Tammi's Magazine Cleaning TutorialHere's a tutorial I found.
I was asked for tips on topaz, but I feel like I wouldn't be able to fully explain everything and
it's mostly just playing around with your own settings on the filters anyways. I also noticed that the
magazine cleaning tutorial on here is from 2012 by Imperial Scans, so here's an updated version.
It's best to use this tutorial sparingly and in the right situations. In my opinion, if you just need to level
the page, don't bother using Topaz. Most of the current series in DeathToll don't need this anyways since
we rely on Tankoubon raws (BLESS).
The reason why this tutorial goes to great lengths for a single page,
is because it's for magazine raws which are made from recycled paper that are maybe scanned to 1300-2000 px, or higher.
This results in a cleaned page with screentones that are far from the original patterns. Examples of this end result
is anything by MangaStream.
Use this tutorial with caution, please...PLS. My two-cents below.
The only reason I would use Topaz on HQ tank raws is:
A. Even the tone under the pattern.
B. Sharpen the patterns.
C. Attempt to preserve the tone of a pattern by sharpening, bluring, then resizing. You'll be able to see the
difference by fitting the page to screen.
If you do this correctly and sparingly, you will end up with
A. a clean page with crisp patterns that are extremely close to
the original,
B. have most if not all details preserved, and
C. look as though you never used any filters at all. ;p
General steps are as follows - Dup Layer > Smart Sharpen > Topaz 3 > Topaz 5 > Level > Resize down to appropriate size.
Of course if you feel like it, you can ignore some of the steps here and there depending on the raw quality as well as
the way the manga is drawn. Just eye-ball it.
Cleaning Example of Sense-scans test:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/w23txy8v11z1if7/05.jpg?dl=0 - Raw
https://www.dropbox.com/s/ytl8ro8ehjggl2f/05.png?dl=0 Cleaned
I just added the filters, resized and burned. Didn't really bother to redraw or crop correctly. But you get the idea. There's a great loss in detail in the
background so you can try to preserve it, when you do your own clean. Good luck.
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Random Tip - Resizing can do your work for you - W/O Topaz: When I don't use Topaz, I use resizing as a way to blur the page without topaz filters.
Im a cheater and lay-zy.
The idea is > resizing down = bluring page/jpeg artifacts = easier leveling of jpeg artifacts etc = no need for topaz or built in blur
filter (maybe just surface blur) = original details preserved = little to no dusting and burning (even with a page heavily filled with jpeg artifacts).
The only caution is over-levelling.
This also saves you the time of selecting whites and leveling/filling them individually.
General steps - Dup layer > Level Blacks > Surface Blur (only if jpeg artifacts are easily blurred, if not dont even try. Do not surface blur
before levelling the blacks, you will potentially lose the light tones and patterns if the raw isn't HQ) > Level Whites with Eyedrop tool
> Curve up/down depending on the light/mid tones > resize down (at this point the raw doesn't need to be completely free of dust) > level
blacks and whites both at once to get rid of remaining dust > Select the midtones and level if they're too light.
A caution, when you level with the eye dropper tool be wary of the light tones. The first level is to get the blacks and whites as close
to the finished result as possible. But don't try to level everything out at this point, you will over-level.
Resizing the page down will blur out the remaining dust on the whites and blur the small gray specks on the black, this is when you
carefully level again. Almost all of the time, this will work out well and you won't even have to touch the burn tool. Of course, it depends
on the raws.
You will end up with a page that is crisp and sharpened. At this point people usually reduce blur, but personally I don't bother. Once the pages are uploaded
to a browser, it's going to be blurred anyways.
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My ending note is to learn from the first few tutorials that Kabuto listed. Practice and try to create your own way of cleaning that suits you. Then that's when you move onto Topaz, because you're more likely to mess up or filter too much if you don't completely know the basics or understand when its too much. I personally still use the things I learned from basic cleaning tutorials.
Thats it from me. Hope this helped...somehow? I dont have any screenshots for my tip, but if you managed to get accepted into the group,
you probably understand already. lol o/
Thanks to Wraith for letting me post this.
(May update this post with pictures...later lol)