tags, just click on the tag to see the image.
The page we are going to use is ch 335 pg 11
It is better if you don't do any actual cleaning work on the original raw aside from adjusting the page size. That way you can always compare the work you have done to the original to make sure that you are not unintentially altering the artwork.
The points to focus on are as follows.
Leveling is not my strong suit so I suggest reading Angry's tutorial on leveling. To make a duplicate layer in PS have the background layer highlighted and go to Layers -> New -> Via copy or you can use the keyboard shortcut ctrl + J. I will also add that it's not always advisable to remove all the dust with leveling. Most of the time there is still going to be some you have to clean up manually.
My method for doing borders can be found here.
I tend to use the same method for removing text in bubbles as I do for filling in blacks only using white as the color instead of black. I will go into that method next.
To fill in the blacks... Make a new layer Layer -> New -> Layer or shift + crtl + N. Place this layer under the borders layer. Use the pentool (P) set up to make a path.
More info on using the pen tool can be found in Shinwei's Cleaners Compendium
Zoom in to around 300% and carefully outline the area you want to fill with black. When you come back to the original anchor click on it to close the path.
Any large spots of white and art inside the black path can be isolated with the pentool (P) by outlining it and closing the path of the area that you don't want filled in with black like Kakashi's bag.
To fill the area with black make sure you are still using the pentool (P) and right click with your mouse. In the pop-up menu select fill path and a new dialog box will pop up, you want the settings to be like this.
Make sure that your foreground is set to black (#000000), normal mode, 100% opacity, and the anti-alias box is checked. Then hit ok and magically the area is filled in with black like this...
If you don't want to save your paths or you don't do all your paths at once and then fill, then hit enter until the path on the image goes away. It's probably best for new cleaners to do these blacks one panel at a time.
Now using your brush (B) between 1px and 4 px depending on the area you are working in, zoom in to 400% and go around the edges of the black fill you just made and make sure that all the little extra spots are fully black. Repeat this process for all the black areas. To do this with the white areas such as text bubbles make sure white is set to your foreground color.
Once the blacks are filled in you need to go back and re add in those white detail lines. To do this make a new layer Layer -> New -> Layer or shift + ctrl + N and place this layer above the blacks layer. Select the blacks layer in the layers palette and click on the opacity button near the top on the right.
In this example I reduced the opacity to around 30 percent. You can even reduce it to zero if that is what you need to see the white lines in the blacks.
Select the layer you plan to do the whites on that is above the blacks layer in the layer pallette. Use the pentool (P) to make a path of the long lines. Use the curves function of the pentool for curving lines for the best look. When you have the path outlined make sure your brush tool (B) is set to 1px and with the pentool (p) selected right click on the mouse to bring up a pop-up menu and select stroke path. Another dialog box will pop-up. Use the drop down menu to select the brush tool.
Use the brush tool (B) at 1 px to do short lines for a more natural look. Once all the white lines are redrawn select the black layer in the layers palette and return the opacity to 100%. And here is an example of the white lines redrawn.
Now go in and redraw the faded and or broken lines with the pentool (P) or the brushtool (B) depending on the line.
Before
After
Now go in with the brush tool (B) and paint white over any remaining dust.
Once you have finished one panel move on to the next panel until the page is all clean and looking nice. When you have the page finished go over it again to make sure that you didn't miss anything. Check the raw to see that you haven't altered anything. I also look at the final page in PS, in my image viewer and on imageshack so that I can see it from many view points. I often catch things in these other formats that I didn't see in PS alone.
Here is the page we are working on with the one panel I did for this tutorial so that you can see the finished look.
To take this challenge and receive feedback on how you did and where you need to improve make your own thread and title it like so... [NAME] attempts Cleaning Basics #001 where [NAME] is your nick of course...
Save the file as .png and upload it to an image server like ImageShack
Our goal for this challenge is an HQ page. That means that you can't just level the page and call it good, and you shouldn't run it through any filters. If you want to join an HQ Naruto group you won't be allowed to use filters anyway so we might as well get that out on the table right now. A couple of other don't do's are do not use the burn and or dodge tool. These tools have a nasty habit of damaging lines, especially when the person using them isn't very experinced. Something else to keep in mind, bringing a single page to HQ level even from an HQ raw takes time. There aren't any easy buttons for this challenge. Expect to spend at least 2 hours cleaning this page if you don't have any prior experince.
I will only clean one panel of this page to demonstrate the techniques we are going to be working with. You should clean the entire page.
All images will behind spoiler tags, just click on the tag to see the image.
The page we are going to use is ch 335 pg 11
It is better if you don't do any actual cleaning work on the original raw aside from adjusting the page size. That way you can always compare the work you have done to the original to make sure that you are not unintentially altering the artwork.
The points to focus on are as follows.
- Duplicate the layer and level it
- Reframe the borders
- Remove all Japanese text
- Fill in the blacks and whites
- Redraw the white detail lines
- Redraw the black lines that are faded or broken
- Clean up any dust still on the page
Leveling is not my strong suit so I suggest reading Angry's tutorial on leveling. To make a duplicate layer in PS have the background layer highlighted and go to Layers -> New -> Via copy or you can use the keyboard shortcut ctrl + J. I will also add that it's not always advisable to remove all the dust with leveling. Most of the time there is still going to be some you have to clean up manually.
My method for doing borders can be found here.
I tend to use the same method for removing text in bubbles as I do for filling in blacks only using white as the color instead of black. I will go into that method next.
To fill in the blacks... Make a new layer Layer -> New -> Layer or shift + crtl + N. Place this layer under the borders layer. Use the pentool (P) set up to make a path.
More info on using the pen tool can be found in Shinwei's Cleaners Compendium
Zoom in to around 300% and carefully outline the area you want to fill with black. When you come back to the original anchor click on it to close the path.
Any large spots of white and art inside the black path can be isolated with the pentool (P) by outlining it and closing the path of the area that you don't want filled in with black like Kakashi's bag.
To fill the area with black make sure you are still using the pentool (P) and right click with your mouse. In the pop-up menu select fill path and a new dialog box will pop up, you want the settings to be like this.
Make sure that your foreground is set to black (#000000), normal mode, 100% opacity, and the anti-alias box is checked. Then hit ok and magically the area is filled in with black like this...
If you don't want to save your paths or you don't do all your paths at once and then fill, then hit enter until the path on the image goes away. It's probably best for new cleaners to do these blacks one panel at a time.
Now using your brush (B) between 1px and 4 px depending on the area you are working in, zoom in to 400% and go around the edges of the black fill you just made and make sure that all the little extra spots are fully black. Repeat this process for all the black areas. To do this with the white areas such as text bubbles make sure white is set to your foreground color.
Once the blacks are filled in you need to go back and re add in those white detail lines. To do this make a new layer Layer -> New -> Layer or shift + ctrl + N and place this layer above the blacks layer. Select the blacks layer in the layers palette and click on the opacity button near the top on the right.
In this example I reduced the opacity to around 30 percent. You can even reduce it to zero if that is what you need to see the white lines in the blacks.
Select the layer you plan to do the whites on that is above the blacks layer in the layer pallette. Use the pentool (P) to make a path of the long lines. Use the curves function of the pentool for curving lines for the best look. When you have the path outlined make sure your brush tool (B) is set to 1px and with the pentool (p) selected right click on the mouse to bring up a pop-up menu and select stroke path. Another dialog box will pop-up. Use the drop down menu to select the brush tool.
Use the brush tool (B) at 1 px to do short lines for a more natural look. Once all the white lines are redrawn select the black layer in the layers palette and return the opacity to 100%. And here is an example of the white lines redrawn.
Now go in and redraw the faded and or broken lines with the pentool (P) or the brushtool (B) depending on the line.
Before
Now go in with the brush tool (B) and paint white over any remaining dust.
Once you have finished one panel move on to the next panel until the page is all clean and looking nice. When you have the page finished go over it again to make sure that you didn't miss anything. Check the raw to see that you haven't altered anything. I also look at the final page in PS, in my image viewer and on imageshack so that I can see it from many view points. I often catch things in these other formats that I didn't see in PS alone.
Here is the page we are working on with the one panel I did for this tutorial so that you can see the finished look.
To take this challenge and receive feedback on how you did and where you need to improve make your own thread and title it like so... [NAME] attempts Cleaning Basics #001 where [NAME] is your nick of course...
Save the file as .png and upload it to an image server like ImageShack
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