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monochrome_flat May 30 2011, 18:40:40 UTC
Hmmm okay. General idea. Let's break it down. Keep in mind I'm no expert because I learned this all in May.

1. Depending on the quality of the scans, you first have to fiddle around with the contrast because otherwise when erasing the Japanese test you'd visibly tell the difference between the area you erased and the remainder of the bubble because of pixelation. So, in Photoshop you do what's called "Leveling" which darkens blacks and lightens whites. I cheat and use Photoshop Elements where I just up the contrast (it's really quick and works fine).
2. Again, if the scans are of poor quality, you can try to straighten the image and crop it or clean up that large gray line by the binding that tends to show up when people scan things.

3. Once the scans are pretty (or sometimes they come pretty to begin with), you just erase the Japanese text. It gets tricky when the text is over some pattern or it's written over artwork as opposed to in a bubble - so you need to use a tool called "Clone" that copies a certain anchor point you select (it's not too hard... just sometimes time consuming :P). I don't expect perfect with redrawing but just so that it's not noticeable if you are viewing the image at its normal size.

4. The easy part! Simply type in the English. You'd prolly need to download a manga style font and generally you try to have a default size but change it if the bubble is gigantic or if it's tiny. You always have the text set to centre and when you finish putting the English in you move it around a tad just to have it in the centre of the bubble. This is also where you can be creative and use different fonts for a small amount of the doujin where it's appropriate (good way is to see if the Japanese font is different and try to match it in an English font). Sometimes you gotta play to make the English fit the bubble not just by resizing but by using hyphens or writing the text vertically as opposed to horizontally. I think consistency is the most important part of this section.

5. Send it back to me (in photoshop format) using mediafire or megavideo or something along those lines and I'll go over it one more time and change the photoshop format into JPEGS so I can share it on LJ.

Hope that helps! I'd go a bit more in depth if someone commits. :P

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lovelycudy May 30 2011, 22:42:42 UTC
I see. I've never done the Clone tool but I can learn. So, if you want help, count on me :)

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monochrome_flat May 31 2011, 09:25:47 UTC
Okay, thanks!~ I'll create a community soon and invite people and they can claim projects to clean :)

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lovelycudy May 31 2011, 23:21:03 UTC
Awesome!

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