Scan
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Main - Scanlation in general - Scanning - Translating - Editing - Quality Check - Automation | |||
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Contents |
[edit] The Scanner
A scanner is a general-purpose device that turns two-dimensional images into digital form. Make sure the scanner you use meets the following requirements:
- The scanner's glass pane should be big enough to scan 2 manga pages at once (~A4 dimensions).
- Capability for processing RGB colors with a color depth of 24 bits for a good preservation of the book's original colors.
- Manga pages are usually scanned with an optical resolution of 300 dpi but sometimes you need to go up to 600 dpi.
Knowing that a scanner sends to the computer uncompressed data which can amount to 50 megabytes for one single 600 dpi manga page (½ A4 or A5), make sure you have enough free memory on your Hard Drive Disk and a fast link to your scanner. The most common links are:
- Parallel(LTP): 71 KB/s common for scanners bought before 1999
- USB 1.1: 1.5 MB/s (Low-Speed mode) or 12 MB/s (Full-Speed Mode) common for scanners made between 1999 and 2007
- USB 2.0: 60 MB/s (Hi-Speed Mode) mostly used in external storing devices like HDD or Flash Memory.
- USB 3.0: 625 MB/s (Super-Speed Mode) starting 2008.
- Bluetooth: up to 100KB/s, rarely used because it is too slow.
- WiFi Recommendations 802.11a/b/g/n: vary from 100KB/s to 30MB/s
Time to transfer a 24 bits 300 dpi manga page (25 megabytes raw):
- Parallel(LTP): 6 minutes for 1 page, 15 hours for 1 volume
- USB 1.1: 17 seconds per page and 47 minutes for 1 volume (Low Speed Mode)
- USB 2.0: <1 second per page, about 70 seconds for 1 volume (Hi-Speed Mode)
- USB 3.0: <100 milliseconds per page, about 18 seconds for 1 volume (Super-Speed Mode)
Note 1: This is why older manga raws were lower in quality than nowadays. 10 years ago, most scanners already had a minimal optical resolution of 1200 dpi, yet the normal manga raw page was only scanned with a color depth of 8 bits (the grayscale) and 150 dpi and sometimes lower.
Note 2: The time needed to transfer the data from the scanner to the computer lessens, but the technology used for the scanning process remained almost the same which is why you cannot expect to correctly scan a volume in less than 2 hours with a nonprofessional scanner.
[edit] Debinding the Book
Debinding is an umbrella term used to describe removing the jacket of a book and taking out its individual pages. The most popular methods are cutting, ironing, and microwaving:
- Cutting is a method of debinding that involves individually cutting out every page of a book with a knife. Or, if you have access to a real book cutter, shearing the entire spine off the book at once.
- Ironing is a form of debinding that involves using a conventional iron to weaken the glue of a book by heating its spine, then pulling the pages out.
- Microwaving is the 3rd form of debinding. The method of microwaving consists in putting a book into a microwave for thirty seconds to a few minutes. This weakens the glue holding the jacket and pages together, which makes it easier to take the pages out for individual scanning.
Of the three, ironing is usually considered to have the lowest risk of damaging the pages. Microwaving is a little faster, but also a little more risky. Cutting cannot in any way be recommended, it is slow and risky (for the pages, and sometimes for your fingers...)
[edit] Scanning
If you are using an old scanner you may encounter some problems like unwanted image cropping, you may need a special calibration, and make adjustments through the scanner's driver (like brightness and contrast). This shouldn't happen with a recent model: when the scans are good, just trust the automatic settings.
[edit] The Process
That these tips are geared towards speed does not mean you should hurry the scanning process too much.
- If your scanner is slow, scanning 2 pages at once saves time.
- If the pages are debound, always place a black paper behind them before closing the scanner, to prevent the other side of the paper showing through. (This can be made a lot easier by taping the black paper to the scanner lid.)
- Do not scan the whole bed every time. The smaller you make the scanning area, the faster both preview and scanning will be. Not to mention that the resulting files will be smaller. Naturally, do not make it so small that the pages cannot fit.
- In case you chose to not debind your book, try to press evenly. Note that I said: "press evenly" not "use strength", you could damage your scanner if you use too much power. If you have got big hands that shouldn't be a problem, but if that is not your case, put something on top of the book.
Do not limit yourself by these few advices. Do not hesitate to retry until you get what you look for. Do not try too much either, many things can be fixed by the editors.
[edit] Specifications
- Scan in color, 24 bits, with a 300 dpi resolution or superior or grayscale, 8 bits, 600 dpi, depending on your needs.
- If you scanned in color, discard the useless information by changing it to 8 bits grayscale.
- If you scanned in grayscale, either leave it untouched, or resize it down to minimize the file size.
The scanner's image processing algorithms are not as good as the computer's. Which is why it is important to gather as many samples as possible from the scanner, each sample coded with as many bits as possible.
[edit] Choosing output format
The scans need to be saved in a lossless format. PSD is a common format for scanlators. It is strongly recommended to avoid lossy formats like JPG, but if you must use that (for size or other reasons), at least make sure the "quality" setting is set high enough. Experienced editors hate low quality JPEGs. Other popular formats are TIFF and PNG, the latter being preferred to TIFF due to its smaller file size.
Also, name the files according to the page number in the book, it saves a lot of trouble if everyone uses the same pages numbers. The translator may be working from leeched scans or simply the real book, for instance, in which case the page numbers in the script do not match the pages the editor has to work with. It is also very much recommended that you add the manga's title and volume number. Chapter number, maybe, but it is not exactly necessary as long as the page numbers are right. Do not name every batch of your scans like Scan0001, Scan0002, Scan0003 and so on, it is lame and will cause trouble later on.
Examples of functioning file naming schemes: Crap_Manga_v17_007.png, Other_Crap_Manga-vol42-ch17-pg123.png.
If you decide to choose the PSD format, it is recommended to compress the files, as PSD is fairly inefficient in terms of size. Depending on the amount of editors per chapter and bandwidth limitations, the files should be compressed either separately, or into a single package. For PSD files, 7z format with Compression method LZMA and Compression level Ultra yields best results with notable saves in comparison to RAR and ZIP formats. 7z beats the other two formats with Compression level Normal too, in case one does not want to use memory excessively. This compression procedure saves bandwidth and that bandwidth can be used to serve the releases to leechers.
