Prescanning

Introduction

Color Scanning

Black & White

Extra Stuff

My Procedure

Main

1) Prescanning:

Before you to scan, you need to prepare the manga.

First you have to decide if your going to cut/debind the manga.

Cutting/Debinding involves cutting the manga in various ways to remove the pages from the binding.

To do this, there are several ways, and it is best to just try some or do what you are most comfortable with.  These include cutting the manga into separate parts and then dissecting it slowly, or cutting the pages one at a time along the side.  Either way, your first attempts may not be that good, until you get the hang of it.

Tools- For cutting/debinding, I use a box cutter. Other people have used an eXacto-Knife or other cutting instruments that are like a knife.  Either way, try to remove the page as close to the borders as possible.

Some Suggestions - People have recommended to me stuff like putting the manga on a cookie sheet, and placing it in a 350 degree oven for 3-5 mins to loosen the glue.  Others have recommended using the microwave on high for 20-30 secs.  Again, experiment to see what gives you the best results.

Benefits - the benefit with cutting/debinding the manga, is that the final results of the scans are better (ie the darkness on the side), and it's easier to scan.

Cons - you have to cut your manga apart! After that I reccommend either putting it in a zip-lock bag or just using a rubber band.

If you decide not to cut your manga, then the other choice is to get lower quality scans, or to press VERY hard.

If your not going to cut your manga, your only other choice is to bend your manga.  You can either bend very hard or not at all depending on the result you desire.  Again it is up to you to decide what type of scan you want.

I recommend you cut/debind you manga if your willing to sacrifice.

2) Introduction: 

Before you begin to scan, you need to know how to get the scans.  I presume you have the scanner installed and it's working.

There are several programs that you can use for scanning, and as long as they are "twain compliant" they should work.  Usual place it is located is, File->Acquire or File->Import

Examples:

IrfanView

PhotoShop

ACDSee

Paint Shop Pro

You might also need to state which hardware to use by going into the settings.

3) Color Scanning:

The problem with scanning, is that many people have different programs depending what scanner they have, but here's an example with Visioneer Scan Manager Pro.  I recommend you try and line the pages along the edge to get a straight scan if possible.

FOR COLOR SCANS, MAKE SURE YOU SCAN IN "COLOR" or "RGB" MODE.

You should also try to play around with the scan area, and save the settings if possible.  That way you don't have to scan the whole thing, and instead just scan the area with the cover/pic.

Recommended settings for color is 600dpi, and save in jpg format around level 7 to 8 or 70 to 80, and in a color or rgb setting.

What to do with color images:

After you scan a color image, you might want to play around with the curves in PhotoShop to get a better picture.

The Curve Tool can be found in Image->Adjust->Curves or Ctrl+M.  To get the best result, you should judge by eye and try to make the graph look like this: 

4) Black & White:

Black and white scans are what you are probably going to spend most of your time scanning, example.

FOR BLACK & WHITE SCANS, MAKE SURE YOU SCAN IN "GRAYSCALE" MODE.

If you are placing the picture along the edge, you can set it so that the scanner only scan's around that area. I use a setting of around 4.3" x 6.8" (as seen in the example) and the resulting scan is automatically cropped.  The final result is this (unchanged except for resized).

Recommended settings for black and white scans are 300dpi, and save in jpg format, around level 7 to 8 or 70 to 80, and in grayscale mode.

You can also play around with the brightness and contrast if you want.  Check which settings you like.  I use a low setting, no more then 10.

5) Extra Stuff

Cropping the file: If you want, you can crop the file.  This is done by making a marquee and selecting in PhotoShop, Image->Crop.  This is fairly simple and you should be able to do it yourself, however it is usually done by the editor.

Tilt the pic: Tilt is something else you could do, but this is also usually done by the editor.

6) My procedure:

I personally use irfan-view for scanning.  Not only is it free, but it has a batch scanning feature which i used to rename the file.

First got to File->Batch Scanning

It'll look like this.

Put output file as the name of the file and string index as the page number or whatever, and the directory as the output directory.  Also select in options and make sure it's set tp save as Grayscale.

Scan as you would a normal black and white picture.  IrfanView will automatically save the file for you after you scan it.  Then repeat for the next picture, only increment the Index number accordingly.  This saves in the time that it takes to rename the files, and you wont forget to save the file, cause it automatically does it for you ^^.

Well that's basically it.  It's up to you to actually use this information and apply it to the scans and if you have any questions: DON'T BUG ME FOR THE ANSWER =P.

-DH (DontHurt)