[X] My Assistant

From the looks of it. It seems like you have auto level and probably auto sharpen too, turned on.
Turn off ALL post process option and do that later in Photoshop or similar programs will get better results.
Your scans is over-leveled white, that's why details in lighter area got wipe out.

Ok, how can I turn those options off? Either in default Win7 scanning software or in VueScan or in any other software you'd recommend? (I also tried FreeKapture which sucks and Paint.net, which doesn't seem to have any more options, neither).

To my surprise, out of things I tried the Samsung SmarThru soft seems to have the most options. It has the descreen option, turned on by default, which however doesn't seem to produce anything different than the images I posted here before. Auto color balance produces negligible results. Auto exposure does nothing. I'll go back and doublecheck if VueScan has any options I missed, but at this point I have no idea how to deal with the over-leveled white (as zam005 puts it).

I think I can get the best effects with 600 dpi and post-processing adding auto-level in paint.net

Oh, is there any preference with regards to jpg or png? Most our galleries seem to be jpg, but someone told me once png is superior?

Also, is 300dpi enough or should I go with 600dpi? The file size seems to become rather high at that point (from ~1mb to ~5mb per file).

Edit: I don't think I can do better than https://e-hentai.org/g/723279/dcd29eca85/ but I am always willing to hear more suggestions

Edit 2: The b&w dojin is now at https://e-hentai.org/g/723327/fccb32ff2d/

This post has been edited by Red_Piotrus: Jul 28 2014, 12:03

I think I can get the best effects with 600 dpi and post-processing adding auto-level in paint.net

Oh, is there any preference with regards to jpg or png? Most our galleries seem to be jpg, but someone told me once png is superior?

Also, is 300dpi enough or should I go with 600dpi? The file size seems to become rather high at that point (from ~1mb to ~5mb per file).

I would scan at 600 DPI and downscale after that. I usually go down to 2000 height, or 3000 if I think it "deserves" it.

I can't comment personally on auto-level, but I've been told it's shit. It should be a lot better to do it manually. Or you could just create bounties and let more experienced people handle it; that's what I did.

For PNG/JPG, I recommend using PNG on b/w pages and JPG for color pages. full color PNGs get ridiculously big, but the size difference isn't as big for b/w pages, so it isn't worth using a lossy format.

It's depend of which software you used.
Usually it would be better to use what came with scanner.
Never used default Win7 scanning software so can't comment on that.
In my case it looks like this.

Ok, how can I turn those options off? Either in default Win7 scanning software or in VueScan or in any other software you'd recommend? (I also tried FreeKapture which sucks and Paint.net, which doesn't seem to have any more options, neither).

To my surprise, out of things I tried the Samsung SmarThru soft seems to have the most options. It has the descreen option, turned on by default, which however doesn't seem to produce anything different than the images I posted here before. Auto color balance produces negligible results. Auto exposure does nothing. I'll go back and doublecheck if VueScan has any options I missed, but at this point I have no idea how to deal with the over-leveled white (as zam005 puts it).

I think I can get the best effects with 600 dpi and post-processing adding auto-level in paint.net

Oh, is there any preference with regards to jpg or png? Most our galleries seem to be jpg, but someone told me once png is superior?

Also, is 300dpi enough or should I go with 600dpi? The file size seems to become rather high at that point (from ~1mb to ~5mb per file).

Edit: I don't think I can do better than https://e-hentai.org/g/723279/dcd29eca85/ but I am always willing to hear more suggestions

Edit 2: The b&w dojin is now at https://e-hentai.org/g/723327/fccb32ff2d/

How to turn off auto-level depends entirely on the software. Use whatever the factory software is for your scanner, if you don't have it on disc you'll be able to get it from the manufacturers website. If there are options for different types of media (Photo, Magazine, etc.) then one of those will likely have no levelling. Probably Photo or something similar. If all else fails just try them all, it will be obvious when you hit one that's not levelling the white, because it'll look all grey and washed out.

==========

With regards to PNG/JPG:

If you're doing colour, save as JPG. Quality 8 is fine.
If you're doing black and white, you MAY see some small improvements in size using PNG. If you're not sure what you're doing, I'd just use JPG. It's fine, and the differences are not huge.

If you really want to minimise your file size then I can point you to tutorials as to what's going on, but it's not really something you'd want to try unless you understand what the differences between JPG and PNG are and what you're aiming for.

TL;DR: Just use JPG. It's fine.

==========

I wouldn't upload at 600dpi, as you say the file size gets crazy huge. Downsample to half size, but keep the 600dpi scans. Some super enthusiastic editor may want them for translating, and unless you're real short of HD space you might as well hang onto them.

The reason for downsampling is that even at 300dpi, screens don't have enough pixels to display all the information until the reader zooms in quite a bit. Thus, there's technically no real difference between 300dpi and 600dpi until you're well zoomed in.

In reality, you can spot the difference beforehand because the scaling functions for display software are different to the scaling functions for editing software. But if you scaled it well in the first place, there should be no real difference between them. At levels of zoom that would fit a whole page on a screen, you shouldn't be able to notice the difference if done well.

Thanks for all the suggestions!

Two quick questions:

1) how to downscale? And any tips on how to get rid of scan lines? I am scanning another dojin, and the color cover there has some clearly visible scan lines at 600dpi.

2) quality wise, the softs I use don't have "quality 8", instead for JPG they have a percentage scale. I am currently using 85% of quality as a compromise for file size (keeps them around ~1-5mb). Is this ok?

PS. If anyone thinks that some editing can improve the quality of my scans, I can put a bounty out for that purpose.

This post has been edited by Red_Piotrus: Jul 29 2014, 07:18

1) Use photoshop or imagemagick. Imagemagick is good because you can do it in batch for the entire doujin at once, once it's all set. Be certain to use Bicubic resampling, which is the default in Imagemagick at least. Set the height to whatever you want (I use 2000 or 3000), and make certain to keep the aspect ratio the same.
Uh, what do you mean by scanlines? Can you show an example?
2) I'd use at least 90%. I personally use 95 for the most part.
Editing with proper use of filters would probably help bring the filesize down even further by eliminating noise, but I can't really advise on this at all.

90-95 produces images that are to big, and so far I haven't heard how to reduce their size more. As I said before, I am more than happy to post a bounty of any editor think sthey can improve the quality of my scans, through at that point I think they are fine enough to be posted in the galleries, at least as v1. The star ratings and comments suggest the community finds them acceptable (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

For scanlines, see the first two pages of https://e-hentai.org/g/723674/8b1e084304/

You can do pretty decent stuff with GIMP.

I scan 600dpi to tif files and the do the processing there.

This is the script I use. I'm trying out a new scanner so I commented out the color leveling. It will process all files within the chosen directory.

Edit: Oh, and it uses the default settings that are configured for jpg output. I should probably use file-jpeg-save instead but whatever...

CODE

#!/usr/bin/env python
# -*- coding: utf-8 -*-

from gimpfu import *
import os, glob, string

import gettext
locale_directory = gimp.locale_directory
gettext.install( "gimp20-batchshit-color", locale_directory, unicode=True )

batch_help = _("Resize, Level, Save")
batch_description = batch_help

def process_files( filepathnames ):
  for filepathname in filepathnames:
    img= pdb.gimp_file_load( filepathname , filepathname )
    imglayer= img.layers[0]
    if pdb.gimp_drawable_is_rgb( imglayer ):
      pdb.gimp_levels_stretch( imglayer )
      #pdb.gimp_levels( imglayer, HISTOGRAM_RED, 20, 254, 1.0, 0, 255 )
      #pdb.gimp_levels( imglayer, HISTOGRAM_GREEN, 20, 254, 1.0, 0, 255 )
      #pdb.gimp_levels( imglayer, HISTOGRAM_BLUE, 20, 254, 1.0, 0, 255 )
      #pdb.plug_in_sel_gauss( img, imglayer, 3.0, 50 )
      pdb.plug_in_gauss( img, imglayer, 3.0, 3.0, 0 )
      pdb.plug_in_despeckle( img, imglayer, 1, 1, 0, 255 )
    elif pdb.gimp_drawable_is_gray( imglayer ):
      pdb.plug_in_gauss( img, imglayer, 1.0, 1.0, 0 )
      pdb.gimp_levels( imglayer, HISTOGRAM_VALUE, 75, 225, 1.0, 0, 255 )
    else:
      pdb.gimp_message( _("Image neither RGB or Grayscale") )
    pdb.gimp_image_scale_full( img, img.width / 2, img.height / 2, 3 )
    pdb.gimp_image_set_resolution( img, pdb.gimp_image_get_resolution( img )[0] / 2, pdb.gimp_image_get_resolution( img )[1] / 2 )
    filebasename = os.path.basename( filepathname )
    filename = os.path.splitext(filebasename)[0]
    newfilepathname = os.path.dirname(filepathname) + os.sep + filename + '.jpg'
    pdb.gimp_file_save( img, imglayer, newfilepathname , newfilepathname )
    #pdb.file_png_save( img, imglayer, newfilepathname, newfilepathname, 0, 9, 0, 0, 0, 1, 0 )
    pdb.gimp_image_delete( img )  

def python_fu_batchshit_xtns( dirname, ext ):
  if os.path.exists( u''+dirname ):
    globpattern = u''+dirname + os.sep + '*.' + ext
    filepathnames = glob.glob( globpattern )
    if filepathnames:
      messagebox = pdb.gimp_message_get_handler( )
      pdb.gimp_message_set_handler( 2 )
      process_files( filepathnames );    
      pdb.gimp_message( _("End of the process") )
      pdb.gimp_message_set_handler( messagebox )
    else:
      pdb.gimp_message( _("%s don't have files to handle") %(dirname ) )
  else:
    pdb.gimp_message( _("%s don't exist") %(dirname) )


register(
  "BatchShit-Color",
  batch_description,
  batch_help,
  "Hobbitmon",
  "EOL License",
  "2020-2100",
  _("Level"),
  "",
  [
    (PF_DIRNAME, "directory", _("Directory"), os.getcwd() ),
    (PF_STRING, "ext", _("Extension"), "tif" ),
  ],
  [],
  python_fu_batchshit_xtns,
  menu="<Image>/Filters"+"/"+_("BatchShit-Color"),
  domain=( "gimp20-batchshit-color", locale_directory )
  )

main()

This post has been edited by Hobbitmon: Jul 30 2014, 09:52

1) how to downscale?

PS, Imagemagick, GIMP. IrFanView works fine too if I recall.

PS used to have a fairly poor downscaling implementation, not sure if it still does. If you haven't got a newer version, this is probably as good a reason to get one. Five finger discount recommended.

And any tips on how to get rid of scan lines?

Clean the scanner and rescan.
Shake the scanner and rescan.
Sing sweet lullabies to the scanner and rescan.

Vertical scan lines are usually something getting stuck on the moving head of the scanner, usually dust or some crap. Your only hopes are to clean it off or jiggle it loose. If it's a scanner "pixel" (I have no idea what the real word for that would be) that's died instead of dust, you're bone-diddley-owned.

If you can't do it by physical methods, it's redrawing I'm afraid.

Edit: Those are interesting scan lines. Oddly regular. Maybe try lullabies first. (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)
Dunno, but let us know what works for you. Usually a physical problem though, see if that narrows it down for you. A scanner isn't a terribly complex piece of equipment, it's a long thin digital camera under glass, so experiment a bit and see if you can't narrow the cause down.

2) quality wise, the softs I use don't have "quality 8", instead for JPG they have a percentage scale. I am currently using 85% of quality as a compromise for file size (keeps them around ~1-5mb). Is this ok?

It's absolutely fine. People who think it needs to be bigger are editors, and if they thought that you might actually upload 100+MB TIFs they'd be calling for those too. (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

This post has been edited by StatisticallyNP: Jul 30 2014, 13:34

Well, I'll keep the RAWs for now if any editors want to work on those.

Any ideas on how to deal with the the white over-leveling? I am done scanning another b&w dojin (will edit it 2morrow) and I am getting some annoying shading loss again. I rescanned this dojin the second time because the first time the binding was not broken; the interesting thing is that when the book was not fully on the plate - partially bended up in the air - more shades were captured. Weird. Is the scanner too bright or something? No idea how to fix it either way...

I don't know which program you used right now.
But from a little search I do out of curious.
Win7 seems to have to have no option for histograms at all. No surprise here.
While VueScan that you mention before seems to have it.

Go to Menu and select "Image > Graph b/w" and you'll get a graph like this.
[www.hamrick.com] https://www.hamrick.com/vuescan/html/vuesc12.htm

Now drag those triangle thingy to edit it.
Drag the left-one all the way to the left and right-one all the way to the right.
These should solve your problems. And make sure you don't have any other auto functions turn on (exposure, contrast, color correction, etc.)

For any other programs, it should work the same way. Try looking for words likes graph, histograms or level and drag those pointer the same way.

Oh, and check this too.
[www.hamrick.com] https://www.hamrick.com/vuescan/html/vuesc31.htm

Set "Color balance" to none.

This post has been edited by zam005: Jul 30 2014, 20:26

If it is really concerning you, consider getting a new scanner. I just got a Cannon LiDE 110 and it is pretty good considering the price. 600dpi scans take a few seconds max and the colors are pretty accurate.

[www.amazon.com] http://www.amazon.com/Canon-CanoScan-4507B...r/dp/B003VQR1UC

Time to give out some pointers:

To anyone that uses EPSON like me and saw zam005's pic: never EVER use Photo settings, especially when dealing with manga. You'll get a LOT more 'gray spots' than you do with Document settings. Also, color control plays a valuable role in de-binded manga/magazines because this will auto-level the parts that need the whites and/or blacks the most.

@Red regarding scan lines: is this during scanning or after scanning and cleaning, etc.? During scanning I doubt you can do anything to get rid of it until after you scan/clean. Photoshop won't help because of their limited downscaling features, and I never used Imagemagik either, but Photozoom Pro is better due to having more implemations besides bilinear/bicubic as well as the ability to sharpen, film grain, and reduce artifacts of a page(s) (plus you can batch re-size). As for how to get rid of those lines, it depends on 1.) the page itself, and 2.) what scanner you had when you scanned them, so you may have to fiddle around a bit.

I rescanned this dojin the second time because the first time the binding was not broken; the interesting thing is that when the book was not fully on the plate - partially bended up in the air - more shades were captured.

Do you mean that part of the corner(s) didn't get scanned thoroughly? It does that time to time when one half of the book is larger than the other. You would need to flatten the book a bit with a heavy object on top of the scanner or another hard book (just enough for the top of the scanner to cover it) on top of the page you want scanned. It's the only way I can think of and sometimes it way work....or I could be misunderstood at what you were trying to say.

Well, I'll keep the RAWs for now if any editors want to work on those.

Any ideas on how to deal with the the white over-leveling? I am done scanning another b&w dojin (will edit it 2morrow) and I am getting some annoying shading loss again. I rescanned this dojin the second time because the first time the binding was not broken; the interesting thing is that when the book was not fully on the plate - partially bended up in the air - more shades were captured. Weird. Is the scanner too bright or something? No idea how to fix it either way...

Because the scanner auto-detects it's white point based on the distribution of shades on the page, altering the distribution will alter the white point.

It's assuming that you're scanning a paper page, and therefore at least some portion of it is white. Which is fine, and an admirable idea, unfortunately it's mostly pretty crap at choosing a good white level. It's great at making a typed page look more readable, but it destroys fine detail.

What's the scanner and what's the software you've got for it? There will be a way to turn the auto-level off and it's really the best solution, but it's often not labelled as such or bundled in with some other feature, so you have to experiment.

I think simplest method is just to make sure every 'option' you have available for scanning is left unchecked/not selected.

Time to give out some pointers:

To anyone that uses EPSON like me and saw zam005's pic: never EVER use Photo settings, especially when dealing with manga. You'll get a LOT more 'gray spots' than you do with Document settings. Also, color control plays a valuable role in de-binded manga/magazines because this will auto-level the parts that need the whites and/or blacks the most.

I think you miss the point here.
What I'm talking about is how to avoid auto-level because we want to do it later in Photoshop.

Those Photo setting and Document setting you're talking about are profiles for program to auto-level your scans. Document setting gave you less "gray spots" because it do leveling more aggressive than Photo setting. And it's not just change your black and white point, both of them change your mid-tone too by make it brighter. Pull out Histograms Adjustment and try to change between those two profiles and see for yourself.

Beside from my pic, didn't you notice that auto-exposure is turn-off?
The moment you manually edit histograms, Auto-exposure will automatic turn-off.
So, it doesn't matter you choose Photo setting or Document setting.

Actually for EPSON user what you really need to do is go to configuration and choose No Color Correction, that's all. But all option will be gray out and I can't show red histograms that way.

I am using a Samsung SCX-1460 scanner, and Samsung SmarThru software. As I noted before, I may buy a better scanner if I give up on this, but for now it works well enough for me, particularly with the update below. Ditto for VueScan.

Grayscale / b&w options seemed to be broken in custom scan options for SmarThru, so I was scanning on true color all the time. But I figured out a way around that, I am using text profile which gives me working grayscale at 300dpi. Here's a sample of 3 images: [www.mediafire.com] https://www.mediafire.com/?7ja1uzom908m291
* 06c - true color
* 06d - text grayscale
* 06e - text grayscale + descreen
I think d/e are better at catching those details that were over-leveled in white, through I am really not seeing what descreen changes. I have scanned the dojin on 06c variant, but I can rescan it as 06d/06e if you think it's better?

Definitely don't use the descreen option. Going forward, you probably want to scan the monochrome pages using the B/W setting but for now it is probably fine.

This post has been edited by Hobbitmon: Jul 31 2014, 23:26

Descreen are design for use when you scans print materials like magazine.
It'll try to remove halftone (dots used in the magazine printing process) by blur it out to make your scan looks more smooth.
Definitely not something to use for scans Manga.