Chocolat Vanilla Fansub

I'm sorry, but the white levels in your demonstration image just seem way too blown-out. So much of the light-grey (and even medium-grey) details are getting lost compared the original scan...

The idea is good, but I think I'll stick with my own actions, personally.

Don't say sorry.
_____
That is how it should be. I am confident that much details are kept.
If you bought kindle before (1024 px version), it always looks light like that. Tank raws shouldn't be sharpened too much because sharp tool will harm gradient and make dust in white area bigger.
Could you try clean that page please? So that I can know the difference.

I can already tell you that my clean won't come out perfect, there will still be dust present. However, as a reader, I wouldn't notice this dust at all. However, I would *definitely* notice bits of the shading missing here & there.

I'm not suggesting to sharpen anything, either, not sure how that came into the discussion...

All I'm saying is that my philosophy when it comes to speed cleaning is to not attempt to achieve perfect black & white solids, but instead to preserve the screentones & shading as much as possible, taking a little dust here & there as a compromise.

Your cleaning philosophy seems to be compromising parts of the art in order to achieve solid white & solid black, but I feel like this also ruins the entire look of the image, making the whole thing feel much flatter and less appealing.

In any case, this is how I would speed clean it: https://i.imgur.com/8xSyY8p.png

Thanks for your reply.
I mentioned sharp tool because sharp is the reason why the clean looks light.
I agree that my clean look different from original scans but scans is art on yellow paper. I wondered if I printed the cleans on same kind of paper I could gain the same result or not (?).
If you compare my clean to yours, you can see I kept details, only the color is different.

I disagree to not make cleans white and black. It is fine to not clean raws if the resolution is high (4000 px hig). However noone would read manga at that size in PC or phone. If the size get smaller, it should be cleaned to get black and white.

And my clean looks very similar to kindle 1024 px version. That is why I said it is how it should be. Tank cleans should be light if it is black and white.

I suppose I can still see the shading in your version if I look closely for it.
Have you ever considered trying this method, but then adjusting the white levels to something around 250 or 245 on the output? That way your solid white areas would instead be off-white, and it might emulate the tone you'd get from the paper texture still being present. (at least for web-based scanlation releases this seems to make the most sense.)

One more thing I take umbrage with, looking more closely, is how the complexity of the screentones is being simplified, using Topaz or another similar technique.
It creates hard-edges around gradients (such as the hard, flat cut to black on the demon girl's chestpiece, instead of the smoother, rounder transition in the original), and it also makes variation within screentones less visible. (the shadow on the volleyball court in the bottom left panel is one example, but also where the shadows blend into white on the clouds.)
I understand why this would be done for web releases, to prevent that ugly pattern from appearing from resizing... However, as long as things are re-sized proportionally, that kind of thing shouldn't happen, right?

The last thing I'll mention is the thinner weight of the lines. It seems to mostly only happen to lines surrounding white areas in the image, but the lines get somewhat thinner. I believe you said this is from sharpening, but I don't like how much it changes the look of things, and I also feel like it's a betrayal of the artist's original brushstrokes, which should be preserved instead of smoothed out.

Cleaning always harms details. I also feel frustrated that details are lost due to cleaning and it is a betrayal of original art.
The more you adjust, the more you lost.
Even that you said level white makes the lines get thinner and you also felt like it's a betrayal of the artist's original brushstrokes but if you level black a bit, you will make the lines thicker that is also a betrayal of the artist's original brushstrokes. Level black makes details darker.

That is why I agree that cleaner shouldn't clean much, just adjust a bit. Or don't clean at all. Just type and redraw it at original size. However, noone would leave it big size right? The best resolve is buying tank volume to read instead of reading the online version.

I also tried to level white with 250, 247, 245 before. Even that gradient would be better. Dust is something I can't ignore. Unlike physical copy, online version (digital version) should be black and white except it is a color page. I rather don't clean it at all than clean it a bit then resizing down that still has dust.

Unlike other cleaners, unlike other normal cleaning ways, topaz denoise 3 here is used solely for recovering the damage to tones caused by level white. Topaz denoise 6 is used at super high size to get rid of dust and to minimize the damage compare to use it at smaller size. Even I used topaz, the clean look like leveling only but better due to the support of topaz.

Sharpen is the reason that the clean look light. I mean I didn't use much sharpen. If I use much sharpen original brushstrokes can somehow retain, but I didn't. Sharp tool would harm gradient and also make dust bigger that shouldn't be there. My cleaning philosophy is compromising of dust and details or in another way, sharp and leveling white.

It is fine to leave dust but the size should be really big like 4000 px high. In smaller sizes, dust is annoying and it is hard to see details. Parts of details blended to dust. I agree that gradient is better though.

Hmm, you make some good points.
At a smaller size, the dust/page texture can definitely sometimes blend with the screentones & shading... which is sometimes frustrating.

Personally, my white levels on that page did end up around where you mentioned, at 245-250, but I will sometimes go lower to get better white levels as long as there isn't light-grey detail being damaged.

As for black levels making the lines get thicker, that may be true... but I feel like there's less of a change than when the lines get thinner. Flipping between the two pages, it's less noticeable and still closer to the original scanned artwork.

You say that a cleaner should only adjust a bit, which I agree with... but I feel like you're not adhering to that philosophy... making topaz adjustments to the screentones and sharpening... and also over-levelling. If you ask me, most of the time all that's needed are minor levels adjustments.

I also disagree that cleaning inherently harms details...
This is only true when people over-level, which seems to be very common.
I believe this technique of over-levelling to get solid white & solid black used to be done to save on file size back in the late-90s and early 2000's when hard drives weren't so large... but with hard drives becoming larger and larger, file size isn't as much of an issue nowadays.
Obviously, a file can still become bloated, but a bit of dust will only increase a page's size by a couple hundred kilobytes at most, the main factors for file size nowadays are resolution & color depth.

All I'm trying to say is that this one-click cleaning action doesn't seem to be very useful for me, because it doesn't adhere to the method of, like you said, "just adjust a bit".

I meant there are 2 ways of cleaning.
- Just adjust a bit, but it is only for big size.
- For smaller size, clean should be black and white.
That are 2 cases of one philosophy.

I don't agree what you said "making topaz adjustments to the screentones and sharpening... and also over-leveling".
Like I said, unlike other cleaners or normal methods, topaz denoise 3 here is purely for recovering the damage caused by white leveling. It is supportive.
Topaz denoise 6 here also doesn't harm screentones. It was used at a very big size to get rid of dust. Some very small details are also lost with dust. It can't be helped but it is also needed. Basically, screentones are not harmed due to big size.
Sharpening is also one time only. It harmed screentones a bit but it is needed for leveling. If it is not sharpened. White leveling would destroy details utterly.

Over-leveling... Not at all. It is very slight leveling, only enough to get rid of dust. Nothing more. For me, over-leveling is something that destroys many details. However, you can see details in my clean are retained. It got thinner, yeah, but it is not lost.
Compare to other normal leveling, this way already keep more details.
Also, black matter in my clean was got in a special and natural way than normal black leveling. Only white leveling is like usual.
My clean is not over-leveling.
In my opinion, over-leveling is something like this
http://puu.sh/ylUEx/2c14c77dda.png
That makes black lines thicker, dots in black matter thicker, dots in light area thinner, and damage the screentones.
(Even small black leveling can make black lines thicker or dots in black matter darker. However in my clean, black matter was gotten in a special way that doesn't make black lines thicker or dots darker)
You should look into my clean at big size to compare with raws to how less the difference between them
https://mega.nz/#!Z1A1DLgb!ssRG4wjbQs4p4Ck9OiuwW3H8XwBrV_iUdqoV7zjMN7M


Physical scan is art on yellow paper. The more it gets white, the more clear difference it will become.
RAWs: grey (details) vs less grey (paper)
Cleans: grey/black (details) (greyer/blacker than RAWs) vs white (paper)

http://puu.sh/ylVHQ/00b4b9a84a.png
http://puu.sh/ylVIE/b12f417450.png

So I don't think when the paper is white, gradient "must" be the same as how it looks in yellow paper.

Oh wait, it seems I resolved it. Need to test more though.
https://puu.sh/ylX21/969ffda84e.png
https://puu.sh/ylYiw/0af4e0f566.png

Wow, okay, looking at the full resolution clean, it's actually pretty impressive how you can get a screentone down to simply dots and have everything in-between be pure white.

I do wonder, though... are screentones just dots, or do they have a grey shade in-between those dots as well? Looking at the scan, it seems like there's a grey tone in-between the dots, one which is somewhat darker than the paper's color. However, I can't tell if that's just a residual effect from scanning or if that's how the screentones are actually designed.

I think it'd be interesting to see a small section of a screentone scanned in at something abusurdly high like 2400DPI, just to see if the space in-between the dots is meant to be white or not.

Actually, whatever you just did in your last post seemed to work wonders. Those last two images you posted seems to retain the grey in-between the dots in the screentone while keeping the page itself pure white.
If your action can produce results like this consistently, it's definitely something I would use. :)

I've uploaded version 2.1
https://puu.sh/ymU5l/91c887b3ef.png
https://puu.sh/ymB3d/a474b4436e.png

Hey Mana Light! I love reading your articles, they are very detailed.

I was wondering if you can make guides to using certain tools (Topaz Denoise, Clean, Blur, Sharpen, Etc). Explaining when to use them and when not to use them. Would love to read them :)

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