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Photoshopping Comics

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topic icon Author Topic: Photoshopping Comics  (Read 5475 times)

erontron

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Photoshopping Comics
« on: May 16, 2009, 11:56:12 PM »

I am looking for help from anyone who knows Photoshop and similar programs. I want to adjust the fiche derived scans so they are more attractive and readable. As far as I can figure I need to adjust the contrast and color saturation levels to make them look better. I am using GIMP for those who are familiar with it. I'm not I just downloaded it with hopes of making the books I've downloaded easier to read.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

-Erontron
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JVJ

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Re: Photoshopping Comics
« Reply #1 on: May 17, 2009, 03:19:32 AM »


I am looking for help from anyone who knows Photoshop and similar programs. I want to adjust the fiche derived scans so they are more attractive and readable. As far as I can figure I need to adjust the contrast and color saturation levels to make them look better. I am using GIMP for those who are familiar with it. I'm not I just downloaded it with hopes of making the books I've downloaded easier to read.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

-Erontron

I can try to help, Erontron,
but I would need to see a raw fiche scan. If you put one in the JVJ folder, I'll try to see what I can do. Load one of your processed files, too, for comparison. No promises of a solution, but you might also check with Darkmark as he seems to process a lot of fiche.

Peace, Jim (|:{>
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Yoc

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Re: Photoshopping Comics
« Reply #2 on: May 17, 2009, 04:46:50 AM »

Only uploaders have access to the FTP Jim.

If you were to download any of DM's fiche uploads (smaller the better) you'd have a good idea of what erontron is looking at.
If erontron wants to share a page or two here he should use a site like ImageShack and post the link here.

I don't use Gimp myself so I can't help.
-Yoc
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JVJ

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Re: Photoshopping Comics
« Reply #3 on: May 17, 2009, 05:09:54 AM »


Only uploaders have access to the FTP Jim.

If you were to download any of DM's fiche uploads (smaller the better) you'd have a good idea of what erontron is looking at.
If erontron wants to share a page or two here he should use a site like ImageShack and post the link here.

I don't use Gimp myself so I can't help.
-Yoc

I understand, Yoc.
I would guess that DM's uploaded fiche scans aren't the raw versions, but rather they've been cleaned up somewhat. Is that right, DM? Perhaps YOU (darkmark) could upload a raw fiche scan to my folder. I've never even SEEN a raw fiche scan so I don't know whether or not I can actually bring any Photoshop skills to the task that will make a difference. And I don't know the correlations between GIMP and PS, but I'm happy to try to learn something that might help Erontron. My guess is that DM has already tried all the tricks in the book, but I MIGHT have an idea or an approach that hasn't been tried...

Please put a page in my JVJ folder, DM, and I'll give it a shot.

Peace, Jim (|:{>
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darkmark

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Re: Photoshopping Comics
« Reply #4 on: May 17, 2009, 07:05:44 AM »

Maybe later on, Jim.  Thanks.
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erontron

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Re: Photoshopping Comics
« Reply #5 on: May 22, 2009, 12:41:10 AM »

Okay here is a page from a comic I am trying to make a little prettier. It is fiche but I don't know if it has been altered already.

« Last Edit: May 22, 2009, 12:43:13 AM by erontron »
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JVJ

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Re: Photoshopping Comics
« Reply #6 on: May 22, 2009, 03:45:21 AM »


Okay here is a page from a comic I am trying to make a little prettier. It is fiche but I don't know if it has been altered already.




I'm not going to be much help, erontron,
It's hard to work on low-rez files and double hard to specify some approach that will be universally useful. Still, with that in mind, here's a version of the file in which the various channels have have had their "levels" contrast increased. Like I said, low-rez (72ppi) scans cannot benefit as much from this approach as a higher resolution file might.


I spent five minutes on this and do NOT put it forth as even a "good" scan. But it indicates the results you can obtain with the approach.

Peace, Jim (|:{>
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Ed Love

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Re: Photoshopping Comics
« Reply #7 on: July 03, 2009, 03:00:03 AM »

One rule that always helps, if you are starting with a low resolution photo, go ahead and make it high res, do your work and the last step, reduce back if you're happy with the original size. It makes each step take longer and eat up memory, but necessary for doing quality work.

In your example, I increased to 400 dpi, adjusted the levels to get some solid blacks, unsharped mask to boost the black lines and then reduced the size again to make a more attractive and more legible copy (Course, I don't have the ability to upload, so you gotta just take my word for it).

If I was spending more time, you have to be careful with the old comics and levels. Your blacks tend to be uneven, the white areas yellowed with age and getting rid of that can get rid of light colors elsewhere. So, usually, use levels just to the page in the ballpark. Then use other tools to further whiten the page and thickening lines and such. I often also use paintbucket and brush tools to recreate the flat colors that show file compression garbage. Usually with the old comics, you don't really need to use hue and saturation. With better copies, a lot of times I do the above steps, then use the wand and quickmask tools to select the black areas, invert the selection and then painstakingly, re-color the page (this helps in fixing the out of register printing among other things).
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Yoc

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Re: Photoshopping Comics
« Reply #8 on: July 03, 2009, 04:36:54 AM »

Where were you months ago Ed??
I started a topic exactly about a HORRIBLE register problem with a Fox book.
Since then I've been sloooooooowly using the clone tool to restore the registration.
Never have I had to spend so long on a book, not even Close to as long as I've spent on this.

But really, why isn't there a plug-in tool for fixing poor registration?

-Yoc
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Ed Love

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Re: Photoshopping Comics
« Reply #9 on: July 03, 2009, 01:11:53 PM »

Sadly, the problem with registration is you're not dealing with the original art, you're several steps removed. You're taking a comic page that's out of register printed in CMYK (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, blacK). But, on the computer these colors have been converted to RGB (Red, Green, Blue). Now, you'd think you could just switch it back to CMYK, select and nudge the out-of-register channels back into register, but if only it was that simple. Not even counting what aging does to the colors, the conversion from one color mode isn't 1:1. After all, it has gone from 4 channels to 3 channels then back to 4. There's color shifts and computer calculations on how to create the blacks, how dense do you want your colors for the printing press, etc.  It'd be a miracle that you'd end up with the exact same separation they had and only had to nudge the conflicting channel back into play even though you can clearly see that the red is out of register one way, the yellow another.

Another unfortunate bit, my way of recoloring does a good job and would look wonderful for printing (if the images were high enough resolution). However, on the web, it does make the pages look a bit fake, the colors a bit TOO perfect and flat (although there's ways around that too if you really want to go through that much trouble, add noise filter or something similar).

Wish I knew of quick and easy ways. But, for me, it's because I've been using Photoshop daily for almost 20 years and have done a few of these on my own in addition to working on thousands and thousands of graphics of all types for work.
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Yoc

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Re: Photoshopping Comics
« Reply #10 on: July 03, 2009, 08:05:27 PM »

Yep, much the same reply as Jim gave me and he's been on Photoshop a looooong time as well.
We talked about it in THIS THREAD.

-Yoc
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Ed Love

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Re: Photoshopping Comics
« Reply #11 on: July 03, 2009, 10:47:32 PM »

A Princess Pantha story I scanned and color corrected using my method. I had good success with this as I had the original coverless comic and a high-end scanner so I could start with really good scans. It was scanned for Hogan to have for reference for one of the Terra Obscura minis, not that I could tell that he used any information I provided nor gave any credit.

http://www.geocities.com/cash_gorman/comics/princess_pantha/pantha1.html

As well as some of the worse pages to this Fighting Yank story, same deal, had my own coverless copy of the story.

http://www.geocities.com/cash_gorman/comics/Fighting_Yank_Archives/FY5/FY5_01.html
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Yoc

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Re: Photoshopping Comics
« Reply #12 on: July 03, 2009, 10:51:21 PM »

Lovely stuff Ed
It's about time you got to here.

Ed here has a whole wack of sites that are a lot of fun to read!
http://www.geocities.com/cash_gorman/

Worth checking out gang.
:)
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