Is this good...?

[Az3r]

My first real attempt in HQ which includes cleaning grey tones. This one's from OP chapter 489 page 14, using the MQ/HQ raw by Kylara.

EDIT:
Here's the raw I use for this scan. Cropped and resized to 756x1100 pixels just for easy load, since the original is larger.

And here's the final product version 2. I had to tweak things.

So what do you think? Is it any good? Bad? Where am I lacking? Just shoot the critics...

 

[icarium2]

You should actually post a raw so that we can compare.I think you did great with this page. Just some comments about the grays in panels 7 and 9, some of the lines are slightly faded and in panel 6, the line on the cloud is also faded. That's actually about all I can critique about. Nice job.

 

[Esc.]

Looks great, though the greys in One Piece aren't so grainy as you'd make them out to be. Not like in Bleach or Naruto. They're more like patterns.

I know it's easier to film grain, but I'd suggest just picking up a nice pattern and layering it with the grey tone that you'd find in the raw itself. Probably easier to just "define pattern", that way you wouldn't have to use two layers.

Excellent job btw.

 

[Az3r]

I tweaked things today so I updated the page to version 2 :P.

@Icarium:
Thank you for commenting. Now as you can see I've made the faded lines clearer for convenient view. Oh, and I post the raw too.

@Zoro:
Wow, a Manga Editor himself. Thanks for dropping by and sharing with me. I decided to use noised grey because I'm learning grey cleaning with Naruto pages. So yeah, I think it's some sort of habit. Thanks for the suggestion though, I'll try it.

 

[Esc.]

hehe, no problem. (And yes, I use this username everywhere, lol)

Everyone has their own style to Editing, There isn't telling what way is really the best way.

Hope I helped a bit. Version 2 looks great.

~Zoro

 

[RebelWithout]

There's some blacks that need to be filled in on panel 1, 2, 9. Also the bubble in panel 8 needs to be finished. The greys look very well done though, nice job.

 

[Esc.]

In panel one, those aren't blacks, those are tones.

But you're right, the rest of them on 2 and 9 are blacks.

 

[RebelWithout]

Ah, then you'll have to do something about fixing those grays because right now it just looks like speckled black.

 

[Az3r]

@RebelWithout (... a cause? )

Thanks for the comment. That's right, that part of Brooke's hat looks darker like the blacks sticking to each other after I cleaned it. I thought it's only on my monitor, 'cause this monitor of mine has been getting the color darker after being fixed a couple of months ago. Thanks for pointing that.

 

[Obxist]

hmmm nice gray.... but when you're tryuing to make a HQ never use Neat Image or any other denoising program unless you know how to handle it pretty well and less blurry cause you lost some image details...
for example see the page below... i marked the lost detail with red circle

Spoiler

http://img147.imageshack.us/img147/5872/opaz3rea6.jpg

but nice try... i would love to see OP in HQ =3

 

[Az3r]

@Obxist

Thanks for dropping by, and thanks for pointing that. I never use any denoising program ('cause I prone to got confused halfway while using them), but I do denoise with Photoshop's own filter. Hmm... maybe you're right, perhaps the problem's in the denoising after pre-cleaning (diffuse filter). I should figure out a way around that. Thanks again! And... maybe it's a long way (not to mention a winding one) before I do One Piece in HQ. It's a real hardwork just for a page!

In the mean time, I'd like to thank ChireSakura for his excellent tutorials!

 

[Obxist]

not really... you should just make it less blurry... oh and overall MQ /HQ