This is how we do it: Gantz retouch-Sphere edition
For me, Gantz has always been a problem book to work on. It's a retouch book where all of the backgrounds are filled in with toned backgrounds NOT constructed with Zip-a-tones. This posed a problem for me because I couldn't drop a tone from my vast collection of scans and be done with it.
The absolute worst part of the retouch job for me was the spheres from Gantz itself. It's a radial gradation and no amount of sampling from the same area will make a smooth transition. So I ended up hiding the transitions behind the words. If you look at the original, the lettering is a mixture of type and some fine lined handscrawling. I couldn't do that because I needed to cover as much real estate as possible. From the first volume, I had to choose a font that was kinda chunky to provide as much coverage as possible. I would have loved to do the ransom note-ish combo of font and hand work, but the scrawly parts would end up being really thin. The results were serviceable, but kinda ugly, sometimes bordering on tragic, and the process was time-consuming.
Gantz Vol 12, page 95. © 2004 Oku Hiroya, published by Shueisha, English edition ©2010 Dark Horse Comics
After struggling to do the retouch in this piecemeal fashion and being frustrated with the results (and needing to figure out how to create a quicker workflow), I consulted with Photoshop Master leemoyer to see if he could suggest anything.
He told me that I shouldn't be patching, but replacing the whole thing. That should have been a headslap moment for me, but it took me a day to chew on it and warm up to the idea. I wanted the gradation to look just like the original, but really, nobody is going to notice it but me.
So first I create the gradation in Illustrator. Why Illustrator? Because I cannot figure out how to manipulate the gradation in PShop. (^_^;) I can control how quick the transition from gray to black is and the location and size of the hotspot.
Gantz vol 15, page 91. © 2004 Oku Hiroya, published by Shueisha, English edition ©2010 Dark Horse Comics
Then I do the lettering on the sphere. After that, I paste both things into PShop, but on separate layers so that I can make changes if I want to.
When I first tried this method, I thought that I could then flatten the whole page into a halftone. But if I did, THIS happens...
Gantz vol 15, page 91. © 2004 Oku Hiroya, published by Shueisha, English edition ©2010 Dark Horse Comics
...Any of the lettering where it was solid black would get white halftone dots and turn gray! >_<
I later figured out I had to flatten the Sphere and the Gantz layers, copy them and paste them on their own temporary document to halftone them. THEN paste back the result into the lettering file. After that, I shave off the excess.
Gantz vol 15, page 91. © 2004 Oku Hiroya, published by Shueisha, English edition ©2010 Dark Horse Comics
Not so much with this example, but sometimes at this point the sphere doesn't quite look like the finished file. The glow I put around the letters doesn't quite match the rest of the art. I found that it will when I Bitmap the whole page.
Gantz vol 15, page 91. © 2004 Oku Hiroya, published by Shueisha, English edition ©2010 Dark Horse Comics
I don't think this technique is any faster than the patching I was doing before, but the results are much more satisfying and I don't procrastinate on those Gantz-ball pages nearly as much as I used to. Now that I know how to do this retouch, I would love to be able to start doing the combo of type and hand-scrawl as seen in the original manga. But after 12+ volumes, it's no time to start changing up how Gantz looks.
So that's the long, boring version of how I get the work done. I probably left out a few images because they're time-consuming to capture and format for the web. I may also not be explaining things very well. Lately my attention span has been really short and this may not be as thorough as it could be.
Of course, as soon as I share how I made this task easier for myself I look at volume 16 and see that there are speed fades over the Gantz sphere as a gloved hand wipes over the surface. I have no idea how I'm going to solve that. I'll probably just fudge it.
:sigh:
The absolute worst part of the retouch job for me was the spheres from Gantz itself. It's a radial gradation and no amount of sampling from the same area will make a smooth transition. So I ended up hiding the transitions behind the words. If you look at the original, the lettering is a mixture of type and some fine lined handscrawling. I couldn't do that because I needed to cover as much real estate as possible. From the first volume, I had to choose a font that was kinda chunky to provide as much coverage as possible. I would have loved to do the ransom note-ish combo of font and hand work, but the scrawly parts would end up being really thin. The results were serviceable, but kinda ugly, sometimes bordering on tragic, and the process was time-consuming.
Gantz Vol 12, page 95. © 2004 Oku Hiroya, published by Shueisha, English edition ©2010 Dark Horse Comics
After struggling to do the retouch in this piecemeal fashion and being frustrated with the results (and needing to figure out how to create a quicker workflow), I consulted with Photoshop Master leemoyer to see if he could suggest anything.
He told me that I shouldn't be patching, but replacing the whole thing. That should have been a headslap moment for me, but it took me a day to chew on it and warm up to the idea. I wanted the gradation to look just like the original, but really, nobody is going to notice it but me.
So first I create the gradation in Illustrator. Why Illustrator? Because I cannot figure out how to manipulate the gradation in PShop. (^_^;) I can control how quick the transition from gray to black is and the location and size of the hotspot.
Gantz vol 15, page 91. © 2004 Oku Hiroya, published by Shueisha, English edition ©2010 Dark Horse Comics
Then I do the lettering on the sphere. After that, I paste both things into PShop, but on separate layers so that I can make changes if I want to.
When I first tried this method, I thought that I could then flatten the whole page into a halftone. But if I did, THIS happens...
Gantz vol 15, page 91. © 2004 Oku Hiroya, published by Shueisha, English edition ©2010 Dark Horse Comics
...Any of the lettering where it was solid black would get white halftone dots and turn gray! >_<
I later figured out I had to flatten the Sphere and the Gantz layers, copy them and paste them on their own temporary document to halftone them. THEN paste back the result into the lettering file. After that, I shave off the excess.
Gantz vol 15, page 91. © 2004 Oku Hiroya, published by Shueisha, English edition ©2010 Dark Horse Comics
Not so much with this example, but sometimes at this point the sphere doesn't quite look like the finished file. The glow I put around the letters doesn't quite match the rest of the art. I found that it will when I Bitmap the whole page.
Gantz vol 15, page 91. © 2004 Oku Hiroya, published by Shueisha, English edition ©2010 Dark Horse Comics
I don't think this technique is any faster than the patching I was doing before, but the results are much more satisfying and I don't procrastinate on those Gantz-ball pages nearly as much as I used to. Now that I know how to do this retouch, I would love to be able to start doing the combo of type and hand-scrawl as seen in the original manga. But after 12+ volumes, it's no time to start changing up how Gantz looks.
So that's the long, boring version of how I get the work done. I probably left out a few images because they're time-consuming to capture and format for the web. I may also not be explaining things very well. Lately my attention span has been really short and this may not be as thorough as it could be.
Of course, as soon as I share how I made this task easier for myself I look at volume 16 and see that there are speed fades over the Gantz sphere as a gloved hand wipes over the surface. I have no idea how I'm going to solve that. I'll probably just fudge it.
:sigh: