Scanning Hires Screentones vs Descreening

[resonator79]

Trying to educate myself, I've scanned a few pages out of the first Jojo's Bizarre Adventure Part 4 book. The edition I've got is really small sized, so I scanned in 1200 dpi.

RAW
https://www.dropbox.com/s/utsdfp6an3npp4u/jjba_v18_p009_exp.jpg?dl=0

Pre-cleaned, 4096px (iPad display downscale-friendly) height:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/wmy0v1gastgvzbp/jjba_v18_p009.png?dl=0

In your opinion, is that a "proper" scanning/processing job?

I also played around with descreening the screentones, here:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/35nsatidemhlaw6/jjba_v18_p009_descreened.jpg?dl=0

It doesn't look too bad, and obviously it scales a lot better to various display sizes, but there's aliasing.
I couldn't find anything on the web, but is there actually an anti-aliasing plugin for Photoshop? Or maybe a NNEDI3 type of scaler?

 

[Gradonil_Ral]

The pre-clean seems a bit too sharp to me. Either that or it has overleveled whites. It's a bit hard to tell with height being that great. The proper height (without any need for resizing) it should be viewed in is 1200px.
In any case, if you're gonna save at huge height with the intention of resizing on-screen... do not [save as web]. At the very least not as PNG-8. PNG-8 is meant to save as much space as possible so it loses all unnecessary stuff for viewing at 100%. If you want to downscale, it'll mess things up for you. Save as PNG-24 or just simply via [save as] instead.

 

[resonator79]

Great suggestions. Thank you!

--- Double Post Merged, Mar 7, 2016, Original Post Date: Feb 12, 2016 ---

How about these pieces then?
One's high- (4096px), one's lower-res (1536px):
https://www.dropbox.com/s/ki2dl702j4kxrfq/p005_test2_sctns_4096.png?dl=0

https://www.dropbox.com/s/s5l9doipchpgjp1/p005_test2_descn_1536.png?dl=0

--- Double Post Merged, Mar 8, 2016 ---

These would be my final versions:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/fxwppf2z9slcwe7/jojo_v29_ch266_p005_eng_4096.png?dl=0
https://www.dropbox.com/s/p8gr689otquy28n/jojo_v29_ch266_p005_eng_descr2048.png?dl=0
https://www.dropbox.com/s/166fyhafpvhnvp5/jojo_v29_ch266_p005_eng_color2048.png?dl=0

 

[Gradonil_Ral]

https://www.dropbox.com/s/ki2dl702j4kxrfq/p005_test2_sctns_4096.png?dl=0 <= Some of the screentones seem a bit overdenoised? For example the face on the last panel. But I can't tell for certain without raw for comparison.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/s5l9doipchpgjp1/p005_test2_descn_1536.png?dl=0 <= I'm not a fan of descreenins, so it doesn't look too good to me.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/fxwppf2z9slcwe7/jojo_v29_ch266_p005_eng_4096.png?dl=0 <= There doesn't seem to be any changes other than the typeset, but there's actually a small mistake here. And it follows on the next versions too. You did something to the background between "G" in "hagashikata" and "P" in "part". And it's not an improvement.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/p8gr689otquy28n/jojo_v29_ch266_p005_eng_descr2048.png?dl=0 <= Like I said - I'm not a fan, but this version looks better than the previous one. The mistake remains.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/166fyhafpvhnvp5/jojo_v29_ch266_p005_eng_color2048.png?dl=0 <= Very nice coloring job. Looks way better then the grayscale descreen. The mistake still remains.

Also, why not redraw a bit around the "fat" text on the first panel? The white outline of the original text still remains and is quite visible.

 

[resonator79]

Oh, I forgot to post the scan:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/6nna7qw433ghhaz/jojo_v29_ch266_p005_scan.png?dl=0

I corrected the outlines, there was a layer on that I thought was off.

4096
https://www.dropbox.com/s/q5xwaphn6gnqzlb/jojo_v29_ch266_p005_eng_4096_v3.png?dl=0

1620 descreened
https://www.dropbox.com/s/fsf30r5lzor37pi/jojo_v29_ch266_p005_eng_descr2048_v3.png?dl=0

1620 color
https://www.dropbox.com/s/5oy4zgneik70hz2/jojo_v29_ch266_p005_eng_color1620_v3.png?dl=0
I didn't color it, I just cleaned the official digital colored version a bit and put in my typesetting.

I think redrawing in highres is, at least with my skill level, next to impossible. Keeping the original outlines but erasing the Japanese is a compromise to me, where it's still a bit distracting, but less than just writing over the Japanese. The french print actually left the Japanese untouched and just added an * with a translation beneath the panel.

This is how The Invincible Trio did it:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/y9k79qv7mp5osot/jojo_v29_ch266_p005_trio.jpg?dl=0

As for the descreening, I actually quite like it now. I compared it with the highres on an iPad screen, and it looks very similar. Obviously the high res is a tad sharper and more defined, but for most screens between 7" and 12", I think it's fine. Matter of taste?

But other than that, do you think the work is decent?

--- Double Post Merged, Mar 10, 2016, Original Post Date: Mar 9, 2016 ---

PS: The reason why I dabbled with descreening (I have a license for Sattva DeScreen) actually is the moire that occurs on various displays or sizes. Is there a way to mitigate the effects without descreening?