[X] My Assistant

I wouldn't object to some translated Kesshousui...

Good news and bad news... one of our translators is gonna do some stuff by him, bad news is he won't start on it until winter.

I'm not really into his stuff (art-wise), we'll see...

Good news and bad news... one of our translators is gonna do some stuff by him, bad news is he won't start on it until winter.

Winter? Let's hope he's not Australian. :>

Sorry for not replying earlier, but thanks everyone. I got the fonts you suggested and I think they're going to work out quite nicely.

The only thing left that I need is some kind of comphrensive SFX guide. I'm sort of perfectionist; if there's a balloon or a dialogue I'm going to try to translate them, even if they're SFX. But to be blunt, I'm very terrible with vocalized sounds. If it's something written, no problem. But if I'm asked to identify a sound (a sound effect, a word, a dialogue, whatever), I can't do that at all.

For example, the commonly used "endless A's"? I'm not even sure if they're something along the lines of "ahhh" or "ohhh." It probably doesn't seem to be much of a difference, but levels of connations can make for significant difference. (Examples like *grunt* aren't good enough for me because it doesn't really tell me what kind of sound they might be.)

So when you pair that with the perfectionist nature in myself, it frustrates me. For now, I'll just focus on dialogue and ignore sound effects, but I'd like to one day know what those effects are used, and their english counterparts.

Oh yeah, I remember coming across a tutorial on how to remove dark shadows along the edges caused by scanning without flattening the spine itself. But I lost track of it so if anyone knows of where it is, let me know thanks!

The only thing left that I need is some kind of comphrensive SFX guide. I'm sort of perfectionist; if there's a balloon or a dialogue I'm going to try to translate them, even if they're SFX. But to be blunt, I'm very terrible with vocalized sounds. If it's something written, no problem. But if I'm asked to identify a sound (a sound effect, a word, a dialogue, whatever), I can't do that at all.

For example, the commonly used "endless A's"? I'm not even sure if they're something along the lines of "ahhh" or "ohhh." It probably doesn't seem to be much of a difference, but levels of connations can make for significant difference. (Examples like *grunt* aren't good enough for me because it doesn't really tell me what kind of sound they might be.)

So when you pair that with the perfectionist nature in myself, it frustrates me. For now, I'll just focus on dialogue and ignore sound effects, but I'd like to one day know what those effects are used, and their english counterparts.

Tonigobe has made a guide on Japanese onomatopoeia. I've attached it to my post here.

I also use this site: [www.writtensound.com] http://www.writtensound.com/index.html
when looking for onomatopoeia. Sometimes I see the Japanese and know what it means, but I can't put my finger on an appropriate English counterpart. Then I use that page.

Tonigobe's guide is also pretty cool.

Thanks. Also, are there any good examples of translated doujins with sound effects translated well? That way I can see how some people translate their SFX. I'm sure some translate them literally (grr, ulp, etc) , some with general words (like groan, sigh, etc), and some probably do their own ways.

At very least I can use them as research material.

This post has been edited by lightshader: Oct 2 2010, 05:31

Thanks. Also, are there any good examples of translated doujins with sound effects translated well? That way I can see how some people translate their SFX. I'm sure some translate them literally (grr, ulp, etc) , some with general words (like groan, sigh, etc), and some probably do their own ways.

At very least I can use them as research material.

Call it shameless advertising, but this one comes to mind:

https://e-hentai.org/g/274264/06579b777e/

You can also check out stuff by Ero-Otoko, if I recall correctly, he tends to do that a lot.

Can we move this thread to the translators' sub-forum? There are a lot of good tips that can help aspiring translators/editors.

Hello Everyone, I'm new here and I am an aspiring translator.
My languages of work are primarily ENGLISH, FRENCH and ITALIAN, but since I spent one year in Japan (2006-2007) and then studied Japanese for 2 years at the University, I can read and understand a bit of it.
Unfortunately, this ain't enough to translate doujinshis and ero-mangas from Japanese with a quality that could match Saha's or DesuDesu.

Plus, I have tried to work with GIMP and Photofiltre, but it's waaay too complicated and I found NO tutorials on the net.

This is my request to you all members of the "Hentai Brotherhood" ;-) : has anybody ever created some kind of freeware program (like an opensource, or something like that) that combines the easy-to-understand display of Paint and has some tools like the magic wand and maybe a tool specially made to select an entire "text bubble" and get it cleaned ?
Paint is very easy to use, which is a plus, but it's far too LIMITED. GIMP, on the other side, is way too complicated to use for me. I could also install photoshop, but as I have seen this far, you need to know a lot before you use it (layers and stuff like that...)

I thank you in advance for your advice, brothers ! :-)

See you soon.

To be honest, if you want to translate/edit manga, you're going to have to learn how to use GIMP or Photoshop. Pretty much everyone uses Photoshop, though I use GIMP because I'm weird that way. However, you don't have to be an expert with those programs to use them. [www.unblessed.net] Here is a good guide to editing manga. The only functions you really need to know are (1) how to [www.unblessed.net] level, (2) how to erase, (3) how to [www.unblessed.net] typeset. You can get fancy with the text, and there are other useful functions such as clone stamping for editing text outside speech bubbles, but you can worry about those later.

Ero-Otoko also has a good guide to translating and editing here.

Photoshop takes a little bit of getting used to, but it's a great program, really.

I didn't know jack about it when I first started using it, but after some fumbling around with it, all its functions just seem so natural to you. YMMV though.

[senbonzakura.kageyoshi.net] This tutorial is also pretty good and easy to understand.

Your bread and butter functions will be Levels, rubber tool (at least that's what I use for cleaning bubbles, it's fast and easy) and text tool for the majority of problems.

Outside-of-bubble stuff is sometimes hard to cope with, even for experienced editors. Until you get to know your program of choice though, you don't need to worry about that though.

And btw, doesn't GIMP also use layers? Or was that Paint.net? Hmm...

To be honest, if you want to translate/edit manga, you're going to have to learn how to use GIMP or Photoshop. Pretty much everyone uses Photoshop, though I use GIMP because I'm weird that way. However, you don't have to be an expert with those programs to use them. [www.unblessed.net] Here is a good guide to editing manga. The only functions you really need to know are (1) how to [www.unblessed.net] level, (2) how to erase, (3) how to [www.unblessed.net] typeset. You can get fancy with the text, and there are other useful functions such as clone stamping for editing text outside speech bubbles, but you can worry about those later.

Ero-Otoko also has a good guide to translating and editing here.

Mmm Hmm.... Aside from the limitations of Mspaint tools, the quality of the saved pic goes down. For instance....
Photoshop output - Ms Paint output

Another thing, if you do start using PS/Gimp, make sure to pay attention to the white on B/W manga. Sometimes it's unnoticable because the page is supposedly regular white. But when you're using the eraser, it'll remove the "off white" color and have the "real white" showing. Which may not be seen by you but to others(since everyone's monitors set different).

There should really be a "Your tips for manga editing" thread, where everyone shares the little things that they came up with when they edit manga and such.

This post has been edited by Super Shanko: Oct 5 2010, 14:18

Another thing, if you do start using PS/Gimp, make sure to pay attention to the white on B/W manga. Sometimes it's unnoticable because the page is supposedly regular white. But when you're using the eraser, it'll remove the "off white" color and have the "real white" showing. Which may not be seen by you but to others(since everyone's monitors set different).

You're right about that. Have seen that far too often, but that's where leveling comes in handy.

And your second example is not MSPaint because there's antialias on the fonts and I think Paint can't do that... meh, still shows what a hackjob that guy is anyway, must have been saving the images on low quality settings.

Speaking of which, for most b/w pages, I either like to save them as JPEG on highest quality and convert them to PNG via Irfanview or use the Save for Web plugin in Photoshop directly. I prefer Irfanview for the job though, makes the files smaller than the save for web plugin (IME) without losing quality, so it's easier on my crappy upstream...

This post has been edited by Nashrakh: Oct 5 2010, 14:20

You're right about that. Have seen that far too often, but that's where leveling comes in handy.

Eh, thats too much work for me. My simplest(laziest) way to deal with that is here!....

To be honest, if you want to translate/edit manga, you're going to have to learn how to use GIMP or Photoshop. Pretty much everyone uses Photoshop, though I use GIMP because I'm weird that way. However, you don't have to be an expert with those programs to use them. [www.unblessed.net] Here is a good guide to editing manga. The only functions you really need to know are (1) how to [www.unblessed.net] level, (2) how to erase, (3) how to [www.unblessed.net] typeset. You can get fancy with the text, and there are other useful functions such as clone stamping for editing text outside speech bubbles, but you can worry about those later.

Ero-Otoko also has a good guide to translating and editing here.

Oh hey! I was looking for that manga editing guide! I'd come across it a week or two ago, but forgot to bookmark and I couldn't find it again afterwards because I couldn't remember who had made the guide so I thought I'd never find it again. Thanks a lot, now it's bookmarked. (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

Oh yeah, I just remembered... Paint.NET is supposed to be easier to use than Photoshop/GIMP... I've never used it so I don't know how it compares, but maybe you can give that a try.

I like to use paint.net for most of images I edit., it uses layers, similar to the photoshop and it's good to pixel-art. But I still prefers photoshop to coloring big images.

Thanks a lot for the suggestions.As a rookie translator, I found them really helpful.

Just putting this out there, but does anyone have access to the Wild Words Lower font and willing to share? I've been experimenting with Mighty Zeo in my last few uploads and while I like the flexibility that lower-case letters offers, I think Wild Words just looks better.

Wild Words doesn't have lower case lettering last I remember.