So I live in Japan now, and I went into a convenience store to take a look at last week's Jump, and the printing quality is absolutely horrible--no wonder it's only 250 yen. The blacks are grey, and aren't solids at all, the printing paper are hideous shades of tinted colour. But I take a look at MangaStream and Casanova's releases, and the art is flawless, and the screentones are consistent and gorgeous. And they manage to do that within hours. How is that even possible?? Is there some higher-quality version of SJ that's available for more money? @ _@

And the tankoubon for SJ are much smaller than they are in N. America for SJ manga. It's so small! Too small! Are bigger versions available at all?

Do they have to redraw the entire page? Where do they get the screentone patterns--does each group make their own screentones...? But are the screentones even accurate...? MangaStream releases are extremely high quality, but I'm thinking that maybe they change a lot of the original. Gah, sorry, too many questions.

I'm providing scans for a doujinshi group right now, and my friend gave me a sample of the redrawing work, and it was inaccurate and terrible. They took way too many liberties with the art, and made the lines thicker and uglier in the redrawing process. They claimed to want to "preserve as much of the original as possible", and make the screentones into gradients to make them "nice and shiny" and "Pixiv-quality", but the reality is that the page was shit. MangaStream is much higher quality, but I'm afraid that they also sacrificed accuracy with their consistent screentones.

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It's a lot of work scanlators do, although not as much as the original mangaka's. Their work is possible to be done at such speed because they've got good tools (say, Photoshop and plugins e.g. Topaz Denoise), which are pretty useful but don't mean just anybody can do it, you still need to possess a great skill of using them. And no, they actually use that crappy recycled version of SJ to scanlate, seriously.

I think there are bigger ones available. Like at the size of Kanzenban.

I think many groups do have screentones, some of which are available for free on the internet. There are actually techniques cleaners use to deal with screentones, but don't let me get in details because I'm not an expert either. Redrawers are usually experienced with drawing on computers. I think they all have their own drawing tablets. They, too, need to have a great skill of redrawing, trying hard not to change too much of the original.

For more detailed information, I guess you should wait for real editors to come and reply P_P.

Last edited by Fantasier at 7:45 am, Oct 13 2013

I once tried my look with redrawing/cleaning a chapter of until death do us part, i must tell ya double-pages are a pain in the butt, some bubbles are too small to fit text in English and u have to somehow make them a little big cuz lowering the text font is stupid. or when they make burbles verticals for sound effects and loud cries lol... man i don't want to remember that day it took me 5 hours to do a bad job, drawing programs do help with the ugly grays u just have to select the zone u want to make it black and put black there, zones u want them gray and work part to part some artifacts in the art must be redrawn, the zones with sound effect which out burbles to put sound effects in English must be redrawn again... Man people that complain about that work should die, its too much of a hassle just to make it free .

I'm glad i just had to do a single chapter of until death do us part, some group started doing it after that single chapter.

What you're referring to is the job of a cleaner. Redrawers remove texts that are slapped into the art, like narations etc. And that is an LQ raw. It's possible with the help of plug-ins like topaz. Screentones are not usually redone since topaz can deal with light dirt in the grays. It's also what makes the tones look "too uniform" and neat that it makes the page look unnatural. But yes, sometimes when the dirt is really bad, it might need redoing.
To be honest, topaz has become a very useful tool. It's not the "evil tool" that alot of people is making it out to be. It's just that people unfamiliar with using it tend to overuse it. It should be used sparingly, and in my opinion should only be used on LQ raws.
Personally, I don't think scanlators should touch too much of the art too. Removing sfx's are unnecessary and just extra work for redrawers and typesetters. I don't know what group you are referring to, but if what you say is true, then the redrawer probably isn't really good. I've seen redraws that are so perfect you would think the author provided the original. And what they claim is really contradicting. If they are aiming to preserve the art as much as possible, why would they want to "make the screentones into gradients to make them 'nice and shiny' and 'Pixiv-quality' "? If it's not like that on the original, then why make it so? It doesn't even sound like they know what "gradient" means.

This isn't necessarily true. I imagine there are alot of redrawers who are more comfortable using a mouse than using tablets. Tablets are really useful if what you are redrawing has a lot of sketchy lines etc. but if it's clean uniform lines then a mouse would be more than enough for the job.

Last edited by nakie08 at 10:09 am, Oct 13 2013

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Ugh, yeah, I think you're right there. Didn't think about it carefully enough at first. Apologies for misleading information. ><

I've never worked with a group that separated cleaners and redrawers. I always took redrawing to be part of the cleaner's job. But I've heard a few groups expect their editors (typsetters) to do redrawing, so I guess there's a lot of variety.

I don't like it when groups make their own bubbles unless you can't tell they did so. When it's obvious, awkward, and forced it's an eyesore. I'd rather have small text or even overly-hyphenated text that fits the original bubble. I feel the same way about adding in gradients that weren't in the original. If you create so much empty space after your tinkering that you feel the need to fill it with your own art (which your gradients are) then you tinkered too much. Artists choose their gradients carefully and it's not right to "trick" readers into thinking they chose the gradients you're throwing in there. You might as well be redrawing facial expressions so they look "more professional in your opinion" than the artist can achieve. It's presumptuous.

As for the quality of Jump magazines, that's to be expected. They're collections of various sources crammed into one cheap distro version. If you want quality, wait for that chapter to appear in an original manga volume and nab it instead.

Enough that I'm having ptsd flashbacks right now and am unable to form my experiences into words.

But basically, you do as much work on a page as you're willing to do. Some redrawers go all out and some just do the basics.

If I have one piece of advice for you: don't bother with magazine volumes, only do tankubon. You'll save sooooooooo much time and energy (and sanity). I used to do that kind of crap and it's really not worth it. Imho, let one group do speedy releases and then wait till the tank comes out and come out with hq versions, which are faster to do and include the extras. But I'd include the color pages from the magazine if possible.

Sometimes, even when its the tankubon version, the quality can still be rather bad. Especially so if the manga that you're working on is a old one, making it hard to find scans in the first place->limiting yourself to the not so good quality ones. Argh...all the word that needs to be done and the time needed to be spend on it(when you're not a pro at it)...

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Aaah, I see. So this "Topaz" plug-ins explains a lot. I'll have to look into it.

The kanzenban sound like they'd take even longer to release than the tankoubon, and those are only for the very popular series, anyway, right? The SJ in N. America is very pretty and good quality (printing, I mean. The translations and the censorship is crap), but overpriced and super slow. But it's bigger.

I have a drawing tablet myself. I spent over 10 hours on a single title page from Chinese raws (the Chinese scanlators just goddamn love to fill an entire page with text, don't they), and I gave up on the 8th page or so. I imagine having to redraw an entire page with the pen tool would drive me insane.

Ugh, I actually /hate/ it when groups take out the original SFX's. I really like how Del-Rey does their SFX's, though. They kind of subtitle the SFX's rather than taking them out and replacing them with ugly-ass cartoon font.

"Contradictive"--EXACTLY. Ugh. I'm even considering taking my scans to another group. And what they do is select the areas with screentones, replace them with gradients, and then redraw the lines. It's retarded and ugly, and I know the redrawer isn't that bad, because she redraws for Magi as well.

Haha, obviously waiting for the tankoubon are not an option. OTL And when the tankoubon arrives, I definitely wouldn't want to debind it.

Last edited by Baniita at 5:03 am, Oct 15 2013

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Sometimes it depends on the quality if the scans and the style the mangaka uses. For example, a very clean scan can be cleaned much more easily with just levelling. Some manga don't rely too much on greys and don't tend to write over the pictures (like Naruto) so they're also faster to clean. I personally avoid filters because it tends to distort the original artist's work too much, but I guess it would be useful for LQ scans.

I've come across Chinese scanlations that seem to be too HQ to have come from paper. I suspect they might have used official online releases.

I do not understand everyone's hype about taking out original sfx.

all the scanlation group i've been with, they translate the sfx. if the cleaners do not take out the original sfx, where are they supposed to put in the translated one?

The thing with sfx is that u dont understand them even if someone do translate them as they are SFx's based in the japanese culture... that kashin sfx made from metal doesnt really sound that way in english or any other language i know...

Some just place it in the nearest margin. My ideal would be to place it small but visible beside the original. That way, if readers get interested in what the sfx means they can read it(personally, when I read manga I rarely care what sfx means).
It depends on the sfx but big fat ones can take along time to clean/redraw, specially if it covers some fine details like patterns, trees, body parts(and god forbid, faces xc). Sfx can also be considered as part of the author's art and it takes a very skilled typesetter to make a translated sfx blend with the page and make it look legit. Others may disagree, but for me it's just too much work to do and it doesn't seem like alot of people notice. And as aagcnet says, most of them will sound corny and unintelligible when translated anyway.

Last edited by nakie08 at 12:36 pm, Oct 24 2013

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*coughs*

So, I'm sorry if someone has already answered this, but it all depends on the group. Those who use magazine scans (typically the quality of paper is quite shitty unless they buy higher end magazines then the paper gets marginally better) and scan the big three topaz the hell out of their scans. Now this would be okay for those magazines because the quality of paper is so crap that it'd take forever to clean it normally.

Here is an example of a HQ magazine scan and a tank scan. Now tanks vary depending on the publisher and what kind of paper they use. This tank cost me about 1000yen, I think. The magazine was about 900yen.
http://www.dropbox.com/sh/lczyh0tvv0mhi3j/jukpNFXeUT

My group translates and edits SFX. How much time it takes to clean (we do not have any distinction between redrawers and cleaners) a chapter varies between each person and the series. If the editor (or cleaner) is skilled enough and has the time, they can clean a chapter in one to two weeks. The key word here is time.

Here are some random SFX pages
http://img.batoto.net/comics/2013/10/10/h/read5256471199571/ img000006.png
http://img.batoto.net/comics/2013/10/10/t/read52564683c3869/ img000049.png
http://img.batoto.net/comics/2013/10/10/t/read52564683c3869/ img000052.png
http://img.batoto.net/comics/2013/10/10/t/read525625d5d3d5c/i mg000033.png

We don't think it's a waste of time. High Quality means that we give the readers (aka leechers) the best product that we can provide, meaning we put time and effort in the products we release. That being said, it's all about preferences.

There are groups who only operate on IRC and those who are email/forum/website-based. There are those who like big font sizes and then there are those who like small. Some like to release at 1800px height and others like to release at 1200px/1400/1600px. Some like to edit SFX and think it's important and there are those who do not.

There is no one set rule for scanlation. It all depends on what the person wants, but really, wouldn't you want to have a HQ release rather than a MQ release?



--------Also sorry----------

WHAAAA?!
You did not just call a speed group with bare minimum editing and horrible English "good"?


Last edited by blueflor at 12:07 am, Oct 25 2013

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