(no subject)
So. If you've read the Hikaru no Go scanlations, you may remember that the quality of scans for the entire last three volumes were... pretty... bad. Which is a major pity, because the last three volumes are when Obata's art gets REALLY SMOKIN' HOT. And I'm all "screw that, no crappy scans are going to stop me from making icons of HOT WAYA" and ho! I set about on a crazy adventure to figure out a way to said scans into something that was... actually iconable |D.
So! We're going from
this to
this, using Photoshop.
So... I guess this is mostly for the benefit of the rest of the HnG cast, but I it can pretty much apply to anyone who has crappy scans to make icons out of! And uh, most of this is all pretty standard stuff. None of it is groundbreaking or difficult and can pretty much be summed up by "Uh, I just drew over it," but... anyway! I'm gonna stop rambling now and just get on with it xD. Otherwise I'll never start.
Okay first things first, before we even start: open your media player of choice. No, I'm serious. If you don't already have music playing, turn some on. We could be at this a while, so get comfy x3. Music always makes things better~.
One: this step only applies if your image has screentones in it. Which is most likely will, unless you're lucky enough like the xxxHOLiC or Naruto casts to be blessed with a mangaka that isn't overly fond of tones. So! Go to this site and download the very first two: Dots and Screens 1 and 2. Do it. Do it now. The rest aren't necessary to download, but those two will help you out a LOT.
Two:
Open your image. ... This is pretty self explanatory huh.
Three:
Get your crop! ... I don't believe there's anyone in this community who doesn't know how to crop s-so uh. yeaaaaah |D.
Four:
Image > Adjustments > Desaturate. Some of the scans have like... weird little green or purple or blue or whatever bits in them. Just, yeah. Get rid of 'em. There's probably not much of an obvious difference between the above image and this one, but... yeah, just trust me on this.
Five:
Levels time! Yeeeeeah everyone knows how to do this too. --Actually, BEFORE you do this, duplicate your layer. Play with the levels on the DUPLICATE one. Leave the base layer pretty much intact. You won't be looking at it, but I just like to be safe. We'll be doing all the work on the duplicate layer.
Make the whites whiter and the blacks blacker by dragging the end two arrows closer into the middle, etc etc. BUT: don't do it too much! You want to be careful that you don't lose any line-detail. (Ahaha, if you want to know what I mean, go look at some of Waya's icons again. You can see in a lot of my icons that I've been a little heavy-handed with the levels tool.) Just do it enough so that you can differentiate between the blacks and the whites, which is important in the next step. But don't worry about having the levels "clean" the scan-- that's not what this is about. Scans like these have gone beyond the point of being saved by mere levels toying :(.
Six:
Now the fun part! Get your paintbrush tool, set the colour to black, choose an appropriate size, set the hardness to 100% if it isn't already, and start colouring over the blacks :D. Yes, this it, folks. It is absolutely not rocket science. Just time consuming ;;. So yeah-- try to even up the blacks as much as you can. Don't start thinking about the whites yet, just focus on one bit at a time.
Seven:
So you should have something like this. Your blacks are looking less grainy and your lines should be looking more solid. Buuut it's still not looking all that hot.
Eight:
Time to do the same process, but with the whites instead! I like to zoom in again for this bit, since the grey-white bits are usually harder to spot. They're usually near the black lines, but you never know. So yeah, get to it-- we don't want any of those grainy grey dots DNine:
Okay, zoom out again! --Actually, zoom out ALL the way again, unlike me here, lolz fail. So you've drawn over the image with black and white so far, but that's all been zoomed in. Things look pretty different when you're zoomed in at like, 400%. So take a look at your image at 100% and see if there's anything that looks a bit wonky. Like a line you've drawn over that looks too chunky, or maybe an area you forgot to colour, etc. If you want to be extreme, sharpen your image. (Filter > Sharpen > Sharpen.) Because EVERYTHING is highlighted when your image is sharpened, you'll see ALL the trouble areas. Then undo the sharpening and go back and fix it. (If you want, after that you can play with the levels again just in case, but I usually leave it alone.)
I feel I should say right here and now that your lines are not going to look the same as the original. Doooon't try to make them look like an exact carbon copy, you'll only give yourself a headache. But sometimes the scan is so bad that you have no idea which way a particular line is going, or if it's black or white, and you just gotta use your creative liscence. Trust yourself on this one! Also remember that when you've resized it to 100x100, not all the mistakes are visible. RESIZING IS USUALLY QUITE FORGIVING IN THAT SENSE xD.
Now, if your scan has no screentones in it, you can skip straight down to step fourteen. If it does-- and it most likely will, and I've been lucky with Waya in that the only screentones used on him are on his clothes-- then you're going to need to bust out those nifty screentones I got you to download at the begining :D. (Didn't download them? Here's the link again. Get the first two.)
Ten:
Create a new layer. Get your white paintbrush out again and, on the NEW layer, go over the parts with the screentones on them. Try to be careful not to go over your newly-created sexy thick black lines |D. Of course, you CAN just erase the original screentone on the layer we were previously working on, but I like this way better for two reasons. The first being that it's easier to erase a mistake if you accidentally go over your lines, and the second being that it's good to have the original screentone to refer to.
Then, create ANOTHER new layer 8D. Time to bust out our screentone patterns! If you're not sure how to use patterns, it's the tool under the bandaid icon on the Tool Bar. Uh, right click it and make sure it's set to "pattern" tool and not "clone" tool first :D.
Then on the top bar of photoshop, there should be a "Pattern" drop down box, which shows you the patterns you have loaded into Photoshop to choose from, and which one you're currently using. Click the drop-down box, and then the arrow on the side, and select "Load Patterns". Find the screen tones that you downloaded previously and load BOTH of them.
Eleven:
If you're not familiar with the screentone patterns, this step might take you a while, since it involves a lot of "guess and check". I wish there was an easier way to do it but I currently don't know of one. Basically, choose a screentone from your dropdown list that you think looks like it'll match the original screentone pretty well. Unfortunately, there are a LOT of tones there, and a LOT of which look quite different when actually applied to the preview picture you get of them. You may want to open up an entirely new document and just muck about with the patterns on a blank canvas to familiarise yourself with them, which ones are okay to use, etc etc.
Once you think you've got a good one, do a little test piece somewhere on your new layer, in where it's supposed to go and not near any lines, like the image above :3.
Twelve:
I just include this step to be careful. Make the layer beneath your tone layer invisible-- that should be the layer with the "white over the original tone" on it. Click the the icon that looks like an eye next to that layer, and your "white over" layer should disappear. Then you'll see what your new tone looks like in comparison to the old tone. Basically all you really want to do is match the same sort of shade and dot-consistency.
As a side note: if you can find the right sort of dot-consistency but can't find the right shade of grey, fill your tone in anyway, and then duplicate your new tone layer and set it to "multiply". This should make it a few shades darker-- and if it's too dark, then play with the layer opacity until you get it the exact right shade you want it.
Thirteen:
Great, so you've got the right tone! Make your white-over layer visible again, then go to your new-tone layer and set it to multiply so that you can colour over without worrying about erasing your black lines. (Unfortunately this method doesn't work with the white-over layer, sob sob xD.) And ta-dah, we have tone! Clean-looking tone! Hooray!
Fourteen:
Okay, so technically you're done now. The rest is just fine tuning.
Due to the nature of photoshop brushes, your lines are going to be a tiny bit... fuzzier than you'd like, perhaps. Duplicate your lines-layer again (KEEP YOUR SCREENTONE LAYER SEPERATE-- I cannot emphasise this enough) and sharpen it.
Fifteen:
Well, okay so, sometimes the sharpen filter is a little too brutal. But this is why we created a duplicate layer! On your sharpened-lines-layer, mess with the opacity a bit until you have a nice balance, so that your image isn't either too fuzzy or too sharp. (Though remember that your icon will get even fuzzier when you resize it down to 100x100 pixels.) Again, the amount of sharpness you need will differ with every one you do, so trust your own judgement on this again.
Sixteen:
SAVE YOUR WORK. AS A PSD FILE. You might like it now but in two months you might spot a mistake on your icon that will bug you for the rest of eternity. And you don't want to go back and fix that on the actual icon itself, 'cause it's tiny and not layered and you'll lose quality etc. So save it now, as a seperate psd file. TRUST ME ON THIS ONE. You do not want to go over this all again just to fix one mistake xD.
And you're pretty much done! The rest is history-- flatten layers, resize, border, and save! If you haven't done those with photoshop before, then I'mma redirect you to Aviy's REALLY AWESOME MULTI-PURPOSE ICONNING IN PHOTOSHOP GUIDE because... it's really awesome! Duh. And you should check it out anyway even if you think you know everything about photoshop, 'cause it's got some pretty neato tips and tricks :D.
AND TADAH, WE HAVE AN ICON:
WOOHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO. ... Now you get to go back and do that same process all over again with the rest of your scans! ISN'T LIFE FUN 8D? Yeah. Like I said in the begining: it's not rocket science! Just time-consuming. And now you understand why I will cut anyone who steals Waya's icons ;; ♥.
So uh. That was my first time making a tutorial |D! I hope it wasn't too difficult to follow or anything, and I'd really love some feedback. I do NOT, under ANY CIRCUMSTANCES claim to be a pro at this. I'd love to hear from other people who I know spend lots of time cleaning icons! (MAMORI AND NARUTO. I'M LOOKING AT YOU.) If you see an easier way to do something than the way I've explained it, by all means please point it out.
I'm still learning and messing around with techniques myself, so if someone knows of a quicker or easier or better way to do this, speak up! Or if there's any problems in the way I've explained something, please tell me that too ;;.
So! We're going from
this to
this, using Photoshop.
So... I guess this is mostly for the benefit of the rest of the HnG cast, but I it can pretty much apply to anyone who has crappy scans to make icons out of! And uh, most of this is all pretty standard stuff. None of it is groundbreaking or difficult and can pretty much be summed up by "Uh, I just drew over it," but... anyway! I'm gonna stop rambling now and just get on with it xD. Otherwise I'll never start.
Okay first things first, before we even start: open your media player of choice. No, I'm serious. If you don't already have music playing, turn some on. We could be at this a while, so get comfy x3. Music always makes things better~.
One: this step only applies if your image has screentones in it. Which is most likely will, unless you're lucky enough like the xxxHOLiC or Naruto casts to be blessed with a mangaka that isn't overly fond of tones. So! Go to this site and download the very first two: Dots and Screens 1 and 2. Do it. Do it now. The rest aren't necessary to download, but those two will help you out a LOT.
Two:
Open your image. ... This is pretty self explanatory huh.
Three:
Get your crop! ... I don't believe there's anyone in this community who doesn't know how to crop s-so uh. yeaaaaah |D.
Four:
Image > Adjustments > Desaturate. Some of the scans have like... weird little green or purple or blue or whatever bits in them. Just, yeah. Get rid of 'em. There's probably not much of an obvious difference between the above image and this one, but... yeah, just trust me on this.
Five:
Levels time! Yeeeeeah everyone knows how to do this too. --Actually, BEFORE you do this, duplicate your layer. Play with the levels on the DUPLICATE one. Leave the base layer pretty much intact. You won't be looking at it, but I just like to be safe. We'll be doing all the work on the duplicate layer.
Make the whites whiter and the blacks blacker by dragging the end two arrows closer into the middle, etc etc. BUT: don't do it too much! You want to be careful that you don't lose any line-detail. (Ahaha, if you want to know what I mean, go look at some of Waya's icons again. You can see in a lot of my icons that I've been a little heavy-handed with the levels tool.) Just do it enough so that you can differentiate between the blacks and the whites, which is important in the next step. But don't worry about having the levels "clean" the scan-- that's not what this is about. Scans like these have gone beyond the point of being saved by mere levels toying :(.
Six:
Now the fun part! Get your paintbrush tool, set the colour to black, choose an appropriate size, set the hardness to 100% if it isn't already, and start colouring over the blacks :D. Yes, this it, folks. It is absolutely not rocket science. Just time consuming ;;. So yeah-- try to even up the blacks as much as you can. Don't start thinking about the whites yet, just focus on one bit at a time.
Seven:
So you should have something like this. Your blacks are looking less grainy and your lines should be looking more solid. Buuut it's still not looking all that hot.
Eight:
Time to do the same process, but with the whites instead! I like to zoom in again for this bit, since the grey-white bits are usually harder to spot. They're usually near the black lines, but you never know. So yeah, get to it-- we don't want any of those grainy grey dots DNine:
Okay, zoom out again! --Actually, zoom out ALL the way again, unlike me here, lolz fail. So you've drawn over the image with black and white so far, but that's all been zoomed in. Things look pretty different when you're zoomed in at like, 400%. So take a look at your image at 100% and see if there's anything that looks a bit wonky. Like a line you've drawn over that looks too chunky, or maybe an area you forgot to colour, etc. If you want to be extreme, sharpen your image. (Filter > Sharpen > Sharpen.) Because EVERYTHING is highlighted when your image is sharpened, you'll see ALL the trouble areas. Then undo the sharpening and go back and fix it. (If you want, after that you can play with the levels again just in case, but I usually leave it alone.)
I feel I should say right here and now that your lines are not going to look the same as the original. Doooon't try to make them look like an exact carbon copy, you'll only give yourself a headache. But sometimes the scan is so bad that you have no idea which way a particular line is going, or if it's black or white, and you just gotta use your creative liscence. Trust yourself on this one! Also remember that when you've resized it to 100x100, not all the mistakes are visible. RESIZING IS USUALLY QUITE FORGIVING IN THAT SENSE xD.
Now, if your scan has no screentones in it, you can skip straight down to step fourteen. If it does-- and it most likely will, and I've been lucky with Waya in that the only screentones used on him are on his clothes-- then you're going to need to bust out those nifty screentones I got you to download at the begining :D. (Didn't download them? Here's the link again. Get the first two.)
Ten:
Create a new layer. Get your white paintbrush out again and, on the NEW layer, go over the parts with the screentones on them. Try to be careful not to go over your newly-created sexy thick black lines |D. Of course, you CAN just erase the original screentone on the layer we were previously working on, but I like this way better for two reasons. The first being that it's easier to erase a mistake if you accidentally go over your lines, and the second being that it's good to have the original screentone to refer to.
Then, create ANOTHER new layer 8D. Time to bust out our screentone patterns! If you're not sure how to use patterns, it's the tool under the bandaid icon on the Tool Bar. Uh, right click it and make sure it's set to "pattern" tool and not "clone" tool first :D.
Then on the top bar of photoshop, there should be a "Pattern" drop down box, which shows you the patterns you have loaded into Photoshop to choose from, and which one you're currently using. Click the drop-down box, and then the arrow on the side, and select "Load Patterns". Find the screen tones that you downloaded previously and load BOTH of them.
Eleven:
If you're not familiar with the screentone patterns, this step might take you a while, since it involves a lot of "guess and check". I wish there was an easier way to do it but I currently don't know of one. Basically, choose a screentone from your dropdown list that you think looks like it'll match the original screentone pretty well. Unfortunately, there are a LOT of tones there, and a LOT of which look quite different when actually applied to the preview picture you get of them. You may want to open up an entirely new document and just muck about with the patterns on a blank canvas to familiarise yourself with them, which ones are okay to use, etc etc.
Once you think you've got a good one, do a little test piece somewhere on your new layer, in where it's supposed to go and not near any lines, like the image above :3.
Twelve:
I just include this step to be careful. Make the layer beneath your tone layer invisible-- that should be the layer with the "white over the original tone" on it. Click the the icon that looks like an eye next to that layer, and your "white over" layer should disappear. Then you'll see what your new tone looks like in comparison to the old tone. Basically all you really want to do is match the same sort of shade and dot-consistency.
As a side note: if you can find the right sort of dot-consistency but can't find the right shade of grey, fill your tone in anyway, and then duplicate your new tone layer and set it to "multiply". This should make it a few shades darker-- and if it's too dark, then play with the layer opacity until you get it the exact right shade you want it.
Thirteen:
Great, so you've got the right tone! Make your white-over layer visible again, then go to your new-tone layer and set it to multiply so that you can colour over without worrying about erasing your black lines. (Unfortunately this method doesn't work with the white-over layer, sob sob xD.) And ta-dah, we have tone! Clean-looking tone! Hooray!
Fourteen:
Okay, so technically you're done now. The rest is just fine tuning.
Due to the nature of photoshop brushes, your lines are going to be a tiny bit... fuzzier than you'd like, perhaps. Duplicate your lines-layer again (KEEP YOUR SCREENTONE LAYER SEPERATE-- I cannot emphasise this enough) and sharpen it.
Fifteen:
Well, okay so, sometimes the sharpen filter is a little too brutal. But this is why we created a duplicate layer! On your sharpened-lines-layer, mess with the opacity a bit until you have a nice balance, so that your image isn't either too fuzzy or too sharp. (Though remember that your icon will get even fuzzier when you resize it down to 100x100 pixels.) Again, the amount of sharpness you need will differ with every one you do, so trust your own judgement on this again.
Sixteen:
SAVE YOUR WORK. AS A PSD FILE. You might like it now but in two months you might spot a mistake on your icon that will bug you for the rest of eternity. And you don't want to go back and fix that on the actual icon itself, 'cause it's tiny and not layered and you'll lose quality etc. So save it now, as a seperate psd file. TRUST ME ON THIS ONE. You do not want to go over this all again just to fix one mistake xD.
And you're pretty much done! The rest is history-- flatten layers, resize, border, and save! If you haven't done those with photoshop before, then I'mma redirect you to Aviy's REALLY AWESOME MULTI-PURPOSE ICONNING IN PHOTOSHOP GUIDE because... it's really awesome! Duh. And you should check it out anyway even if you think you know everything about photoshop, 'cause it's got some pretty neato tips and tricks :D.
AND TADAH, WE HAVE AN ICON:
WOOHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO. ... Now you get to go back and do that same process all over again with the rest of your scans! ISN'T LIFE FUN 8D? Yeah. Like I said in the begining: it's not rocket science! Just time-consuming. And now you understand why I will cut anyone who steals Waya's icons ;; ♥.
So uh. That was my first time making a tutorial |D! I hope it wasn't too difficult to follow or anything, and I'd really love some feedback. I do NOT, under ANY CIRCUMSTANCES claim to be a pro at this. I'd love to hear from other people who I know spend lots of time cleaning icons! (MAMORI AND NARUTO. I'M LOOKING AT YOU.) If you see an easier way to do something than the way I've explained it, by all means please point it out.
I'm still learning and messing around with techniques myself, so if someone knows of a quicker or easier or better way to do this, speak up! Or if there's any problems in the way I've explained something, please tell me that too ;;.