Cleaning Redrawing for HQ Scans (Part 1)

[Silver_Sea]

This is a basic tutorial showing beginners where to look for good places to clone.

"… eating an elephant bit by bit.”
A page full of text overlays looks daunting at first, but once you understand the art
in terms of simple forms and symmetry, you’re on the fast track to cloning the page back to its original form.

Software: photoshop. Tools: brush, eraser, pen, lasso, move
Basic Tips:

Spoiler

Brush (b) / Eraser (e)

• Draw straight lines using “click mouse”> hit shift key> “click mouse”.
• Hit [ and ] to change its size.
• Hit x to rotate background and foreground colour.

Pen (p)

• It’s easier to draw straight lines at first then use the convert point tool to change it into the shape you want.
• It’s nice to have a warm up if you haven’t used it in a while by drawing zigzag lines, then manipulating the Bezier handles freely to obtain curves.

Polygonol Lasso (l)

• Use lasso to Copy and Paste artwork (cloning)
• Select the area you want, then right click > “layer via copy”. A copy should appear on a new layer. If it doesn’t, you probably selected the wrong layer.
• Keep things easy by continually flattening Photoshop layers into the background layer using “shift + control + E”.

Move (v)

Contents: Clone Patterns/Clone straight lines/Redraw curved lines

CLONE PATTERNS
•Screentones
(clone from same gradient)

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•Wood grain
( clone from a variety of areas, use transform/ctrl T creatively )

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•Wall pattern
( the power of symmetry: mirror using ctrl T)

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•Tatami (and one human)
(cut and paste, mirror and move)

Spoiler

CLONE STRAIGHT LINES
•Architecture is easy, just keep extruding straight lines (layer via copy) until they intersect,
then draw the joint (column meets ceiling) using the brush tool (holding down shift)
•Now you can clone beams, doors, walls and shoji screens~!

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REDRAW CURVED LINES
•Clothes: redrawing using the pen tool.
When erasing the Japanese text, try to be as accurate as possible: every bit of the original helps.

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•Humans:
When the text has virtually obliterated the line art, and all you can see are bits and pieces, don’t panic…:
Regain control of the page by blocking in simple shapes and thinking in terms of symmetry.

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"Once you can understand the picture, adding in the detail is straightforward... ..."Congrats at reaching the end of the tutorial, have fun cloning~!

Spoiler

Actually, I am also a beginner...my skills are pretty rough...Concrit welcome!!Don't hesitate to ask any questions or let me know if any parts need more clarification.:P

Test yourself: Clone Kagura

Original: Result:

Part 2: Advanced Redrawing for HQ Scans http://mangahelpers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=21037

 

[Vato Loco!]

Lol. I hadn't noticed this thread until now. This really is a good thread to teach new cleaners a decent way to start re-drawing and turn out decent results, and it incorporates some of the methods that I used to use before I got my tablet. That being said, I still have some qualms about some parts of it.

The first thing I want to comment on is your use of cloning in the first part. Here you have made one of the biggest mistakes that I see new people make when they're using the clone stamp tool and the layer copy method. That mistake being that, while you may have payed attention to correct gradients and such, you have completely neglected the actual pattern.

like I've pointed out here:

Spoiler

As you can see here it is painstakingly obvious where your cloning is as opposed to the actual pattern because of the constant repetition. One of the tell tale signs that you've made this mistake is because of the constant appearance of the same row of pixels, or the pattern moved via the layer copy method does not mesh with the original pattern.

As I'm pointing out here:

Spoiler

Unfortunately, this is a problem that's all too common with new people not familiar with the tools and methods being used, such as the cloning method you describe. One of the easiest solutions to this problem for the cloning method you describe is just to watch where you're making your selection with the pen tool. Try to make it so what your selection is always over the columns of the pattern and not the pattern itself.

What i mean by this is, that if you zoom into any grid type of pattern you will start to see rows and columns of two side by side pixels. These rows and columns create boxes that will have alternating pixels inside them. This is how most grid type patterns are created. If you make your selection from the middle of one of the columns where the two pixels meet then you should, in turn, be able to take your clone layer and move it over any pattern and be able to match it up perfectly with the pattern (of course this is provided that the hue of the pixels stays the same and there's no pattern change.)

Now of course this isn't perfect either. Since you have various little blemishes in every pattern (especially mag raws), if you clone from the same place you will still have some hint of repetition. This is the reason why you should change clone source from time to time.

Now if your clones start to overlap each other and it's difficult to match pixels then this is when the eraser tool comes in. If your problem is that you can't match pixels, then before you start erasing, zoom in close to where you're gonna be erasing (around 500-800 pixels depending on the image, though you could to more if you wanted) and instead of using the eraser tool in the brush setting change it to the pencil setting. This way you can change the size to 1px and erase individual pixels, unlike the brush tool, which will also start erasing the pixels surrounding its focus point.

I myself have stopped using this method and use the clone stamp tool for every pattern clone I do now (since I have a tablet and it makes everything go much faster. ) Though I still keep the pattern in mind, and will start cloning from the corresponding pixel to the exact place where I will be cloning to. (I.E. I'll clone from a pixel a few columns away, and make sure it's in the same place as my new starting point for the clone)

It's also generally a good Idea to make your starting point (where you're going to start cloning, not where you're cloning from) for your new clone a pixel or two outside of the text you'll be cloning over. This way you can make sure your pattern will align and match the rest of the image, and you can make sure you're cloning from a place with a similar hue.

I have another thing to comment on but I gotta head to class right now so I'll edit that in later.

 

[Silver_Sea]

Cool! Thanks for the super tips on making a repeating texture. I'm sorry for the mistake in that image...( lame excuse coming :P) Anyway, I'm really glad you took the time point that out!

I'm intrigued by your use of the tablet in cleaning. and also you mentioned you cloned a small column at a time....I always just grab a huge swathe of...anything, the bigger the better. :X

Actually I always had a problem drawing with the pen tool, it seems so unatural ( and slow) to tweak each bezier handle so I always end up drawing free-hand. Do you have any ideas how to use it so its fast and natural?

 

[fxu]

Or you can do it easier .. grab like 4 to 6 rows of dots, and make it it into a pattern. [Edit > Define Pattern]

Do a pattern overlay over that area only, then use a gradient and play with the Blending Change.

Here's an example.

Spoiler

This was a quick-touch up; like 1 minute. But if you play with the gradient and pattern a bit more, you'll get the same result as the original.

[This is my way of doing it. To each their own]

edit: You caught me in a good time. I was doing the HQ of Dragonaut 1 .. and there a lot of patterns in there.

Here's one.

Spoiler

 

[Silver_Sea]

Wow!!! Thumbs up!! HQ redrawing in action!

Yeah, I have heard of this way of overlaying the greytones on another layer, for Editing, or for home-made manga... But seriously, did you redraw Everything in Dragonaut manually? How do you make that sustainable? I remember I tried to outline some Bleach stuff with the pen tool before and it took me one hour to draw Ishida's face...I mean that was just impossible. And I did it 3 times again and it was just as slow. So I dunno, any suggestions to keep the lineart layer intact while you substitute the background?!

 

[spades]

...thats aaalllooottt of work..redrawing everything.. wow..

 

[Vato Loco!]

Cool! Thanks for the super tips on making a repeating texture. I'm sorry for the mistake in that image...( lame excuse coming :P) Anyway, I'm really glad you took the time point that out!

I'm intrigued by your use of the tablet in cleaning. and also you mentioned you cloned a small column at a time....I always just grab a huge swathe of...anything, the bigger the better. :X

Actually I always had a problem drawing with the pen tool, it seems so unatural ( and slow) to tweak each bezier handle so I always end up drawing free-hand. Do you have any ideas how to use it so its fast and natural?

Nah, I talked about the columns and rows to break down a pattern. I'll start at one place but just do a continuous stroke of it through out the clone.

As for the use of the pen tool. Well, I've never had to tweak each individual one. In fact, I can't recall ever tweaking one at all. I've always used the click, hold and move method. That being, you make your anchor, then the second point in the path that you make you hold the left click, and move your mouse, this'll make the curves you need depending on where and how you move your mouse. Then once you have your wanted curve release the click. Though this usually means you'll have more anchor points till you get good at guessing where your anchors should go, and how much to move your mouse accordingly.

 

[fxu]

Wow!!! Thumbs up!! HQ redrawing in action!

Yeah, I have heard of this way of overlaying the greytones on another layer, for Editing, or for home-made manga... But seriously, did you redraw Everything in Dragonaut manually? How do you make that sustainable? I remember I tried to outline some Bleach stuff with the pen tool before and it took me one hour to draw Ishida's face...I mean that was just impossible. And I did it 3 times again and it was just as slow. So I dunno, any suggestions to keep the lineart layer intact while you substitute the background?!

Hehe .. thanks.


Everything ? I would have to say more than 90% of each page is re-drawn.

Spoiler

I finished this page around noon. Took me a couple of hours. Everything was re-drawn. Even the clouds :P But I also copied stuffs from the original [dirt patches] and used a few filters so it doesn't look raw-ish.

RAW


HQ


(I just found some mistakes .. great >_<)

I recommend doing the black part first [usually is smaller, overall], then make a new layer and place it below the black layer and fill it with white. Then re-draw whatever else you forgot to go over.

Or if you wanna go lazy on me .. do it piece by piece, using pen tool, line tool, and brush; doing it in different layers, then just merge all of them.

P.S: I'm looking for a translator .. if you wanna help <33333


EDIT:

Spoiler

EDIT: I decided to drop the Dragonaut HQ cus I decided to join a group. I'll propose it to them and see.

 

[Silver_Sea]

Well...good luck! We might end up in the same group some other time, who knows. :P But for the record I am a chin-> eng translator. As for J-> eng, you might even have better luck asking the Vato, >.> [ BTW, did you know about this? ]

And you know what, you should get into original illustration considering how much redrawing you do... And coloring :P Thanks for showing the technique. =D

Nah, I talked about the columns and rows to break down a pattern. I'll start at one place but just do a continuous stroke of it through out the clone.

Ah, I did get that, its just that I started seeing repeating patterns in my mind so that's...well I'm most definitely going to try out this method and update this tutorial. And also regarding the use of the pen tool as well. I have to scrap that technique I introduced about using the pen ASAP...

Thank you and please continue to point out any mistakes you spot. ^^""

 

[fxu]

Thanks, maybe we will ^_^


I'm really really bad at drawing [my own stuff].

I can only re-draw and trace what other people has done.

 

[Vato Loco!]

I should probably take care of this before everyone goes off on their merry way, though I should be working on my psych paper. |{

Or you can do it easier .. grab like 4 to 6 rows of dots, and make it it into a pattern. [Edit > Define Pattern]

Do a pattern overlay over that area only, then use a gradient and play with the Blending Change.

Here's an example.

Spoiler

This was a quick-touch up; like 1 minute. But if you play with the gradient and pattern a bit more, you'll get the same result as the original.

[This is my way of doing it. To each their own]

edit: You caught me in a good time. I was doing the HQ of Dragonaut 1 .. and there a lot of patterns in there.

Here's one.

Spoiler

Actually, technically it's impossible to get the same result as the original pattern through overlay. This is because of the nature of the overlay effect. That nature being that, even though it might be at 100 % optacity, there will always, ALWAYS, be bleed through from the original image. And since it's basically impossible to get the pattern to overlay exactly the way it was before since all patterns are unique, and grabbing a part of it will not perfectly reproduce the original pattern, it's not as good as stamping the original pattern when working on tank scans.

Also, a gradient from PS never looks as natural as the original gradient on the pattern, and usually always looks like an overlay, even with multiply applied.

Also, as it is plainly visible in your Dragonaut page, your grays look extremely artificial. This artificialness is accented even more by the fact that your newly drawn lines stand out. Just that alone makes it a bad re-draw. The thing with re-drawing is you're supposed to re-draw line art and patterns to make the image look better, in correlation with the original art. So, yeah the grays look better, but if the overall image looks way different then the re-draw is not necessarily better. Also, it seems from the raw that the bracelet on the hand is an entirely different hue than the rest of the hand.

This is why it's generally advised against completely re-drawing pages. The only time I've seen a Edited Manga turn out great with completely re-drawn pages was by shannaro (at least I've heard they completely re-drew their pages).

Generally, a much better idea than completely re-drawing lines is to use the erase tool. That is, after you do an overlay, reduce the optacity of that overlay and erase over the lines with a 3px brush, then return the overlays optacity back to 100%. Then I suggest taking the pen tool and doing 1px strokes over each line in order to highlight it and make sure they look good and appropriately dark inside of the overlay.

Edit: I have another thing to address in this thread but that'll have to wait till later tonight.

 

[fxu]

RAWs are usually LQ/MQ. Doing an HQ usually means re-drawn and make it look as if it was drawn directly on that canvas in the first place and not in manga page. [That's what I've learned from different groups]

And that gradient/pattern wouldn't be out of place if you re-do the rest of the page. After everything is neat and tidy, it'll look good.

Patterns are difficult to copy; there's no such thing as perfection [not that you mentioned it], so sometimes it'll be a little bit off than the original.



I didn't notice the different grays between the bracelet and the hand/shirt; thanks. I'll have to look out for that in future cleanings.

 

[Vato Loco!]

RAWs are usually LQ/MQ. Doing an HQ usually means re-drawn and make it look as if it was drawn directly on that canvas in the first place and not in manga page. [That's what I've learned from different groups]

And that gradient/pattern wouldn't be out of place if you re-do the rest of the page. After everything is neat and tidy, it'll look good.

Patterns are difficult to copy; there's no such thing as perfection [not that you mentioned it], so sometimes it'll be a little bit off than the original.



I didn't notice the different grays between the bracelet and the hand/shirt; thanks. I'll have to look out for that in future cleanings.

Wow, I have no idea who taught you but they were severely misinformed. I can take that raw and in about an hour and a half get it up to HQ status, without having to re-draw a thing. This just lets me know that you've never had any training actually cleaning manga. What you're doing now is kind of a poorer version of what Colour groups like Isane do to clean their pages before they start to colour. Though I'm not trying to get down on you or anything, just that you should go and learn to properly clean manga. That'll take your Edited Manga time and re-drawing time and lessen it by great lengths.

Unfortunately, you're missing the point of re-drawing. Any re-draw should always mimic the original art. But with your re-draws it is obvious what you do and it looks blocky and nothing like the original art. Not to mention that your re-draws are all for naught, because that raw is really nice, and can easily be cleaned up to HQ status.

 

[spades]

everyone has there own way of redrawing :0
i thot u only redraw when u hv overlaying words, but i guess i was wrong
well, ur raws ware actually MQ/HQ, so u didn't really hv to re-draw the whole thing
raws that are LQ/MQ are usually only from magazines.

 

[Silver_Sea]

Well okay, I guess we're starting to see two different ways of redrawing/drawing. Fxu's way is more suited to original art/ amateur manga creation rather than to preserve the mangaka's art.

well, ur raws ware actually MQ/HQ, so u didn't really hv to re-draw the whole thing raws that are LQ/MQ are usually only from magazines.

I agree with spades and Vato about that, but OTOH, I was really excited to see you redraw the whole thing! I mean, I love drawing. Even if you will want to change your cleaning style now that its problems are pointed out, I don't think you've wasted your time learning the pen tool. It will come in handy when you create original art for yourself.

Anyway, I learnt a lot of good techniques for redrawing mag scans from your discussion, thanks! =D

I should probably take care of this before everyone goes off on their merry way, though I should be working on my psych paper. |{

How about a paper on group think ? >_< Both the good and bad points. :P

 

[Vato Loco!]

Hehe .. thanks.


Everything ? I would have to say more than 90% of each page is re-drawn.

Spoiler

I finished this page around noon. Took me a couple of hours. Everything was re-drawn. Even the clouds :P But I also copied stuffs from the original [dirt patches] and used a few filters so it doesn't look raw-ish.

RAW


HQ


(I just found some mistakes .. great >_<)

I recommend doing the black part first [usually is smaller, overall], then make a new layer and place it below the black layer and fill it with white. Then re-draw whatever else you forgot to go over.

Or if you wanna go lazy on me .. do it piece by piece, using pen tool, line tool, and brush; doing it in different layers, then just merge all of them.

P.S: I'm looking for a translator .. if you wanna help <33333


EDIT:

Spoiler

EDIT: I decided to drop the Dragonaut HQ cus I decided to join a group. I'll propose it to them and see.

Ok, time to address my second initial point, which was the part about re-drawing line art. Now in the original tutorial for drawing curved lines, and on the human end of things where you had to draw the lines on the shirt I was able to immediately recognize which lines were the fakes and which were part of the original image, and not just because of the images in the previous steps. It's very obvious that they're fake lines because they were left with the original properties of the pen and brush tool. Those properties are, a constant smoothness and constant flow of the black and off coloured pixels. And because of that it is very easy to tell what art is made with photoshop and what isn't.

Like I've pointed out here, it is easy to distinguish between newly drawn lines and the originals, and it's also easy to tell where they've joined. And also, one of the things I never recommend doing is what silver sea did with completely whitening over the text on the shirt. It is always better to use the brush tool to brush that text white. This way you keep any original line art that was around and it also helps keep continuity. What I mean is, now you'll have a point A to point B connection to make, along with also being able to keep a continuous width of the line. And in the end it'll be an easier re-draw if you already have a set flow of the lines, to keep the art looking as close to the original as possible.

Spoiler

The blue arrow is to help compare the original line art to the newly drawn line art, and the circled part of the line is to help point out where the lines join. The green arrow was just me messing about in PS and something that I forgot to erase so don't mind it.

This is a bit more of a challenge to fix than things like grays and such. In order to get the line to look more like the original line art you have to use the blur, sharpen, and smudge tools, and the dodge, burn, and sponge tools. With these tools you will have to darken, lighten, and appropriately smudge and blur your newly created line in order for it to look like the original line art. It's hard to give exact directions on how to do tis since most line art is continually changing, but the point of using these tools is to thicken up the re-drawn lines to match the width and strength of the original lines. Usually one good thing to do is to zoom in and look at the original line in order to figure out how it's flowing, and how the off pixels flow with it. This way you can gather a general direction in which to blur and burn your line.

Though, since I've gotten my tablet I've stopped using this method because it's much easier to do re-draws with it, and get them to look like the original line art.

And of course, this is what I mean when I speak of re-drawing in correlation to the original art. If you look at fxus re-draw it's extremely easy to tell that his line art is fake. The same goes for his helicopter, which looks more like random geometric shapes came together in the form of a helicopter, than an actual helicopter. And especially in that instance, with his re-draw of it, he lost so much detail in the grays that give the helicopter depth, that it just looks like a plastering of a pattern onto a black silhouette. Then of course there's the destruction of the original art kept through over-blurring and strokes. So sure, I'll give fxu credit for taking the time and re-drawing everything, but it is far from an HQ re-draw. An HQ re-draw should be indistinguishable from the original manga art, as was the case with Shannaro, and as is the case with the colour groups that re-draw their pages.

 

[Silver_Sea]

And also, one of the things I never recommend doing is what silver sea did with completely whitening over the text on the shirt. It is always better to use the brush tool to brush that text white. This way you keep any original line art that was around and it also helps keep continuity.

Yes, I agree. It's always better to brush away all the words with a white brush first, taking care to keep as much of the original art as possible. Normally, after doing that, I would "sketch" what I imagine to see on another layer(s), repeating a few times til the image is confirmed in my mind, then do my final redraw and trash the rest of the "practice" layers.

With these tools you will have to darken, lighten, and appropriately smudge and blur your newly created line in order for it to look like the original line art.Usually one good thing to do is to zoom in and look at the original line in order to figure out how it's flowing, and how the off pixels flow with it. This way you can gather a general direction in which to blur and burn your line.

Usually I just use the eraser at various opacities and burn tool. I've never thought about sponging and smudging it according to the flow but yeah, I'll definitely give it a go.

Thanks for tips...I appreciate it. =D

 

[spades]

hey, here's Shannaro's tutorial for redrawing HQ. i think u'll find it useful, fxu

Spoiler

** Please use this tutorial to learn and expand your cleaning skills. **
** For those trying out for the recruitment thread post your TEST pages in the
Join Shannaro! thread in Contributions section not here.

This tutorial expects that you know how to level pages.
If you don't, please visit this Leveling Tutorial" by chiresakura.
​

First of all, please notice that this isn't a grey areas only tutorial, since it explains how to clean a hard page from start to finish, from borders to speed lines, except gradients and redrawing under text. I could write a tutorial about them too, if it became necessary in some future chapter.

Second off, remember that there are some things you need before starting to clean a hard page:
1) Patience and free time...much free time.
2) Graphic tablet - do not clean with the mouse!!!
2) Photoshop (I'm using CS2, but even CS1 and older versions are ok) / Gimp (I never used it but it should be similar to PS).
3) Music or other to make the work more enjoyable...I usually listen to Oh! Naruto Nippon.. ^^ (optional)

Are you ready? Start!
(zip of all the psd files I used as examples)
(psd template for cleaning (with all the layers!).) - NEW!


GENERAL NOTES:
1) Adjust the sensibility of your Graphic Pen in the Graphic Tablet menu (you should find it in the Control Panel).
2) Clean while being in "Full Screen Mode With Menu Bar", you will be able to move the page freely and see better even borders.
3) ALWAYS lock all the layers except the one you're working on. You may want to lock the position of some layers, too (for example, if you have to rotate the page). Sometimes you still could have to adjust the position of a layer manually, since it could slice a little (in this case, use the “Move Tool”).
3) Save your work every max. 5 minutes!
4) To re-draw background areas under removed texts, you can use the "Stamp Tool" (this works very well with grass and foliage). - NEW!
5) To erase the spots that sometimes appear on grey areas after changing the page mode from RGB to Greyscale, go to "Image" --> "Adjustments" --> "Posterize" (a 20 levels setting usually works). Sometimes, to notice these spot you've to zoom the page at about 700%. - NEW!
6) About Sai's art, please don't clean pages where you've to trace the inking of those monsters if you don't have a graphic tablet, and if you have it always use the "Brush Tool" (size: 2/3 pixels; if some strokes are too thick use the "Erase Tool" to adjust them, but not a 1 pixel brush because Sai's art looks quite "bold"). - NEW!


PREPARATIONS:
1) Open both the raw version and the pre-clean version of the page you're going to clean. More the page has speed lines and grey areas, more you must use a less pre-clean version other than the raw itself.
2) Put the raw as the bottom layer naming it "raw", then rename the pre-clean page "background" (to add it to the raw page file, you only have to select it all, then copy-past it on a new layer of the raw file).
3) Above the "background" add these layers exactly in the same order as I list them: "grey areas", "inking", "white lines", "borders", "sfx". At the end, you should have "raw" at the bottom and "sfx" at the top.
4) If needed, change the image mode from greyscale to RGB (if you're asked if you want to merge layers, always choose not to merge them), then resize it to a 72 pixels/inch resolution (without resampling the page of course, or it would become smaller).
6) Save the file in a format that allow you to keep its levels (psd is the best one, if you use Photoshop).
Example_00
(As you can see, I've given a specifical colour to every layer; if you do the same cleaning will become easier and faster)


SFX:
1) Sometimes there should be one or more sfx completely or partially outside of panels, which you must copy-past on the "sfx" layer after selecting them from the "background" layer with the "Magic Hand Tool" (set the "Tolerance" at about 30, select "Contiguous" and "Add to selection" options).
2) Once on the "sfx" layer, make them darker with “Levels”, and fix the still greyish areas with the "Brush Tool" (colour: black).
3) Trace the sfx borders with the "Brush Tool" as well (colour: orange...yes orange, you'll turn them white later). You don't have to trace everything, but only the portions where the sfx go outside the borders and on grey areas.
Example_01


BORDERS:
1) The important thing when fixing borders is not to cut too much from the panels. Sometimes you may want to rotate the page after checking if it’s straight using a vertical and a horizontal rule; to rotate it, go to "Image" --> "Rotate Canvas" --> "Arbitrary".
2) After rotating the page, sometimes you have to crop it with the "Crop Tool", if some panels hit the borders of the page...but don't crop it too much!
3) On the "borders" layer, select the white areas outside the borders with the "Rectangular Marquee Tool" and paint the selected areas white; move the selection a bit right, left, up or down to always erase only a small portion of the original black borders. Always leave a bit of the original black borders, they will help you to place in the right positions the new ones.
Example_02
4) Use the "Line Tool" (2 pixels, colour: black) to re-draw the borders. Rasterize every line you trace and place it as much as possible over the original border; at the end, merge all the new layers you created with the main "borders" one.
Example_03
5) Once all the borders have been merged, use the "Brush Tool" (colour: white) to erase the unnecessary borders' portions.
Example_04


WHITE LINES:
1) Zoom in the page between 400% and 600% and make the "background" layer invisible (it's better to trace using the raw as reference, not the pre-clean page).
2) On the "white lines" layer, use the "Brush Tool" (1 pixels, colour: yellow) to trace all the white lines on both B&W and grey areas (the white lines on grey areas will be painted grey later, the ones on black and white areas will be painted white later as well).
3) Remember to modulate the lines and use the "Erase Tool" if needed.
Example_05
(Note: in the page of my examples there aren't white lines on grey areas!)


INKING:
1) Zoom in the page between 400% and 600% and make the "background" layer invisible again.
2) On the "inking" layer, use the "Brush Tool" (1 pixel, colour: red) to trace the inking on grey areas (and every adjacent line...balloons' too). After than, fill the black parts of the drawing (only on grey areas or contiguous) with the red colour, but using a bigger brush if needed.
3) If the page has areas with speed lines, trace in the same way the inking under the speed lines.
4) Remember to modulate every line like in the original inking and use the "Erase Tool" if needed. This is the hardest and most important part of the cleaning, so do it very carefully!
5) If you think you can trace a line better rotating the page, do it, and remember that these red lines will be turned black later.
6) You can use the "Line Tool" (weight: 1 pixel) sometimes, but only for tracing the inking of straight architectonic elements, speed lines on the backgrounds or outside the figures (I’m talking about normal speed lines, not the ones on black areas), and sometimes shadows on the figures. Anyway, use the "Brush Tool" as much as possible, since with the "Line Tool" you can't modulate the inking.
7) If you have used the "Line Tool", remember to merge all the new layers with the main "inking" one.
Example_06a
Example_06b
(IMPORTANT: ALAWAYS USE THE RAW, NEVER THE PRECLEAN PAGE TO TRACE THE INKING, AND DON’T TRACE THE DARK SPEED LINES AREAS!)


GREY AREAS:
1) Make the background layer visible again, and select all the panels with grey areas. Zoom in the page at about 300%.
2) On the "grey areas" layer, use the "Brush Tool" (colour: light grey) to fill the grey areas.
3) Be careful and don't paint grey outside the inking you traced. Use the "Eraser Tool" if needed. Don't paint grey over the speed lines portions of grey areas, either.
Example_07


SPEED LINES:
1) Deselect the panels with grey areas, then go to “Image” --> “Mode” and switch it from RGB to Grayscale (don’t merge the layers yet!).
2) On the "inking" layer, use "Levels" to turn the inking black.
3) On the "white lines" layer, use "Levels" to turn white the lines you traced before (you’ll turn the ones on grey areas grey later).
4) On the "sfx" layer, use "Levels" to turn white the sfx' borders you traced before.
Example_08
5) On the "background" layer, zoom the page at about 400% and fix the black strokes of speed lines (and foliage) in both B&W and grey areas with the "Brush Tool" (1 pixel, colour: black). Rotate the page is you find it useful to trace the speed lines better.
Example_09a
Example_09b
7) Still on the zoomed "background" layer, fix the white and grey strokes of speed lines (and foliage), respectively in B&W and grey areas, with the "Brush Tool" (1 pixel, colour: white for B&W areas / the same grey you used before for the grey areas). As above, you might want to rotate the page.
Example_10a
Example_10b
(IMPORTANT: REMEMBER TO USE THE SAME GREY OR BOTH GREY AREAS AND THE LIGHTER STROKES OF SPEED LINES AND FOLIAGE ON GREY AREAS!)


BACKGROUND:
1) On the "background" layer, erase the text from balloons (except special punctuation and sfx) with the "Brush Tool" (colour: white), then zoom the page at about 300% and fix the greyish lines with the "Brush Tool" (colour: black / white to erase spots and other dirty areas).
Example_11
2) Select panels one at a time and apply "Levels" to them. Sometimes you may want to select specific areas too, to fix them better.
Example_12a
Example_12b
3) Zoom in the page at 700% and fix the black, white and grey areas on every layer checking for spots (make sure to fix anything in the right layer!). At this point, you could use the "Smudge Tool" (strength: about 7% / diameter: about 9 pixels / hardness: about 11%), to smooth some crispy areas, but with moderation!
Example_13a
Example_13b
5) When you believe everything is ok, merge all the layers and save the page in png. If there are white lines on grey areas, at this point you must darken them with the "Brush Tool" (small size, darken mode, colour: light grey you used before).
6) Finally, check the png page to see if the grey has the right brightness (use the raw as reference): if it is ok you are done, otherwise you've to use the "Levels" to fix it.
Example_14
(Finished page!)

** Tutorial by Sariachan

hope shannaro wont mind ..

 

[Silver_Sea]

WHA---WOW! Awesome. I should really check out Shannaro's works! <---Hasn't read Naruto for eons. I've never seen this tute before, it's going to be really helpful for me. D Thanks spades 11111

 

[spades]

it doesn't hv much about redrawing tho..as in redrawing for overlaying words
but its still quite helpful