Looking to be a raw provider.

[Anduril]

A little while ago, I tried my hand at cleaning and typesetting. It was a tragedy. Recently, though, I came into a scanner and decided to practice on some comics I had laying around. They came out rather well as I was playing with settings. I also tried looking into Shonen Jump so I could try scanning a real manga page. I bought Issue 32 and cut it up carefully and I think that I did well enough to provide for an actual group. The trouble is that, of the few places that actually get Jump near me, none of them will sell the magazine before the street date on Mondays. This makes me waaaaay too late to actually be of any use to a scan group.

First off, I'm looking for leads on how to get a copy of Jump as soon as possible so I can actually be of some use to a group, possibly FH itself if you'll have me ;)

Second, I'm looking for any advice on the actual scanning procedure. Unfortunately I'm at work so I don't have the trial pages with me, but I can edit in some examples when I get home. I use Photoshop's Import function to scan, rather than the software the came with the scanner. It's a Canon CanoScan LiDE 600F, for anyone who's had experience with the product.

Any advice is welcome and I, hopefully, look forward to getting to know everyone here.

[kenjimaru]

Yeah if u cant provide weekly shonen raw like thursday-Friday then is no good since by that time is already out and scanlations from group with faster raw already out too.

But we still gonna have many raws u can provide if you decide to work for us. I think best thing is contact this person Rena Chan (http://www.franky-house.com/forums/showthread.php?t=5014). Here is Example (http://Example) of Raw she provides. So she can help. and post examples of raws u have here.

[Anduril]

Ooh. Will do. Thanks.

But as much as I like scanning to that quality, which seems easy to do with the right settings, I would like to do so on a series that I enjoy and preferably for a weekly scanslation like Bleach or Eyeshield. That way I can help a group be both the fastest and highest quality. The trouble is that none of the distributers seem to have any benefits for subscription. I could walk into a shop on Monday and pick it up that day, but getting it shipped to me makes it more likely to be received on Wed/Thurs.

I do so hope my dream isn't crushed before it began. :(

[kenjimaru]

Fast raw is important and many FH affiliates and FH all look for fast raw like for Bleach or ES. At times u need some connection with these stores before they will sell u books early to scan so keep trying. So keep trying.

[makhan]

we sure want you
where are you from and what manga shops do you have nearby?

[Anduril]

I'm in North Jersey, so NYC is just a short train ride away. Kinokuniya is the first thing that popped up on my radar, but they are probably the biggest of the shops that won't sell before Monday. I asked and, if I were to order a subscription, I wouldn't be likely to get it before Wed/Thurs. So unless I can get a line on someone who will sell earlier to people who subscribe, I won't be much good for speedscans, which I would like to be.

Anyway, I got around to scanning some test pages out of Issue 32 of Jump. I took one of each of the 'colored' pages and also one of the full-color pages. I think they came out pretty well. Note that this is with Auto Tone off and all of the 'adjustment' settings set to None. Any tinkering should be done directly in Photoshop, or so I'm told. All are scanned as greyscale and saved as jpgs (except for the color page which is, naturally, RGB-scanned).

EDIT: Screw it, I'll just Rapidshare a zip: http://rapidshare.com/files/128898146/Scan_Test.zip (22.9 Mb)

The only thing that bothers me from these is #5, panel 3. Some of the ink from the other side of the page bled through and it shows up in the sky. Hopefully some creative use of leveling and the clone brush can do away with it. I won't bother trying because, as I said, nothing good will come of it. Men will die, I'm sure of it.

[kenjimaru]

i gonna send you a PM about this later today.

[Anduril]

That... could be good or bad. Since you guys have been so helpful to me, I'm going to say good! :)

[makhan]

they are pretty good
btw, what manga is page 4 from?

I don't have time now, but will pm you in few hours with the info I got from our old raw provider and some questions.

[Anduril]

Looking at the kanji for the end-of-chapter title, it says it's Nurarihyon no Mago (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nurarihyon_no_Mago). I've never heard of it, but the art is pretty cool.

[real0st]

Those are good scans, very nice for the cleaners to work with. I say you're accepted. Now it's just a matter of how fast you can get the books and how fast you can scan them. I personally don't care how fast you scan them, I just think it's cool that you could be our personal raw provider.

[makhan]

Of course we accept you, we wouldn't miss the opportunity of getting a raw provider ;)

[Anduril]

Awesome. Now to dig around for someone willing to ship Jump early...

[Anon]

Yeah, the RAWs are pretty good, I cleaned a bit of that OP page and it's really good ;)