| Archive for awillfulmuse.myfastforum.org Manga Scanlations and Sharing Community |
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Cleaning Tutorial:Step 5:LevelingLeveling is balancing out the scan so that the blacks are blacks and whites are whites and to get rid of most of the dirt. It can be tricky and takes practice and time before you develop a real good eye for it. I'll show you how to do it and then show you some common leveling mistakes.You can either select 'Image>>Adjustments>>Levels' from the drop down menu at the top or hit 'Ctrl+l' to open the levels window. Also, until you get use to leveling it'd probably be better for you to use the level layer(Layer>>New Adjustment Layer>>Levels) to level. This way if you overlevel, you'd just need to double click the level icon on the level layer and adjust the levels back down. 
Move the small arrows below the 'black hills'(made up name) not the ones underneath the bar. The small arrow on the left darkens the scan and the arrows on the right lightens the scan. Do not touch the middle arrow. That one does not need to be moved. When you level, keep an eye on your gray areas and make sure you don't get it too dark or light. Try to get your pure black areas black without making the scan feel too heavy. Same goes for your pure white areas. Try to get the white areas white, without making the scan look too washed out. Often, just moving the arrow past the first hill is enough to level the scan, but this is not always true. Its okay if there is still some dirt on the scan after you level the scan. You may sometimes end up with a gutter(dark ban of gray along the edge of your scan). We can take care of the gutter and dirt in the next steps. 
Click to see full size image 
Click to see full size image Common Mistakes A common mistake is to over level so that the scan gets too heavy and is 'burnt'. The lines look too thick and the gray areas look too dark. 
Click to see full size image Another common mistake is to under level so that the scan looks too light and washed out. The blacks are not black and looks grainy instead. 
Click to see full size image More examples of leveling mistakes can be found here as the third bullet: http://www.questie.com/manga/ScanEditGuide/editing.htm#Mistakes OPTIONAL but useful Once you've leveled your scan, you can double click your background layer and rename it 'original'. Then, right-click the layer and select 'Duplicate Layer' and name the new layer 'cleaned'. Now start working on the 'cleaned' layer and leave the 'original' layer alone. This is useful for the typesetters, so that they can see where exactly a text was originally. They can simply click on and off the cleaned's layer visibility to see the 'original' layer beneath. 
Click to see full size image -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Previous Step: Resizing: http://awillfulmuse.myfastforum.org/about635.html Next Step: Gutters: http://awillfulmuse.myfastforum.org/about637.html |