kenjimaru
10-02-2007, 02:28 PM
Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrr --- post all HQ related cleaning tutorials in this thread if you find them or create your own thread for it. i will add links to tutorials i found around the web on HQ cleaning here. Tutorial 01
Originally posted on MH. So i posting it here for everyone interested. If anyone is interested i can convert to pdf
This should help those interested in doing HQ cleaning or joining the FH Staff team. And also help - - i am sure they
Revision History
April 26th, 2006
File handling settings updated
Link to better Pen Tool tutorial added
Levelling section updated (thanks pzero)
Links to more grey patterns addedApril 1st, 2006
Table of Contents Added
Another example on how to do the greys by Itaku added.
Further clarification on the Frame/Panel outlines section
Cleaning the SFX section has been fixed - "Contract Selection" is no good 90% of the time.March 31st, 2006
Compendium posted.
Compendium made available for public use.______________________________________________ ___
Table of Contents
Letter from Shinwei
File Handling
Photoshop Techniques
Lasso, Fill, and Stroke
The Brush - Love and Hate
Pen Tool Primer
Cleaning Process
Step One: Levels
Step Two: Rotation
Step Three: Bubbles
Step Four: Frame/Panel Outlines
Step Five: Clean the SFX
Step Six: Blacken the Blacks
Step Seven: Enhance the Lines
Step Eight: Greys!
Step Nine: Clean the Whites _________________________________________________
Letter from Shinwei
Hello everyone, I should have done something like this a long time ago but I just never got around to it. I feel it would probably be a good idea share all of the techniques I use for cleaning with all of you. I do not claim to be a perfect cleaner nor do I expect any of you to be, we are all here to learn from each other and to release One Piece because it is a manga that totally deserves the highest level of cleaning love <3. That said, I present to you the Rampage Cleaners' Compendium and I hope that it will grow over time as stuff is added by both me and you.
First things first, I'll start off with a little bit of cleaning philosophy which I believe is one of the cardinal rules of cleaning:
If there exists a technique that will take a longer time, that technique will probably produce higher quality results.
Cleaning is a test of patience. There are times when you just want to tear your eyes and hair out in frustration when you just can't get something to look the way you want, or when it takes you a two hours just to do a single panel only to realize there's 4 more on that same page. I know its happened to me, and its times like those that you really start to wonder why your doing this in the first place. Don't be afraid to take breaks, we want to keep this experience as enjoyable for everyone as possible, and the ultimate goal is simply to please the reader we are trying to reach. At times it will not feel like its worth it, because its very true that this activity does not come with very high rewards. Nevertheless, I am very glad you all chose to join me in our desire to release high quality manga to the masses, and here in this thread we will try to assemble everything we need to know in order to clean at the highest possible quality at the highest efficiency.
-Shinwei
_________________________________________________
File Handling *Updated 4/26/06*
PNG is the best format to use for manga pages. The settings I use in Photoshop when saving are as follows:
File > Save for Web
The screen should look like the one on the right.
I have those settings saved as "PNG-8 16 No Dither" and you should too. To save and load settings, click that arrow thingy on the right side of the screen above the word "Interlaced".
Those are my favorite settings. However, note that if you use some fancy patterns or whatever, 16 colors may not cut it and you may be forced to crank it up to 32 at the expense of some filesize. Just remember quality is of #1 importance.
http://www.fmahq.com/shinwei/PNG-settings.gif
_________________________________________________
Photoshop Techniques
All the stuff we use to clean:
Lasso, Fill, and Stroke
The first tool you should probably familiarize yourself with is the Polygonal Lasso tool (L). Its very simple to use, and if you don't already know how to use it you probably wouldn't be here. Using this to make selections then filling them with either black or white is something you should find yourself doing over and over again while cleaning.
There are also two functions in the Edit menu that come in very useful when you make selections with the Lasso. These are Fill and Stroke. You should be familiar with Fill. Stroke is very simple as well, and if you open it up you should easily be able to understand how to use it. Stroke is very useful to enhance the lines of manga panel borders and text bubbles.
The Brush - Love and Hate
The Brush. A universally useful tool that can also be the biggest pain in the butt. I generally have two presets saved for my brush to allow for easy switching, and they are:
-1px Hard Round Brush
Extremely useful for the fine points. This can be used to trace lines and everything.
-5px Hard Round Brush
This is the setting I use for broad cleaning purposes. Brush black to clean white specks on black areas, brush white to clean black specks on white areas.
Pen Tool Primer
The Pen Tool is my favorite tool in Photoshop. It is phenomenally useful and I can't imagine having to clean manga without it. However, for some reason its not that popular and many people who I've met have never even used it before, so here I'll give a short primer.
Let's start by setting it up. We want to draw PATHS and not SHAPES, so make sure the settings at the top of your screen after selecting the Pen Tool (P) are as follows:
http://www.fmahq.com/shinwei/pensetup.gif
Now just try drawing shapes with the Pen Tool on a new document. You should find that it is very similar to the Lasso tool, but that's not all it is. Paths drawn using the Pen Tool can easily be saved and manipulated, so if you make a mistake you don't have to start all over like you do with the Lasso tool. Play around with the Paths palette, which should be in the same window as your Layers and Channels palettes to see what you can do there.
Next comes the main strength and power of the pen tool: the bezier curve function.
Try drawing another shape, but this time whenever you make a click, hold down the mouse button and move the mouse around. Notice how two curve guides appear and your lines are now curved? That's what the Pen Tool is all about. Holding down ALT lets you alter those curve guides, and holding down CTRL allows you to move anchorpoints. When you are done drawing your shape but still want to make corrections, use the Convert Point Tool, which is listed under the Pen tool in your toolbar.
After you are done drawing your shape, right click somewhere on your path. The two main functions we are going to be using are Make Selection and Stroke Path. Make selection does just that... it makes a selection based on your shape. When you get used to drawing paths, I find that the Pen tool owns the Lasso 90% of the time to make selections.
The Stroke Path function will allow you to apply your current brush settings and brush along your path - also very useful for enhancing lines.
*UPDATE 4/26/06*
I found a VERY good tutorial online to introduce you to the pen tool if my explanation was no good, it's available at:
http://www.thegoldenmean.com/technique/pen1.html
Check it out, I mean it.
_________________________________________________
Cleaning Process
Down to the nitty-gritty:
Step Number One: Levels *Updated 4/26/06*
In a Jump scan, to avoid overlevelling there's a rule of thumb to follow: you look for the "peaks" in the level graph and adjust the sliders just a little bit further than those peaks. The location of these peaks depends on the scanner, because sometimes the scanner will do some levelling him/herself before posting the raw. I have attached an image to help you get a better understand of what the peaks are.
From pzero: Look at the picture on the right, the stuff that's highlighted red is what is intended to be black in the image, blue would be the grays, and green being roughly where you should level. Of course, the other option is to level just to the peak, but then go in with burn on midtones or shadows and manually darken the remainder.
Note that if your levels dialog does not say Channel: Gray at the top, you should probably change the mode to Grayscale first.
Image > Mode > Grayscale
Overlevelling occurs when you drag that slider too far past the peak. Here's an example of why not to do that:
http://www.fmahq.com/shinwei/levelling2.gif
http://www.fmahq.com/shinwei/levellingp.gif
Now let's talk about levelling the whites.
The first thing we want to do is create a Layers adjustment layer on top of our manga layer. To do this go to Layers > New Adjustment Layer > Levels. You will be asked to give it a name, do so and hit OK.
Now you will be presented with the familiar levels window.
Here, drag the slider all the way to the right, and your image should look like this (http://www.fmahq.com/shinwei/levelling-white.png). See all the dirty specks in the white area?
Go back and select your original manga layer, and this time hit CTRL-L to perform levels on it directly, and slide the right slider in until all the dirty specks are gone.
Finally, you can go ahead and disable your adjustment layer that you created.
Step Number Two: Rotation
I find that slojo's rotation technique is the one that makes the most sense for me. The goal of rotation is to make it so the page is not crooked. Simple.
To help us out we will make a guide or two in Photoshop:
View > New Guide > Vertical
Hit OK.
Take the Move Tool (V) to drag the guide you just made close to the vertical edge of several manga panels, then just Free Transform (CTRL-T) the manga and rotate it so the panels line up with the perfectly straight vertical guide. Note that if Free Transform isn't working, its because your working on the background layer, which is locked. Just cut & paste the manga into a new layer.
http://www.fmahq.com/shinwei/rotation.gif
Step Number Three: Bubbles
Depending on the quality of the scan, you may or may not have to do this, but I recommend doing it anyway because it will make your life a lot easier later. The reason we are going to redraw the bubbles is because in a manga page, bubbles are for the most part the "top layer" and everything else is under them. After redrawing bubbles, it makes it a lot easier to redraw other stuff because we won't have to worry about drawing over the bubbles.
So let's start off by creating a New Layer and renaming it to "Bubbles". We are going to be doing all our work on Bubbles in this layer.
Whip out our handy-dandy pen tool and trace the bubbles' exteriors as shown in the picture to the right. Then right click > Make Selection, and fill with white. Now before you deselect, go to Edit > Stroke and set Width: 1px and Location to "Center" and hit OK. Then do it AGAIN, this time with Location on the "Outside". The width and location can be adjusted depending on the width of the original bubble lines and how you traced it, but the settings above should be OK for the most part. If not, play with it.
Repeat for every bubble on the page. Now we have our bubbles redrawn. This also makes sure there's no black specks in our bubbles so we have killed two birds with one stone.
http://www.fmahq.com/shinwei/bubbles1.png
Step Number Four: Frame/Panel Outlines
If you didn't redraw the bubbles in the last step, this step will be a little bit more difficult for you, but not that much more. Anyway, here we are going to redraw the outlines of each panel in two very simple steps. Once again, make yourself a new layer for this to work on (arrange your layers so everything is under the bubbles layer).
Select the entire frame using the Lasso tool. Zoom in to 300% or so or further if necessary to do this. The selection should look like the picture to the right.
Edit > Stroke
For most manga panels I set the Width to 3px and the Location to "Inside", but the outlines for this particular frame in the picture look thinner, so I am going to set the width to 2px. Hit OK.Now your panel's outline should look nice and sharp.
Note that some panels are located at the edge of the page. You don't want to stroke the edge of the page, so when you use your polygonal lasso tool, make sure you extend your selection "off the page" by clicking outside of the document. Don't use the marquee tool for square frames either, that'll stroke the edge of the page as well. Refer to the second image to the right for details.
After you've stroked all the outlines on the page (they should all be in the same layer, and nothing else should be in that layer), take your magic wand tool and select the white area outside all the frames. Everything should be easily selected in one click, fill this area with white to remove any rough edges and ALL DUST (yay!) from outside the manga panels. See image below:
http://www.fmahq.com/shinwei/frame-outlines3.png
http://www.fmahq.com/shinwei/frame-outlines.png
http://www.fmahq.com/shinwei/frame-outlines2.png
Step Number Five: Clean the SFX
Now the next step is to clean the SFX. SFX also tend to be very high on the layers ranking so they are good to do.
Start by creating a new layer for the SFX. I've actually created two new layers for this set of particular SFX because some are overlapping others.
Select the characters one by one using the pen tool or lasso tool (Picture 1), and then fill with black. Do this for each of the characters. For the two characters labelled "a" and "b" I actually did them on another layer UNDER the layer where the other characters were done, the reason for this should be obvious.
When you have done that, your SFX should look like the ones shown in picture 2. In other words, they are ugly as hell. What we need to do here is to right click on the layer containing the SFX, and select Blending Options. Here we will give it a Stroke: 2px Outside, White. Do this for both layers, and they should now look like Picture 3.
Now if you'll remember, there was gray inside these SFX before! We have to bring that grey back, and make it look better too. This is very simple. Load up the selection of the first SFX layer by holding CTRL and clicking on the Layer Thumbnail for that layer (not the name!) in your Layers palette. Now go to the Select menu and select Modify > Contract. In this particular case I am going to contract by 6 pixels. Your image should look like picture 4.
Fill with a shade of grey to reach picture 5. Now, before you deselect, go to the Filter Menu and Noise > Add Noise. My noise settings were 15% at Uniform with Monochromatic checked. You can play around with the noise settings and use different shades of grey for the fill to achieve different results. I probably should have used a lighter shade of grey for this one, but oh well.
Repeat for the other SFX layer and you are done (picture 6). Just remember you don't need to add grey when there was no grey on the original SFX.
http://www.fmahq.com/shinwei/sfx1.png
http://www.fmahq.com/shinwei/sfx2.png
http://www.fmahq.com/shinwei/sfx3.png
http://www.fmahq.com/shinwei/sfx4.pnghttp://www.fmahq.com/shinwei/Manga/sfx5.pnghttp://www.fmahq.com/shinwei/sfx6.png
You CANNOT use Contract Selection to do the greys on 90% of the SFX! It only works for SFX that have no corners or bends in them. This is because Contract Selection produces rounded edges when there are bends and corners in the selection. Here's an example:
http://www.fmahq.com/shinwei/sfx7.png
In this case you want to manually select the inner area to be greyed using your lasso or pen tool, then grey it however you like. I put my grey in a new layer this time, just in case.
Step Number Six:
Blacken the Blacks
Let's go back to our previous example, which looks like Image 1 to the right.
Jump scans suck. They have all these white specks all over the black areas. Create a new layer, and using your skills with the Lasso and Pen Tool, select all these black areas and fill them with black. I shouldn't really have to explain this in any more detail.
The image should now look like Image 2 to the right.
http://www.fmahq.com/shinwei/example1.png
http://www.fmahq.com/shinwei/example2.png
Step Number Seven:
Enhance the Lines
A lot of lines in Jump scans look broken and faded. Correct them using the Pen Tool and stroke with 1px brush. Don't overuse it, and don't use it on faces. For lines that are finer and need more detail, use the 1px hard round brush ALONE and MANUALLY enhance the lines.
In Image 3 you can see me tracing a strand of his hair with the Pen tool. I'm actually going to stroke it with a 1px brush TWICE to get my desired appearance.
After I am done stroking with the pen tool, if I were to disable the layer containing the manga itself, my panel should look like Image 4. Note that I did not stroke his eyes, nose, or eyebrows. Those need to be done manually using the 1px Hard Round Brush. Brushing those in yields Image 5.
http://www.fmahq.com/shinwei/example3.png
http://www.fmahq.com/shinwei/example4.pnghttp://www.fmahq.com/shinwei/example5.png
Step Number Eight: Greys!
Greys usually suck in Jump scans too. We need to replace them.
First, download the grey pattern we are going to use:
http://www.tmiscans.com/shinwei/gris.pat
Put this file inside your Program Files \ Adobe \ Adobe Photoshop CS2 \ Presets \ Patterns directory.
There are more patterns available at http://psychobob.xepher.net/screentonez/. I especially like their Dots and Screens 2 pack, as there are a lot of patterns in there that are better than the one I have linked above.
The technique is:
Roughly select area to be greyed (Image 6).
Enter Quick Mask mode (Q), and brush out all the features with the 1px Brush (Image 7). In Quick Mask mode, everything that's red is not selected and everything that's clear is selected. Yes, I know you have already redrawn most of them, but some of them will look weird unless they have the original artwork underneath, so make sure you do this step. Obviously I used the Pen Tool and Lasso to red out the big areas, but for all the little lines use the brush.
Exit Quick Mask (Q), you should have all the grey area selected, as shown in Image 8.
Fill with the grey pattern in a new layer. Your image should now look like Image 9.
Take a look at your lines again and make sure they are good. Redraw those lines under his eyebrow with the Line Tool (U).http://www.fmahq.com/shinwei/example6.pnghttp://www.fmahq.com/shinwei/example7.pnghttp://www.fmahq.com/shinwei/example8.pnghttp://www.fmahq.com/shinwei/example9.png
For another example on how to do this, Itaku has made one available here (http://img128.imageshack.us/img128/859/masque6cz.jpg).
Up until now, your image should look like the one shown on the right. There are only two more things we need to do to it. Notice we haven't touched his staff that still looks really ugly. His teeth also have specks in them that need to be brushed (ha ha). So let's do that:
Step Number Nine: Clean the Whites!
The white areas need to be cleaned too, not just the black areas. I know there appears to be a nearly infinite number of black specks all over the white areas, and it looks like it will take forever to clean, but cleaning them DOES MAKE A DIFFERENCE. At the very least, make sure you clean all the specks off of people's faces, their hair, their body parts, and all the stuff outside the frames.
http://www.fmahq.com/shinwei/example10.png
Finally, apply motion blur to the stick:
Select the stick in the original layer that contains the manga. Sometimes I get lazy and blur directly in the original layer, but if you are so inclined you can make a copy of the original layer just in case.
I applied Levels again to the stick selection ONLY - making it darker.
Filter > Blur > Motion Blur. The settings I used were to have it blur straight up and down, and 10px of distance.The final image is displayed to the right.
http://www.fmahq.com/shinwei/example11.png
Tutorial 02
Found this on Shannaro Forums. ALso saved this pdf. Anyone needing it should post it here. Here is the Original Link
** Please use this tutorial to learn and expand your cleaning skills. **
** For those trying out for the recruitment thread post your TEST pages in the
Join Shannaro! thread in Contributions section (http://www.shannaro.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1882) not here.
This tutorial expects that you know how to level pages.
If you don't, please visit this Leveling Tutorial (http://www.shannaro.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2192)" by chiresakura.
First of all, please notice that this isn't a grey areas only tutorial, since it explains how to clean a hard page from start to finish, from borders to speed lines, except gradients and redrawing under text. I could write a tutorial about them too, if it became necessary in some future chapter.
Second off, remember that there are some things you need before starting to clean a hard page:
1) Patience and free time...much free time.
2) Graphic tablet - do not clean with the mouse!!!
2) Photoshop (I'm using CS2, but even CS1 and older versions are ok) / Gimp (I never used it but it should be similar to PS).
3) Music or other to make the work more enjoyable...I usually listen to Oh! Naruto Nippon.. ^^ (optional)
Are you ready? Start!
(zip of all the psd files I used as examples (http://narutocommunity.free.fr/narutodl/CompleteCleaningTutorial/CompleteCleaningTutorial_psd-Examples.zip))
(psd template for cleaning (with all the layers!). (http://narutocommunity.free.fr/narutodl/CompleteCleaningTutorial/psd_template_for_cleaning.psd)) - NEW!
GENERAL NOTES:
1) Adjust the sensibility of your Graphic Pen in the Graphic Tablet menu (you should find it in the Control Panel).
2) Clean while being in "Full Screen Mode With Menu Bar", you will be able to move the page freely and see better even borders.
3) ALWAYS lock all the layers except the one you're working on. You may want to lock the position of some layers, too (for example, if you have to rotate the page). Sometimes you still could have to adjust the position of a layer manually, since it could slice a little (in this case, use the “Move Tool”).
3) Save your work every max. 5 minutes!
4) To re-draw background areas under removed texts, you can use the "Stamp Tool" (this works very well with grass and foliage). - NEW!
5) To erase the spots that sometimes appear on grey areas after changing the page mode from RGB to Greyscale, go to "Image" --> "Adjustments" --> "Posterize" (a 20 levels setting usually works). Sometimes, to notice these spot you've to zoom the page at about 700%. - NEW!
6) About Sai's art, please don't clean pages where you've to trace the inking of those monsters if you don't have a graphic tablet, and if you have it always use the "Brush Tool" (size: 2/3 pixels; if some strokes are too thick use the "Erase Tool" to adjust them, but not a 1 pixel brush because Sai's art looks quite "bold"). - NEW!
PREPARATIONS:
1) Open both the raw version and the pre-clean version of the page you're going to clean. More the page has speed lines and grey areas, more you must use a less pre-clean version other than the raw itself.
2) Put the raw as the bottom layer naming it "raw", then rename the pre-clean page "background" (to add it to the raw page file, you only have to select it all, then copy-past it on a new layer of the raw file).
3) Above the "background" add these layers exactly in the same order as I list them: "grey areas", "inking", "white lines", "borders", "sfx". At the end, you should have "raw" at the bottom and "sfx" at the top.
4) If needed, change the image mode from greyscale to RGB (if you're asked if you want to merge layers, always choose not to merge them), then resize it to a 72 pixels/inch resolution (without resampling the page of course, or it would become smaller).
6) Save the file in a format that allow you to keep its levels (psd is the best one, if you use Photoshop).
Example_00 (http://narutocommunity.free.fr/narutodl/CompleteCleaningTutorial/00.JPG)
(As you can see, I've given a specifical colour to every layer; if you do the same cleaning will become easier and faster)
SFX:
1) Sometimes there should be one or more sfx completely or partially outside of panels, which you must copy-past on the "sfx" layer after selecting them from the "background" layer with the "Magic Hand Tool" (set the "Tolerance" at about 30, select "Contiguous" and "Add to selection" options).
2) Once on the "sfx" layer, make them darker with “Levels”, and fix the still greyish areas with the "Brush Tool" (colour: black).
3) Trace the sfx borders with the "Brush Tool" as well (colour: orange...yes orange, you'll turn them white later). You don't have to trace everything, but only the portions where the sfx go outside the borders and on grey areas.
Example_01 (http://narutocommunity.free.fr/narutodl/CompleteCleaningTutorial/01.JPG)
BORDERS:
1) The important thing when fixing borders is not to cut too much from the panels. Sometimes you may want to rotate the page after checking if it’s straight using a vertical and a horizontal rule; to rotate it, go to "Image" --> "Rotate Canvas" --> "Arbitrary".
2) After rotating the page, sometimes you have to crop it with the "Crop Tool", if some panels hit the borders of the page...but don't crop it too much!
3) On the "borders" layer, select the white areas outside the borders with the "Rectangular Marquee Tool" and paint the selected areas white; move the selection a bit right, left, up or down to always erase only a small portion of the original black borders. Always leave a bit of the original black borders, they will help you to place in the right positions the new ones.
Example_02 (http://narutocommunity.free.fr/narutodl/CompleteCleaningTutorial/02.JPG)
4) Use the "Line Tool" (2 pixels, colour: black) to re-draw the borders. Rasterize every line you trace and place it as much as possible over the original border; at the end, merge all the new layers you created with the main "borders" one.
Example_03 (http://narutocommunity.free.fr/narutodl/CompleteCleaningTutorial/03.JPG)
5) Once all the borders have been merged, use the "Brush Tool" (colour: white) to erase the unnecessary borders' portions.
Example_04 (http://narutocommunity.free.fr/narutodl/CompleteCleaningTutorial/04.JPG)
WHITE LINES:
1) Zoom in the page between 400% and 600% and make the "background" layer invisible (it's better to trace using the raw as reference, not the pre-clean page).
2) On the "white lines" layer, use the "Brush Tool" (1 pixels, colour: yellow) to trace all the white lines on both B&W and grey areas (the white lines on grey areas will be painted grey later, the ones on black and white areas will be painted white later as well).
3) Remember to modulate the lines and use the "Erase Tool" if needed.
Example_05 (http://narutocommunity.free.fr/narutodl/CompleteCleaningTutorial/05.JPG)
(Note: in the page of my examples there aren't white lines on grey areas!)
INKING:
1) Zoom in the page between 400% and 600% and make the "background" layer invisible again.
2) On the "inking" layer, use the "Brush Tool" (1 pixel, colour: red) to trace the inking on grey areas (and every adjacent line...balloons' too). After than, fill the black parts of the drawing (only on grey areas or contiguous) with the red colour, but using a bigger brush if needed.
3) If the page has areas with speed lines, trace in the same way the inking under the speed lines.
4) Remember to modulate every line like in the original inking and use the "Erase Tool" if needed. This is the hardest and most important part of the cleaning, so do it very carefully!
5) If you think you can trace a line better rotating the page, do it, and remember that these red lines will be turned black later.
6) You can use the "Line Tool" (weight: 1 pixel) sometimes, but only for tracing the inking of straight architectonic elements, speed lines on the backgrounds or outside the figures (I’m talking about normal speed lines, not the ones on black areas), and sometimes shadows on the figures. Anyway, use the "Brush Tool" as much as possible, since with the "Line Tool" you can't modulate the inking.
7) If you have used the "Line Tool", remember to merge all the new layers with the main "inking" one.
Example_06a (http://narutocommunity.free.fr/narutodl/CompleteCleaningTutorial/06a.jpg)
Example_06b (http://narutocommunity.free.fr/narutodl/CompleteCleaningTutorial/06b.jpg)
(IMPORTANT: ALAWAYS USE THE RAW, NEVER THE PRECLEAN PAGE TO TRACE THE INKING, AND DON’T TRACE THE DARK SPEED LINES AREAS!)
GREY AREAS:
1) Make the background layer visible again, and select all the panels with grey areas. Zoom in the page at about 300%.
2) On the "grey areas" layer, use the "Brush Tool" (colour: light grey) to fill the grey areas.
3) Be careful and don't paint grey outside the inking you traced. Use the "Eraser Tool" if needed. Don't paint grey over the speed lines portions of grey areas, either.
Example_07 (http://narutocommunity.free.fr/narutodl/CompleteCleaningTutorial/07.JPG)
SPEED LINES:
1) Deselect the panels with grey areas, then go to “Image” --> “Mode” and switch it from RGB to Grayscale (don’t merge the layers yet!).
2) On the "inking" layer, use "Levels" to turn the inking black.
3) On the "white lines" layer, use "Levels" to turn white the lines you traced before (you’ll turn the ones on grey areas grey later).
4) On the "sfx" layer, use "Levels" to turn white the sfx' borders you traced before.
Example_08 (http://narutocommunity.free.fr/narutodl/CompleteCleaningTutorial/08.JPG)
5) On the "background" layer, zoom the page at about 400% and fix the black strokes of speed lines (and foliage) in both B&W and grey areas with the "Brush Tool" (1 pixel, colour: black). Rotate the page is you find it useful to trace the speed lines better.
Example_09a (http://narutocommunity.free.fr/narutodl/CompleteCleaningTutorial/09a.jpg)
Example_09b (http://narutocommunity.free.fr/narutodl/CompleteCleaningTutorial/09b.jpg)
7) Still on the zoomed "background" layer, fix the white and grey strokes of speed lines (and foliage), respectively in B&W and grey areas, with the "Brush Tool" (1 pixel, colour: white for B&W areas / the same grey you used before for the grey areas). As above, you might want to rotate the page.
Example_10a (http://narutocommunity.free.fr/narutodl/CompleteCleaningTutorial/10a.jpg)
Example_10b (http://narutocommunity.free.fr/narutodl/CompleteCleaningTutorial/10b.jpg)
(IMPORTANT: REMEMBER TO USE THE SAME GREY OR BOTH GREY AREAS AND THE LIGHTER STROKES OF SPEED LINES AND FOLIAGE ON GREY AREAS!)
BACKGROUND:
1) On the "background" layer, erase the text from balloons (except special punctuation and sfx) with the "Brush Tool" (colour: white), then zoom the page at about 300% and fix the greyish lines with the "Brush Tool" (colour: black / white to erase spots and other dirty areas).
Example_11 (http://narutocommunity.free.fr/narutodl/CompleteCleaningTutorial/11.JPG)
2) Select panels one at a time and apply "Levels" to them. Sometimes you may want to select specific areas too, to fix them better.
Example_12a (http://narutocommunity.free.fr/narutodl/CompleteCleaningTutorial/12a.jpg)
Example_12b (http://narutocommunity.free.fr/narutodl/CompleteCleaningTutorial/12b.jpg)
3) Zoom in the page at 700% and fix the black, white and grey areas on every layer checking for spots (make sure to fix anything in the right layer!). At this point, you could use the "Smudge Tool" (strength: about 7% / diameter: about 9 pixels / hardness: about 11%), to smooth some crispy areas, but with moderation!
Example_13a (http://narutocommunity.free.fr/narutodl/CompleteCleaningTutorial/13a.jpg)
Example_13b (http://narutocommunity.free.fr/narutodl/CompleteCleaningTutorial/13b.jpg)
5) When you believe everything is ok, merge all the layers and save the page in png. If there are white lines on grey areas, at this point you must darken them with the "Brush Tool" (small size, darken mode, colour: light grey you used before).
6) Finally, check the png page to see if the grey has the right brightness (use the raw as reference): if it is ok you are done, otherwise you've to use the "Levels" to fix it.
Example_14 (http://narutocommunity.free.fr/narutodl/CompleteCleaningTutorial/14.JPG)
(Finished page!) http://www.shannaro.com/forums/images/smilies/dance.gif
** Tutorial by Sariachan
Originally posted on MH. So i posting it here for everyone interested. If anyone is interested i can convert to pdf
This should help those interested in doing HQ cleaning or joining the FH Staff team. And also help - - i am sure they
Revision History
April 26th, 2006
File handling settings updated
Link to better Pen Tool tutorial added
Levelling section updated (thanks pzero)
Links to more grey patterns addedApril 1st, 2006
Table of Contents Added
Another example on how to do the greys by Itaku added.
Further clarification on the Frame/Panel outlines section
Cleaning the SFX section has been fixed - "Contract Selection" is no good 90% of the time.March 31st, 2006
Compendium posted.
Compendium made available for public use.______________________________________________ ___
Table of Contents
Letter from Shinwei
File Handling
Photoshop Techniques
Lasso, Fill, and Stroke
The Brush - Love and Hate
Pen Tool Primer
Cleaning Process
Step One: Levels
Step Two: Rotation
Step Three: Bubbles
Step Four: Frame/Panel Outlines
Step Five: Clean the SFX
Step Six: Blacken the Blacks
Step Seven: Enhance the Lines
Step Eight: Greys!
Step Nine: Clean the Whites _________________________________________________
Letter from Shinwei
Hello everyone, I should have done something like this a long time ago but I just never got around to it. I feel it would probably be a good idea share all of the techniques I use for cleaning with all of you. I do not claim to be a perfect cleaner nor do I expect any of you to be, we are all here to learn from each other and to release One Piece because it is a manga that totally deserves the highest level of cleaning love <3. That said, I present to you the Rampage Cleaners' Compendium and I hope that it will grow over time as stuff is added by both me and you.
First things first, I'll start off with a little bit of cleaning philosophy which I believe is one of the cardinal rules of cleaning:
If there exists a technique that will take a longer time, that technique will probably produce higher quality results.
Cleaning is a test of patience. There are times when you just want to tear your eyes and hair out in frustration when you just can't get something to look the way you want, or when it takes you a two hours just to do a single panel only to realize there's 4 more on that same page. I know its happened to me, and its times like those that you really start to wonder why your doing this in the first place. Don't be afraid to take breaks, we want to keep this experience as enjoyable for everyone as possible, and the ultimate goal is simply to please the reader we are trying to reach. At times it will not feel like its worth it, because its very true that this activity does not come with very high rewards. Nevertheless, I am very glad you all chose to join me in our desire to release high quality manga to the masses, and here in this thread we will try to assemble everything we need to know in order to clean at the highest possible quality at the highest efficiency.
-Shinwei
_________________________________________________
File Handling *Updated 4/26/06*
PNG is the best format to use for manga pages. The settings I use in Photoshop when saving are as follows:
File > Save for Web
The screen should look like the one on the right.
I have those settings saved as "PNG-8 16 No Dither" and you should too. To save and load settings, click that arrow thingy on the right side of the screen above the word "Interlaced".
Those are my favorite settings. However, note that if you use some fancy patterns or whatever, 16 colors may not cut it and you may be forced to crank it up to 32 at the expense of some filesize. Just remember quality is of #1 importance.
http://www.fmahq.com/shinwei/PNG-settings.gif
_________________________________________________
Photoshop Techniques
All the stuff we use to clean:
Lasso, Fill, and Stroke
The first tool you should probably familiarize yourself with is the Polygonal Lasso tool (L). Its very simple to use, and if you don't already know how to use it you probably wouldn't be here. Using this to make selections then filling them with either black or white is something you should find yourself doing over and over again while cleaning.
There are also two functions in the Edit menu that come in very useful when you make selections with the Lasso. These are Fill and Stroke. You should be familiar with Fill. Stroke is very simple as well, and if you open it up you should easily be able to understand how to use it. Stroke is very useful to enhance the lines of manga panel borders and text bubbles.
The Brush - Love and Hate
The Brush. A universally useful tool that can also be the biggest pain in the butt. I generally have two presets saved for my brush to allow for easy switching, and they are:
-1px Hard Round Brush
Extremely useful for the fine points. This can be used to trace lines and everything.
-5px Hard Round Brush
This is the setting I use for broad cleaning purposes. Brush black to clean white specks on black areas, brush white to clean black specks on white areas.
Pen Tool Primer
The Pen Tool is my favorite tool in Photoshop. It is phenomenally useful and I can't imagine having to clean manga without it. However, for some reason its not that popular and many people who I've met have never even used it before, so here I'll give a short primer.
Let's start by setting it up. We want to draw PATHS and not SHAPES, so make sure the settings at the top of your screen after selecting the Pen Tool (P) are as follows:
http://www.fmahq.com/shinwei/pensetup.gif
Now just try drawing shapes with the Pen Tool on a new document. You should find that it is very similar to the Lasso tool, but that's not all it is. Paths drawn using the Pen Tool can easily be saved and manipulated, so if you make a mistake you don't have to start all over like you do with the Lasso tool. Play around with the Paths palette, which should be in the same window as your Layers and Channels palettes to see what you can do there.
Next comes the main strength and power of the pen tool: the bezier curve function.
Try drawing another shape, but this time whenever you make a click, hold down the mouse button and move the mouse around. Notice how two curve guides appear and your lines are now curved? That's what the Pen Tool is all about. Holding down ALT lets you alter those curve guides, and holding down CTRL allows you to move anchorpoints. When you are done drawing your shape but still want to make corrections, use the Convert Point Tool, which is listed under the Pen tool in your toolbar.
After you are done drawing your shape, right click somewhere on your path. The two main functions we are going to be using are Make Selection and Stroke Path. Make selection does just that... it makes a selection based on your shape. When you get used to drawing paths, I find that the Pen tool owns the Lasso 90% of the time to make selections.
The Stroke Path function will allow you to apply your current brush settings and brush along your path - also very useful for enhancing lines.
*UPDATE 4/26/06*
I found a VERY good tutorial online to introduce you to the pen tool if my explanation was no good, it's available at:
http://www.thegoldenmean.com/technique/pen1.html
Check it out, I mean it.
_________________________________________________
Cleaning Process
Down to the nitty-gritty:
Step Number One: Levels *Updated 4/26/06*
In a Jump scan, to avoid overlevelling there's a rule of thumb to follow: you look for the "peaks" in the level graph and adjust the sliders just a little bit further than those peaks. The location of these peaks depends on the scanner, because sometimes the scanner will do some levelling him/herself before posting the raw. I have attached an image to help you get a better understand of what the peaks are.
From pzero: Look at the picture on the right, the stuff that's highlighted red is what is intended to be black in the image, blue would be the grays, and green being roughly where you should level. Of course, the other option is to level just to the peak, but then go in with burn on midtones or shadows and manually darken the remainder.
Note that if your levels dialog does not say Channel: Gray at the top, you should probably change the mode to Grayscale first.
Image > Mode > Grayscale
Overlevelling occurs when you drag that slider too far past the peak. Here's an example of why not to do that:
http://www.fmahq.com/shinwei/levelling2.gif
http://www.fmahq.com/shinwei/levellingp.gif
Now let's talk about levelling the whites.
The first thing we want to do is create a Layers adjustment layer on top of our manga layer. To do this go to Layers > New Adjustment Layer > Levels. You will be asked to give it a name, do so and hit OK.
Now you will be presented with the familiar levels window.
Here, drag the slider all the way to the right, and your image should look like this (http://www.fmahq.com/shinwei/levelling-white.png). See all the dirty specks in the white area?
Go back and select your original manga layer, and this time hit CTRL-L to perform levels on it directly, and slide the right slider in until all the dirty specks are gone.
Finally, you can go ahead and disable your adjustment layer that you created.
Step Number Two: Rotation
I find that slojo's rotation technique is the one that makes the most sense for me. The goal of rotation is to make it so the page is not crooked. Simple.
To help us out we will make a guide or two in Photoshop:
View > New Guide > Vertical
Hit OK.
Take the Move Tool (V) to drag the guide you just made close to the vertical edge of several manga panels, then just Free Transform (CTRL-T) the manga and rotate it so the panels line up with the perfectly straight vertical guide. Note that if Free Transform isn't working, its because your working on the background layer, which is locked. Just cut & paste the manga into a new layer.
http://www.fmahq.com/shinwei/rotation.gif
Step Number Three: Bubbles
Depending on the quality of the scan, you may or may not have to do this, but I recommend doing it anyway because it will make your life a lot easier later. The reason we are going to redraw the bubbles is because in a manga page, bubbles are for the most part the "top layer" and everything else is under them. After redrawing bubbles, it makes it a lot easier to redraw other stuff because we won't have to worry about drawing over the bubbles.
So let's start off by creating a New Layer and renaming it to "Bubbles". We are going to be doing all our work on Bubbles in this layer.
Whip out our handy-dandy pen tool and trace the bubbles' exteriors as shown in the picture to the right. Then right click > Make Selection, and fill with white. Now before you deselect, go to Edit > Stroke and set Width: 1px and Location to "Center" and hit OK. Then do it AGAIN, this time with Location on the "Outside". The width and location can be adjusted depending on the width of the original bubble lines and how you traced it, but the settings above should be OK for the most part. If not, play with it.
Repeat for every bubble on the page. Now we have our bubbles redrawn. This also makes sure there's no black specks in our bubbles so we have killed two birds with one stone.
http://www.fmahq.com/shinwei/bubbles1.png
Step Number Four: Frame/Panel Outlines
If you didn't redraw the bubbles in the last step, this step will be a little bit more difficult for you, but not that much more. Anyway, here we are going to redraw the outlines of each panel in two very simple steps. Once again, make yourself a new layer for this to work on (arrange your layers so everything is under the bubbles layer).
Select the entire frame using the Lasso tool. Zoom in to 300% or so or further if necessary to do this. The selection should look like the picture to the right.
Edit > Stroke
For most manga panels I set the Width to 3px and the Location to "Inside", but the outlines for this particular frame in the picture look thinner, so I am going to set the width to 2px. Hit OK.Now your panel's outline should look nice and sharp.
Note that some panels are located at the edge of the page. You don't want to stroke the edge of the page, so when you use your polygonal lasso tool, make sure you extend your selection "off the page" by clicking outside of the document. Don't use the marquee tool for square frames either, that'll stroke the edge of the page as well. Refer to the second image to the right for details.
After you've stroked all the outlines on the page (they should all be in the same layer, and nothing else should be in that layer), take your magic wand tool and select the white area outside all the frames. Everything should be easily selected in one click, fill this area with white to remove any rough edges and ALL DUST (yay!) from outside the manga panels. See image below:
http://www.fmahq.com/shinwei/frame-outlines3.png
http://www.fmahq.com/shinwei/frame-outlines.png
http://www.fmahq.com/shinwei/frame-outlines2.png
Step Number Five: Clean the SFX
Now the next step is to clean the SFX. SFX also tend to be very high on the layers ranking so they are good to do.
Start by creating a new layer for the SFX. I've actually created two new layers for this set of particular SFX because some are overlapping others.
Select the characters one by one using the pen tool or lasso tool (Picture 1), and then fill with black. Do this for each of the characters. For the two characters labelled "a" and "b" I actually did them on another layer UNDER the layer where the other characters were done, the reason for this should be obvious.
When you have done that, your SFX should look like the ones shown in picture 2. In other words, they are ugly as hell. What we need to do here is to right click on the layer containing the SFX, and select Blending Options. Here we will give it a Stroke: 2px Outside, White. Do this for both layers, and they should now look like Picture 3.
Now if you'll remember, there was gray inside these SFX before! We have to bring that grey back, and make it look better too. This is very simple. Load up the selection of the first SFX layer by holding CTRL and clicking on the Layer Thumbnail for that layer (not the name!) in your Layers palette. Now go to the Select menu and select Modify > Contract. In this particular case I am going to contract by 6 pixels. Your image should look like picture 4.
Fill with a shade of grey to reach picture 5. Now, before you deselect, go to the Filter Menu and Noise > Add Noise. My noise settings were 15% at Uniform with Monochromatic checked. You can play around with the noise settings and use different shades of grey for the fill to achieve different results. I probably should have used a lighter shade of grey for this one, but oh well.
Repeat for the other SFX layer and you are done (picture 6). Just remember you don't need to add grey when there was no grey on the original SFX.
http://www.fmahq.com/shinwei/sfx1.png
http://www.fmahq.com/shinwei/sfx2.png
http://www.fmahq.com/shinwei/sfx3.png
http://www.fmahq.com/shinwei/sfx4.pnghttp://www.fmahq.com/shinwei/Manga/sfx5.pnghttp://www.fmahq.com/shinwei/sfx6.png
You CANNOT use Contract Selection to do the greys on 90% of the SFX! It only works for SFX that have no corners or bends in them. This is because Contract Selection produces rounded edges when there are bends and corners in the selection. Here's an example:
http://www.fmahq.com/shinwei/sfx7.png
In this case you want to manually select the inner area to be greyed using your lasso or pen tool, then grey it however you like. I put my grey in a new layer this time, just in case.
Step Number Six:
Blacken the Blacks
Let's go back to our previous example, which looks like Image 1 to the right.
Jump scans suck. They have all these white specks all over the black areas. Create a new layer, and using your skills with the Lasso and Pen Tool, select all these black areas and fill them with black. I shouldn't really have to explain this in any more detail.
The image should now look like Image 2 to the right.
http://www.fmahq.com/shinwei/example1.png
http://www.fmahq.com/shinwei/example2.png
Step Number Seven:
Enhance the Lines
A lot of lines in Jump scans look broken and faded. Correct them using the Pen Tool and stroke with 1px brush. Don't overuse it, and don't use it on faces. For lines that are finer and need more detail, use the 1px hard round brush ALONE and MANUALLY enhance the lines.
In Image 3 you can see me tracing a strand of his hair with the Pen tool. I'm actually going to stroke it with a 1px brush TWICE to get my desired appearance.
After I am done stroking with the pen tool, if I were to disable the layer containing the manga itself, my panel should look like Image 4. Note that I did not stroke his eyes, nose, or eyebrows. Those need to be done manually using the 1px Hard Round Brush. Brushing those in yields Image 5.
http://www.fmahq.com/shinwei/example3.png
http://www.fmahq.com/shinwei/example4.pnghttp://www.fmahq.com/shinwei/example5.png
Step Number Eight: Greys!
Greys usually suck in Jump scans too. We need to replace them.
First, download the grey pattern we are going to use:
http://www.tmiscans.com/shinwei/gris.pat
Put this file inside your Program Files \ Adobe \ Adobe Photoshop CS2 \ Presets \ Patterns directory.
There are more patterns available at http://psychobob.xepher.net/screentonez/. I especially like their Dots and Screens 2 pack, as there are a lot of patterns in there that are better than the one I have linked above.
The technique is:
Roughly select area to be greyed (Image 6).
Enter Quick Mask mode (Q), and brush out all the features with the 1px Brush (Image 7). In Quick Mask mode, everything that's red is not selected and everything that's clear is selected. Yes, I know you have already redrawn most of them, but some of them will look weird unless they have the original artwork underneath, so make sure you do this step. Obviously I used the Pen Tool and Lasso to red out the big areas, but for all the little lines use the brush.
Exit Quick Mask (Q), you should have all the grey area selected, as shown in Image 8.
Fill with the grey pattern in a new layer. Your image should now look like Image 9.
Take a look at your lines again and make sure they are good. Redraw those lines under his eyebrow with the Line Tool (U).http://www.fmahq.com/shinwei/example6.pnghttp://www.fmahq.com/shinwei/example7.pnghttp://www.fmahq.com/shinwei/example8.pnghttp://www.fmahq.com/shinwei/example9.png
For another example on how to do this, Itaku has made one available here (http://img128.imageshack.us/img128/859/masque6cz.jpg).
Up until now, your image should look like the one shown on the right. There are only two more things we need to do to it. Notice we haven't touched his staff that still looks really ugly. His teeth also have specks in them that need to be brushed (ha ha). So let's do that:
Step Number Nine: Clean the Whites!
The white areas need to be cleaned too, not just the black areas. I know there appears to be a nearly infinite number of black specks all over the white areas, and it looks like it will take forever to clean, but cleaning them DOES MAKE A DIFFERENCE. At the very least, make sure you clean all the specks off of people's faces, their hair, their body parts, and all the stuff outside the frames.
http://www.fmahq.com/shinwei/example10.png
Finally, apply motion blur to the stick:
Select the stick in the original layer that contains the manga. Sometimes I get lazy and blur directly in the original layer, but if you are so inclined you can make a copy of the original layer just in case.
I applied Levels again to the stick selection ONLY - making it darker.
Filter > Blur > Motion Blur. The settings I used were to have it blur straight up and down, and 10px of distance.The final image is displayed to the right.
http://www.fmahq.com/shinwei/example11.png
Tutorial 02
Found this on Shannaro Forums. ALso saved this pdf. Anyone needing it should post it here. Here is the Original Link
** Please use this tutorial to learn and expand your cleaning skills. **
** For those trying out for the recruitment thread post your TEST pages in the
Join Shannaro! thread in Contributions section (http://www.shannaro.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1882) not here.
This tutorial expects that you know how to level pages.
If you don't, please visit this Leveling Tutorial (http://www.shannaro.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2192)" by chiresakura.
First of all, please notice that this isn't a grey areas only tutorial, since it explains how to clean a hard page from start to finish, from borders to speed lines, except gradients and redrawing under text. I could write a tutorial about them too, if it became necessary in some future chapter.
Second off, remember that there are some things you need before starting to clean a hard page:
1) Patience and free time...much free time.
2) Graphic tablet - do not clean with the mouse!!!
2) Photoshop (I'm using CS2, but even CS1 and older versions are ok) / Gimp (I never used it but it should be similar to PS).
3) Music or other to make the work more enjoyable...I usually listen to Oh! Naruto Nippon.. ^^ (optional)
Are you ready? Start!
(zip of all the psd files I used as examples (http://narutocommunity.free.fr/narutodl/CompleteCleaningTutorial/CompleteCleaningTutorial_psd-Examples.zip))
(psd template for cleaning (with all the layers!). (http://narutocommunity.free.fr/narutodl/CompleteCleaningTutorial/psd_template_for_cleaning.psd)) - NEW!
GENERAL NOTES:
1) Adjust the sensibility of your Graphic Pen in the Graphic Tablet menu (you should find it in the Control Panel).
2) Clean while being in "Full Screen Mode With Menu Bar", you will be able to move the page freely and see better even borders.
3) ALWAYS lock all the layers except the one you're working on. You may want to lock the position of some layers, too (for example, if you have to rotate the page). Sometimes you still could have to adjust the position of a layer manually, since it could slice a little (in this case, use the “Move Tool”).
3) Save your work every max. 5 minutes!
4) To re-draw background areas under removed texts, you can use the "Stamp Tool" (this works very well with grass and foliage). - NEW!
5) To erase the spots that sometimes appear on grey areas after changing the page mode from RGB to Greyscale, go to "Image" --> "Adjustments" --> "Posterize" (a 20 levels setting usually works). Sometimes, to notice these spot you've to zoom the page at about 700%. - NEW!
6) About Sai's art, please don't clean pages where you've to trace the inking of those monsters if you don't have a graphic tablet, and if you have it always use the "Brush Tool" (size: 2/3 pixels; if some strokes are too thick use the "Erase Tool" to adjust them, but not a 1 pixel brush because Sai's art looks quite "bold"). - NEW!
PREPARATIONS:
1) Open both the raw version and the pre-clean version of the page you're going to clean. More the page has speed lines and grey areas, more you must use a less pre-clean version other than the raw itself.
2) Put the raw as the bottom layer naming it "raw", then rename the pre-clean page "background" (to add it to the raw page file, you only have to select it all, then copy-past it on a new layer of the raw file).
3) Above the "background" add these layers exactly in the same order as I list them: "grey areas", "inking", "white lines", "borders", "sfx". At the end, you should have "raw" at the bottom and "sfx" at the top.
4) If needed, change the image mode from greyscale to RGB (if you're asked if you want to merge layers, always choose not to merge them), then resize it to a 72 pixels/inch resolution (without resampling the page of course, or it would become smaller).
6) Save the file in a format that allow you to keep its levels (psd is the best one, if you use Photoshop).
Example_00 (http://narutocommunity.free.fr/narutodl/CompleteCleaningTutorial/00.JPG)
(As you can see, I've given a specifical colour to every layer; if you do the same cleaning will become easier and faster)
SFX:
1) Sometimes there should be one or more sfx completely or partially outside of panels, which you must copy-past on the "sfx" layer after selecting them from the "background" layer with the "Magic Hand Tool" (set the "Tolerance" at about 30, select "Contiguous" and "Add to selection" options).
2) Once on the "sfx" layer, make them darker with “Levels”, and fix the still greyish areas with the "Brush Tool" (colour: black).
3) Trace the sfx borders with the "Brush Tool" as well (colour: orange...yes orange, you'll turn them white later). You don't have to trace everything, but only the portions where the sfx go outside the borders and on grey areas.
Example_01 (http://narutocommunity.free.fr/narutodl/CompleteCleaningTutorial/01.JPG)
BORDERS:
1) The important thing when fixing borders is not to cut too much from the panels. Sometimes you may want to rotate the page after checking if it’s straight using a vertical and a horizontal rule; to rotate it, go to "Image" --> "Rotate Canvas" --> "Arbitrary".
2) After rotating the page, sometimes you have to crop it with the "Crop Tool", if some panels hit the borders of the page...but don't crop it too much!
3) On the "borders" layer, select the white areas outside the borders with the "Rectangular Marquee Tool" and paint the selected areas white; move the selection a bit right, left, up or down to always erase only a small portion of the original black borders. Always leave a bit of the original black borders, they will help you to place in the right positions the new ones.
Example_02 (http://narutocommunity.free.fr/narutodl/CompleteCleaningTutorial/02.JPG)
4) Use the "Line Tool" (2 pixels, colour: black) to re-draw the borders. Rasterize every line you trace and place it as much as possible over the original border; at the end, merge all the new layers you created with the main "borders" one.
Example_03 (http://narutocommunity.free.fr/narutodl/CompleteCleaningTutorial/03.JPG)
5) Once all the borders have been merged, use the "Brush Tool" (colour: white) to erase the unnecessary borders' portions.
Example_04 (http://narutocommunity.free.fr/narutodl/CompleteCleaningTutorial/04.JPG)
WHITE LINES:
1) Zoom in the page between 400% and 600% and make the "background" layer invisible (it's better to trace using the raw as reference, not the pre-clean page).
2) On the "white lines" layer, use the "Brush Tool" (1 pixels, colour: yellow) to trace all the white lines on both B&W and grey areas (the white lines on grey areas will be painted grey later, the ones on black and white areas will be painted white later as well).
3) Remember to modulate the lines and use the "Erase Tool" if needed.
Example_05 (http://narutocommunity.free.fr/narutodl/CompleteCleaningTutorial/05.JPG)
(Note: in the page of my examples there aren't white lines on grey areas!)
INKING:
1) Zoom in the page between 400% and 600% and make the "background" layer invisible again.
2) On the "inking" layer, use the "Brush Tool" (1 pixel, colour: red) to trace the inking on grey areas (and every adjacent line...balloons' too). After than, fill the black parts of the drawing (only on grey areas or contiguous) with the red colour, but using a bigger brush if needed.
3) If the page has areas with speed lines, trace in the same way the inking under the speed lines.
4) Remember to modulate every line like in the original inking and use the "Erase Tool" if needed. This is the hardest and most important part of the cleaning, so do it very carefully!
5) If you think you can trace a line better rotating the page, do it, and remember that these red lines will be turned black later.
6) You can use the "Line Tool" (weight: 1 pixel) sometimes, but only for tracing the inking of straight architectonic elements, speed lines on the backgrounds or outside the figures (I’m talking about normal speed lines, not the ones on black areas), and sometimes shadows on the figures. Anyway, use the "Brush Tool" as much as possible, since with the "Line Tool" you can't modulate the inking.
7) If you have used the "Line Tool", remember to merge all the new layers with the main "inking" one.
Example_06a (http://narutocommunity.free.fr/narutodl/CompleteCleaningTutorial/06a.jpg)
Example_06b (http://narutocommunity.free.fr/narutodl/CompleteCleaningTutorial/06b.jpg)
(IMPORTANT: ALAWAYS USE THE RAW, NEVER THE PRECLEAN PAGE TO TRACE THE INKING, AND DON’T TRACE THE DARK SPEED LINES AREAS!)
GREY AREAS:
1) Make the background layer visible again, and select all the panels with grey areas. Zoom in the page at about 300%.
2) On the "grey areas" layer, use the "Brush Tool" (colour: light grey) to fill the grey areas.
3) Be careful and don't paint grey outside the inking you traced. Use the "Eraser Tool" if needed. Don't paint grey over the speed lines portions of grey areas, either.
Example_07 (http://narutocommunity.free.fr/narutodl/CompleteCleaningTutorial/07.JPG)
SPEED LINES:
1) Deselect the panels with grey areas, then go to “Image” --> “Mode” and switch it from RGB to Grayscale (don’t merge the layers yet!).
2) On the "inking" layer, use "Levels" to turn the inking black.
3) On the "white lines" layer, use "Levels" to turn white the lines you traced before (you’ll turn the ones on grey areas grey later).
4) On the "sfx" layer, use "Levels" to turn white the sfx' borders you traced before.
Example_08 (http://narutocommunity.free.fr/narutodl/CompleteCleaningTutorial/08.JPG)
5) On the "background" layer, zoom the page at about 400% and fix the black strokes of speed lines (and foliage) in both B&W and grey areas with the "Brush Tool" (1 pixel, colour: black). Rotate the page is you find it useful to trace the speed lines better.
Example_09a (http://narutocommunity.free.fr/narutodl/CompleteCleaningTutorial/09a.jpg)
Example_09b (http://narutocommunity.free.fr/narutodl/CompleteCleaningTutorial/09b.jpg)
7) Still on the zoomed "background" layer, fix the white and grey strokes of speed lines (and foliage), respectively in B&W and grey areas, with the "Brush Tool" (1 pixel, colour: white for B&W areas / the same grey you used before for the grey areas). As above, you might want to rotate the page.
Example_10a (http://narutocommunity.free.fr/narutodl/CompleteCleaningTutorial/10a.jpg)
Example_10b (http://narutocommunity.free.fr/narutodl/CompleteCleaningTutorial/10b.jpg)
(IMPORTANT: REMEMBER TO USE THE SAME GREY OR BOTH GREY AREAS AND THE LIGHTER STROKES OF SPEED LINES AND FOLIAGE ON GREY AREAS!)
BACKGROUND:
1) On the "background" layer, erase the text from balloons (except special punctuation and sfx) with the "Brush Tool" (colour: white), then zoom the page at about 300% and fix the greyish lines with the "Brush Tool" (colour: black / white to erase spots and other dirty areas).
Example_11 (http://narutocommunity.free.fr/narutodl/CompleteCleaningTutorial/11.JPG)
2) Select panels one at a time and apply "Levels" to them. Sometimes you may want to select specific areas too, to fix them better.
Example_12a (http://narutocommunity.free.fr/narutodl/CompleteCleaningTutorial/12a.jpg)
Example_12b (http://narutocommunity.free.fr/narutodl/CompleteCleaningTutorial/12b.jpg)
3) Zoom in the page at 700% and fix the black, white and grey areas on every layer checking for spots (make sure to fix anything in the right layer!). At this point, you could use the "Smudge Tool" (strength: about 7% / diameter: about 9 pixels / hardness: about 11%), to smooth some crispy areas, but with moderation!
Example_13a (http://narutocommunity.free.fr/narutodl/CompleteCleaningTutorial/13a.jpg)
Example_13b (http://narutocommunity.free.fr/narutodl/CompleteCleaningTutorial/13b.jpg)
5) When you believe everything is ok, merge all the layers and save the page in png. If there are white lines on grey areas, at this point you must darken them with the "Brush Tool" (small size, darken mode, colour: light grey you used before).
6) Finally, check the png page to see if the grey has the right brightness (use the raw as reference): if it is ok you are done, otherwise you've to use the "Levels" to fix it.
Example_14 (http://narutocommunity.free.fr/narutodl/CompleteCleaningTutorial/14.JPG)
(Finished page!) http://www.shannaro.com/forums/images/smilies/dance.gif
** Tutorial by Sariachan