Misc Attempt Magazine raw cleaning tips [shoujo]

[StarStorm]

Hello,

I hope I'm not too out-of-place asking for some help with shoujo magazine raws. Shoujo manga likes its ~tones~ and things like flower or bubble patterns, so I'm having trouble cleaning them without losing the tones.

So the problem with magazine raws is--the quality sucks. Seriously, who came up with the bright idea to print magazine chapters in color?! No matter how I manipulate it, the scan always looks LQ-MQ at best, and I'm pretty picky about HQ. I think I offended my scanner when I told her I might try to look for the tanks (not that hers weren't nice, and I really do appreciate the scans, but editing them is a pain). However, the project has been stalled looking for another scanner for tanks, so I think I'll just suck it up and try to get as much quality out of these scans as possible.

Here are two sample scans:
Sample 1
Sample 2

Here are my attempts to do some preliminary cleaning.
Sample 1
Sample 2
(Seriously, I want to cry--the quality is so bad.)

-Would I be able to redraw grays? I'd be willing to give it a shot...

 

[Rain441]

i tried to level your first sample^^

my result: click!

 

[deatheater251]

tried my level
results:

 

[StarStorm]

tried my level
results:
image

I kind of like that! How did you make the lines look smoother/less sharp? Was it because you resized it to an even smaller size?

 

[manfregara]

I kind of like that! How did you make the lines look smoother/less sharp? Was it because you resized it to an even smaller size?

He used a denoising filter as Topaz Denoise...I suggest you to use it and the result will be better...

P.S. The raw you used is very Low Quality....

 

[StarStorm]

He used a denoising filter as Topaz Denoise...I suggest you to use it and the result will be better...

P.S. The raw you used is very Low Quality....

Thanks! That's Filter>Noise>Denoise, correct? What settings were used?

Yeah... I know the quality isn't great... but unless I can get my hands on some tanks...

Edit: Nevermind, I found Topaz Denoise online. Thanks for your help!

 

[znromonk]

Here is my result using the Topaz Denoise and Topaz Clean.

 

[L0ki]

^ That's pretty much as close as you can get at getting anything decent out of those scans.

And about the color pages, just change the mode to grayscale. It'll probably be less of a pain.

 

[Akash]

@znromonk

could u tell me the settings for topaz?

 

[znromonk]

@Akash
Since I do not remember what settings I choose back then for that particular page, I tried cleaning it again. So, here is the settings I used this time to get close to what I got initially.
1. Denoise:

2. Clean

3. Level (Grayscale)


Hope it helped.

 

[Akash]

i am trying to get the same effect u have done... but still no luck....

which version of topaz do u use?

 

[znromonk]

@Akash
I am using Denoise 4 and Clean 3. Did you also try burning the bad grays ? Also, the preset for denoise was close to "RAW with high noise" and for clean was close to "Cartooned". They were close but not the same and hence I posted the settings. In short you can start from them and adjust to your liking.

 

[Akash]

ah got it now. thanks man. i was not using clean properly. thanks

 

[znromonk]

@StarStorm
I finally got some time to spend on the second page. From your clean of the second page, I noticed that the right side of the page had a few pixels wide of column missing. I assume you cropped it since there was some unwanted doodles there (you can see that the guy's hair is missing in your clean as compared to the raw). Also there seems to be a lot of noise in those grays that you mentioned you wanted to redraw. Some details of the car were also lost due to over-leveling. When I leveled the page after a little denoising, I noticed the same thing. Also since the page had different levels at different parts, I had to level the page section by section. The bottom part of the page had to leveled separately and the panel with the car had to be leveled separately else it will lose quite a lot of detail. Here is the clean including emptying the bubbles and some redraws after the text was removed (I left the page numbers intact since I have seen them in some mangas I read). Hope it helps.

Spoiler

PS: I also had to rotate the page by 0.2 deg CCW.
I am just pointing out some things that noticed, I have mentioned this before that I am not an expert, just in the learning phase all thanks to the MH Academy.

 

[rhaz115]

This is my result = image

How about that? pls gimme your opinion .

 

[Gradonil_Ral]

This is my result = image

How about that? pls gimme your opinion .

How about a link we can actually open?