Cleaner - KeenShibe

[KeenShibe]

Name: KeenShibe

Availability: 1700-2400 (Weekdays) 0800-2400 (Weekends) [GMT +8]

What Manga You're Interested In: No preference.

Software: Photoshop CC 2017.

Experience: No experience.

Other Groups: None.

Attachment.

[Wraith]

That was quick… and maybe you ought to have done things more calmly, because though there was improvement, it still needs significant improvement to earn a pass.

- You merged 1 and 2, but it is still overfiltered and overlevelled. You can see the loss of patterns in the leather glove at the bottom left. You also merged them improperly. You're supposed to leave a gap wide enough for the redrawer to work on. Instead, you just put one half attached to the other. We can see the remnant of missing art in white at the upper half of the junction area.

- On page 3, we don't understand why you burnt the black areas when there was no Dust in the original.

- Page 4 is still way too filtered. So much so that the areas of hair that should have been black are grey. You tried burning them, but it didn't help. You should filter less, manually dust more.

- Page 5 wasn't Dusted at all, there are specks in the whole white area. (There are solutions other than dusting for that kind of paper texture noise, like Surface Blur.) And you burnt the pattern in the samurai's armour in the shadow until it was completely black. At least you avoided using Topaz in it.

- Page 6 is a vast improvement. I have nothing to say about sizing, levelling or dusting, they were all properly done. But you cropped the white borders completely, when I said that you should leave them when the panels are framed in the corresponding side.

- Page 7 is your best one. There was still some dust left in the white areas, and I don't think the blacks needed any extra burning.

You should also pay more attention to cropping and straightening the page. If Rotate doesn't work, clever use of Warp can help. You can see black or white stripes, a couple pixels wide, in the edges of almost all pages.

As I said, there was improvement, so you may want to build on the feedback you're getting.

Incidentally, you don't need to open a new thread for every application, you may resubmit as an answer to this one.

[KeenShibe]

Thank you for your guidance, the advice is really clear and concise which really helps me improve as a cleaner.

Here is another submission, please give me your comments on it:
Attachment.

[Wraith]

Hi, Keenshibe,

So, your pages 1 and 2 are now pre-merged properly, and the levelling also improved. However, there's no need to remove the granular pattern of the art. That's not dust, it's the artist's choice. I don't know which filter you used, but you can see it made the background areas blurry. Also, the adjustment layers should be present in the merged page, too, not just in the separate halves. The cropping was much better.

Nothing seems to have been done to page 3, this time, other than removing the text from the bubbles. Try to look up how to remove JPEG artifacts from manga.

Page 4 is better, but you can still see lots of dust. Try using a hyperlevelled layer to highlight all the dust in the white areas, and you can use Dodge or another tool to get rid of it. Also, you didn't have to use Burn separately from levelling, all you did was remove details on the art (like the character's hair, eyelashes and mouth in the last panel).

On page 5, all areas that should be white are not uniformly white. Why did you burn the soldiers armour in the shadow again? That was art, not dust, as you can see it is more intense and uniform than the dust. However, you did preserve detail reasonably well and the cropping is good, too.

Page 6 is actually worse than the previous version. All you had to do was crop the previous version correctly. Now it's blurry and the areas that should be white are a mix of grey and white.

Page 7 is also worse. You only had to use Dodge or even the white brush to find any remaining dust and get rid of it in the previous version. Now the page is all blurry.

I think your main problem is that you're trying to find an easy solution to get rid of dust. I don't think there is any. When it's just the paper texture, you can probably get rid of it if you know how to use Surface Blur, but the best solution, especially in the case of high-resolution raws, is to get rid of it manually. Add a levels layer to highlight the Dust, then hunt it down to the last speck. You can use the Magic Want, a bubble cleaning Action, like this one: https://www.dropbox.com/s/kch9rcn9in89z ... e.atn?dl=0 (instructions at https://www.dropbox.com/s/pwdzunptef97y ... e.png?dl=0), even the white brush if you're careful, but don't try to get rid of it by filtering, especially in the case of high-res raws.

I'm being deliberately vague because you have to experiment with these tools. See what preserves the most detail and the original sharpness of the image, and go with that. If we tell you what to do exactly, you won't know how to make your own decisions later when cleaning.

Good luck!

[KeenShibe]

I don't know which filter you used, but you can see it made the background areas blurry.

The filter I used is Topaz denoise 5 on 0.25 strength. Is it advisable to use unsharp mask before/after to counteract the blurriness?

Nothing seems to have been done to page 3, this time, other than removing the text from the bubbles. Try to look up how to remove JPEG artifacts from manga.

Does it mean the artifacts are cleared from the previous submission?
I am comparing my previous and the latest file and I am having trouble recognizing the .jpeg artifacts from page 3. I do recognize artifacts from tutorial examples though.

Page 6 is actually worse than the previous version. All you had to do was crop the previous version correctly. Now it's blurry and the areas that should be white are a mix of grey and white.

I am working each attempt from scratch so that I can practice producing consistent results.

You can use the Magic Wand, a bubble cleaning Action, like this one: https://www.dropbox.com/s/kch9rcn9in89z ... e.atn?dl=0 (instructions at https://www.dropbox.com/s/pwdzunptef97y ... e.png?dl=0)

Thanks, the action will be very useful in the dusting process.

[Wraith]

The filter I used is Topaz denoise 5 on 0.25 strength. Is it advisable to use unsharp mask before/after to counteract the blurriness?

That's a possibility. You have to try and see how it looks. Pay attention to areas of detailed art and see what happens when you manipulate the picture. If you begin to lose details/sharpness or the patterns become messy, it's time to step back and be more conservative. You also have to ask yourself the question: "Do I need to use Topaz on this?" Topaz filters are pretty aggressive and tend to be necessary on lower-quality raws, like those obtained from magazine. High-quality raws may still need subtle filtering (like Surface Blur and others), but not Topaz. Some raws may not need any filtering at all, like digital PNG webraws and some scanned high-res raws. You have to recognise the need in the first place, or ask yourself whether you can achieve good results without filtering, or filtering conservatively.

I am comparing my previous and the latest file and I am having trouble recognizing the .jpeg artifacts from page 3. I do recognize artifacts from tutorial examples though.

We can see there are JPEG artifacts in version 3 by zooming in and looking at the boundaries between black and white. The grey pixels surrounding the black ones. There are ways to deal with those. However, I'll be perfectly honest and say that we won't fail you because of that if you correct everything else.

I am working each attempt from scratch so that I can practice producing consistent results.

Well, I can see where you are coming from, but you should treasure partial successes and build up on them. If you know what you did in the second version, consistency shouldn't be a problem.

Thanks, the action will be very useful in the dusting process.

You may use it on bubbles and on the white borders, but be careful of areas where there is art. Also try to learn how to adjust Tolerance to the characteristics of the raws you're using.