The Best Program

[supersaiyanneo]

i want to know what the best program on your computer is to make manga. i'd love to make mine look more professional...but...well.

[Ali Wilgus]

In a way, the most important thing when it comes to creating manga digitally is filesize -- you need to have a high-res file of the correct proportions, such that it looks like you want it to when you go to print it out. So any program you use needs to be able to produce smooth, clean lines and tone at about 300 dpi.

Given that....? Personally, I do everything in Photoshop, but Adobe Illustrator or some other professional image-editing program would work just as well. Whatever you're comfortable with and have access to.

[rivkah]

IMHO, there are only two viable programs if you plan to both ink and tone digitally: Deleter Comicworks or ComicStudio EX (er . . . "Manga Studio" that is).

Photoshop is lumbersome and eats up memory like you wouldn't believe.

Corel Painter also eats up memory and it doesn't like to zoom out very prettily. -_-;

And Illustrator . . . well . . . I avoid vector programs in general because they're terribly difficult to control in inking and make lineart look so clean it becomes sterile.

I've used Deleter Comicworks for about two years now, but I've just recently been asked to review ComicStudio (MangaStudio), so I have a copy I'm going to be very soon trying out and reviewing. I'll be certain to post my comparison when that happens! ^_~

[gynocrat]

What does everyone think of Manga Studio Ex?

[rivkah]

So any program you use needs to be able to produce smooth, clean lines and tone at about 300 dpi.

Actually, Tokyopop expects us to work at 1200 dpi. Color may reproduce well at 300 dpi, but b/w can go up to a resolution of 2400 dpi (actually, it all works in "lpi" but that's another discussion entirely), so not only is it a higher quality, but mistakes are also easier seen as well.

And I totally agree about filesize. That's why I love Comicworks. A file that would typically be at least 50-60 megs in photoshop cuts down to 4-6 megs in a comicworks files without sacrificing quality, plus it doesn't degrade the image when you zoom out past 12.5% so I can zoom in and out on my work with a lot more ease, and though it's a pain to run when other programs are running in the background (because it gets stuck sometimes in a graphics loops if I leave it minimized too long), it runs much more smoothly than photoshop once I turn all my background programs off. Good stuff when you're running at 1.7 ghz and only 512 memory. ^_^;

[RikkiSimons]

TP doesn't care what DPI we use on ShutterBox as long as it's above 300. Your end file, the final InDesign package that will output to PDF for the printer will be 300 DPI and 150 LPI no matter what size you start your work at. We do everything at 600 DPI because it's the median between output and save quality. When you need to make an poster for advertising later, this also makes it easy to enlarge the file in Photoshop without resampling the image and turning it antialiased.

I've used Photoshop for 10 years and Painter for 13. I toned ShutterBox 1, 2, and 3 ( http://tavicat.typepad.com/wiredpsyche/2005/06/shutterbox_vol__9.html ) on a 500 Mhz G4 Power Mac with 1GB of memory and a duel Radeon card and everything zipped open. It's only gray scale and thus a typical ShutterBox page with 20 average layers is only 10 to 14 MB. Color gets very big, however. A typical cover is 150 MB and on my old 500 G4 it took about 20 seconds to open and save. I use an Intel iMac Duo 2Ghz now and Phoposhop opens up so fast it creates a worm hole in the space time continuum and I am working on the pages before I was born.

I love Painter and it was the first digital painting program I ever used, going back to version 2. I painted all of our original color Reality Check! comics in Painter and it was 4 years of veeeery painful work, but back then in 1996 when computers were run on steam and coal, Painter was still better than Photoshop because it had multiple undo, while Adobe acted like multiple undo was for crazy. I only use Painter nowadays to embellish projects I begin in Photoshop (like when I painted backgrounds for Invader ZIM: http://www.rhumbaghost.com/ZIM_Web.html ). Painter is finally the quick little bunny it should be on this Intel iMac but they still need to make layers a little friendlier before I totally switch back from Photoshop to Painter.

My experience is that Rivkah is right about Illustrator. It's a bit better for posters, technical illustrations and large commercial projects than say, a 192 page book. Although I do know some artists who ink their 24 page pamphlet style books in Illustrator but they are crazy man-apes and best spoken about in hushed whispers around camp fires.

I don't use any of the comic/manga specific programs except to mine some tone from them and port them over to Photoshop where I change them to gray scale and do terrible Frankensteinian things to them.

Hope that helps.

-Rikki

[dannylee4]

Good stuff when you're running at 1.7 ghz and only 512 memory. ^_^;

I'll second Rivkah on this. Even with my 3ghz and 1gig machine, I can't run anything but Photoshop CS2 on my machine, and even then it's choppy as hell. Manga Studio moves alot smoother, and Comicworks is a breeze on my machine even at 600dpi. (never tried 1200 yet)

[supersaiyanneo]

thanks everyone so much for all of your imput :). i just looked up comicstudio ex and the site was in japanese...i cant read japanese yet...can you get it in english?

[dannylee4]

http://www.e-frontier.com/

That's the website for the developers of Manga Studio. Follow the MangaStudio links and you should be able to find a demo version as well as the versions for sale. Or you can wait until the next comic con where they are a vendor and buy it directly. :)

[supersaiyanneo]

thanks :D

[Ixis]

i want to know what the best program on your computer is to make manga. i'd love to make mine look more professional...but...well.

There's no such thing as a program that will make good manga as there is no single paper that will make good art. Art programs are tools just like your pencils and pens. It's best to use a variety of programs and see which works best for your style and budget. That said, most people use...

Paint Shop Pro
Painter
Photoshop
Illustrator
Flash
Manga Studio (EX)
and Adobe In Design

Pain Shop Pro, Photoshop and Flash are mostly used for dealing with scanned art/making new art and the like. Illustrator, In Design and Manga Studio are used for taking that processed line-art/whatever and adding text, aligning it up to the required filesize and such.

Of course these are all tools, and you could use Flash/Illustrator or Manga Studio to create every page for every comic you make and nothing more. Don't let anyone tell you what programs or art supplies to use because in the end your short selling yourself as an artist and creator. If you're good enough you can make some great stuff with what you have on hand. It's best to try everything and seeing what works for you.

[RikkiSimons]

There's no such thing as a program that will make good manga as there is no single paper that will make good art .... It's best to try everything and seeing what works for you.

Absolutely correct. That's the first rule any aspiring artist in any genre or media should learn. Unfortunately, a lot of kids who want to make manga will look at the new dedicated manga programs like Manga Studio and Comicworks and think they will actually make the comic for them. The same thing happened when Photoshop and Painter arrived on the scene in the 90's. I still remember, in 1995, getting a phone call from a small publishing house who I stopped making covers for. They couldn't be bothered to spend the money on an artist to replace me, so the owner's husband had taken it apon himself to color covers in Photoshop. He called me and asked, "This Photoshop thing, I just punch some buttons? You don't have to be an artist to use it, right?" I very flatly replied before hanging up, "You can always tell when a non-artist picks up a paint brush."

I'll second Rivkah on this. Even with my 3ghz and 1gig machine, I can't run anything but Photoshop CS2 on my machine, and even then it's choppy as hell. Manga Studio moves alot smoother, and Comicworks is a breeze on my machine even at 600dpi. (never tried 1200 yet)

Manga Studio and Comicworks are both bitmap programs. Any graphics program will open a bitmap image super fast. It's only black and white. I don't know what to say about your Photoshop results except that these aren't the results of any of the hundreds of professional Photoshop users I've met over the years who work on projects ranging from animation, graphic design, to comics, to actual professional photography. Many of those projects are more complex (as far as layers and DPI) than a grayscale manga page. What sort of video card and processor are you using? Even 2Gigs of RAM won't make Photoshop faster if you're using a Celeron with a default Intel video card.

-Rikki

[PeterAhlstrom]

Your end file, the final InDesign package that will output to PDF for the printer will be 300 DPI and 150 LPI no matter what size you start your work at.
That may have been the case in the past, but nowadays the final PDF is done at 1200 dpi, and LPI for grayscale images depends on which of the 3 presses we use.

We prefer new artists to do everything at 1200 dpi. Several people like you who have been doing this for a long time get grandfathered at 600 dpi (why fix what's not broken?;) ).

[RikkiSimons]

That may have been the case in the past, but nowadays the final PDF is done at 1200 dpi, and LPI for grayscale images depends on which of the 3 presses we use.

We prefer new artists to do everything at 1200 dpi. Several people like you who have been doing this for a long time get grandfathered at 600 dpi (why fix what's not broken?;) ).

Well, that's because Tokypop changes their design policy very month. You say 1200 now, but this time next year your tech policy won't even resemble what it does now. You know that's true. We have to hang on to the tried and true because TP's "new" ways change too often.

There doesn't seem to be any point to doing 1200 unless you're planning to do billboard-sized posters, or if you are scanning in manga from Japan and you're trying to avoid moiré patterns. For comics, "grandfather or not," every printer I've ever dealt with only cares about 300 DPI in the very end, because that's what the final press outputs. Larger DPI only matters when you want to save the file for larger output without resampling the image (blurring or jagging it) for side projects, like posters. That's why the line art in a printed book doesn't look any more fresh or spectacular whether your original file is 1200 or 600 DPI.

And this is the first I've heard of your 1200 DPI policy. But I'm not surprised. I love you guys but you're not exactly organized yet on the sharing information front. You need to make a hidden dedicated creators-only forum here and post this kind of info bulliten board style so we all know it (and can debate it) all at once. You get too many problems otherwise. I mean, nobody at TP thought to tell us that they had switched from Quark to InDesign until we were halfway through ShutterBox Book Three, despite the fact that I tried to convince TP years ago to use InDesign instead of Quark before we started Book One, and was told you had no plans to switch. Really, please: official dedicated, hidden tech folder for your creators.

-Rikki

[rivkah]

There doesn't seem to be any point to doing 1200 unless you're planning to do billboard-sized posters, or if you are scanning in manga from Japan and you're trying to avoid moiré patterns. For comics, "grandfather or not," every printer I've ever dealt with only cares about 300 DPI in the very end, because that's what the final press outputs. Larger DPI only matters when you want to save the file for larger output without resampling the image (blurring or jagging it) for side projects, like posters. That's why the line art in a printed book doesn't look any more fresh or spectacular whether your original file is 1200 or 600 DPI.

The reason most printers only care about 300 DPI is because the majority of their work is full color process, printed anywhere from 85 lpi (newspapers) to 300 lpi (high quality glossy magazines and art prints). There generally is no reason to go above 300 dpi, because not only is it generally a suitable quality for the human eye to discern without picking up the halftone, but also if you go any higher, the colors start to muddy and darken, especially on lower quality, pourus papers such as newsprint or regular text paper.

However, single color printing is capable of a much higher quality. In full color process, each seperate color (cyan, magenta, yellow, the key color, black, and sometimes also orange and green in hexachrome printing) is printed on a screen at a different angle. (Use a magnifying glass to look at any magazine or print, and you should be able to see it) Adding colors is like layering the same tone at different angles, it darkens and becomes less crisp, while a single layer doesn't have this problem.

Most printers don't deal with singler color process and are therefore unfamiliar with just HOW high of a quality they can get, therefore when someone comes to them with a greyscale image saying, "can you print this?" they immediately assume they'll only need the file at 300 dpi when they can really go anywhere from 600 dpi to 2400 dpi, depending on the quality of their machines, the paper used, and the ink.

Therefore, 1200 dpi DOES make a difference from 300 dpi if the printer knows what they're doing. In TOKYOPOP's case--and looking at the quality of their current books especially in comparison to what they put out six or seven years ago when they first hit the market--their current printers deffinitely know what they're doing, as does the person working at TP who's prepping and sending those files out.

Also, there's a big difference between working in greyscale and working in b/w bitmap mode. Greyscale images are broken down into high resolution halftone images when they go to print, so while they don't degrade, neither do they improve in quality. Yet, for someone who inks digitally, I know just how much more crisp a 1200 dpi line inked on the computer is in comparison to a 300 dpi line either scanned in or inked the same way. The difference is pretty dramatic for a work scanned in or created at a higher resolution. The difference is minimal for something with a lower resolution. As Peter basically said, if it works, keep using it, but if you can make it even better, why not?

As for Photoshop . . . ^_^ I love Photoshop for prepping images and getting them ready for print, and it's a wonderful program for either greyscale or color photo editing. However, if you wish to work in b/w rather than greyscale, it doesn't permit the use of layers. Which means, I'd have to work in greyscale at 1200 dpi creating my lineart. While it still functions, it doesn't have the immediate response time that I personally enjoy with ComicWorks, in ALL aspects of the program. Working on 300 dpi in Photoshop works fine, but 1200 dpi is a real drag on my own computer. Photoshop simply wasn't built for b/w line art. It was built for photos using full color process. And the programming reflects that.

I can see where the differences in opinion come in, as printing b/w halftones is an area largely unknown by most people, even those who've worked in print for years including printers, and most tend to assume the default: that b/w prints the same as color and works the same. It doesn't. But I've run into this kind of thinking many many times looking for high quality b/w printing.

Though I would like to point out to Peter that for artists who aren't capable of handling 1200 dpi on their computers, 600 dpi is often sufficient if it's converted and handle correctly while prepping it for the printers, especially if there are a lot of greyscale flat tones used in the artwork. The higher resolutions really only work best for those using halftones with a higher resolution than 60 lpi. I generally tone at 80-100 lpi.

-Rivkah (resident printphile)

[KaYoKitten]

*raises hand sheepishly* Um...stupid person coming in to ask a question...why is it when I scan only in B&W, my image comes out far too choppy to work with even if I wanted to try? The grayscale art is still fairly high-quality, but I lose the details from my inkwork if I scan just B&W. Is it just my scanner or am I doing something wrong? (My scanner won't scan higher than 300 dpi...-_-())

[rivkah]

Why is it when I scan only in B&W, my image comes out far too choppy to work with even if I wanted to try? The grayscale art is still fairly high-quality, but I lose the details from my inkwork if I scan just B&W. Is it just my scanner or am I doing something wrong? (My scanner won't scan higher than 300 dpi...-_-())

Are you scanning in inks so you can tone it on the computer, or are you scanning in a sketch so you can digitally ink it? There are several different approaches you can take. :)

[Shipuh]

Yeah, I'm a Comic Works user, not photoshop. ^^;;

Kinda like how I use openCanvas instead of Corel Painter.

lots of good programs out there deisgned to do very specific jobs like comic tones for example. i usually avoid photoshop for any types of drawing. its good for what it does however.

most of these programs are surprisingly easy to learn and considerably cheap than big name softwares as well. and you wont lose quality in effects just because its a lower priced product.

and as mentioned above, they are simply just tools, not instant manga creators.

[KaYoKitten]

I do almost everything else aside from letter and tone by hand, because I really don't have the tools to do it on the computer. I'm fairly confident with a pen. I try to make my lines heavier so that the image doesn't vanish completely when I shrink the image to size, buuuut...usually there's this gray "residue" I guess you'd call it, and it's hard to tone with that there. I can get rid of some of it by using the contrast, but it doesn't take it all. And the ink tends to look dark gray instead of black. ><

[Shipuh]

I do almost everything else aside from letter and tone by hand, because I really don't have the tools to do it on the computer. I'm fairly confident with a pen. I try to make my lines heavier so that the image doesn't vanish completely when I shrink the image to size, buuuut...usually there's this gray "residue" I guess you'd call it, and it's hard to tone with that there. I can get rid of some of it by using the contrast, but it doesn't take it all. And the ink tends to look dark gray instead of black. ><

yeah, id like to work more by hand but i have to avoid it for this reason.

there are alot of people who manage to pull off readjusting the settings in photoshop and making it completely clean.

me? id much rather stick to my good ole' mouse buddy and work the line art from a scan. (or from my head)

[KaYoKitten]

I find it easier on me...of course, without a tablet, it's kinda impossible...curse you, job! Why can't you afford more than just food!? Wal*Mart cashiers don't even make that much...I can tell you that...-_-() And I should do a comic one day about the daily life of a cashier. I tell you, I'd have some of you rollin' on the floor in tears. Like today, I had this CRAZY lady come through my line! She had only three things and a food stamps card to pay for it and she got soooo mad because she couldn't pay for dishwashing soap with food stamps. Um, hello? You can't eat soap! Unless you REALLY need a cheap laxative, and then, let me introduce you to the prune juice...or better yet, management. :D I love my manager. He's soooo cool! ^___^ I wish I could have a manager like him for the rest of my life, but I'd rather not pick up Pepsi cubes that long.

[rivkah]

I do almost everything else aside from letter and tone by hand, because I really don't have the tools to do it on the computer. I'm fairly confident with a pen. I try to make my lines heavier so that the image doesn't vanish completely when I shrink the image to size, buuuut...usually there's this gray "residue" I guess you'd call it, and it's hard to tone with that there. I can get rid of some of it by using the contrast, but it doesn't take it all. And the ink tends to look dark gray instead of black. ><

While getting a scanner would deffinitely improve the quality of the scan, there are a couple simple things you can do to at least improve what you have. Instead of scanning in at bw, scan in at greyscale, then go to "Image --> Adjust --> Levels." You usually want the black slider under the black peak on the histogram. Now move your white slider left and watch as the lighter lines and smudges fade. Adjust all of these settings until you're happy with how the contrast looks and the basic tone of the pages and any smudges and grey have disappeared. :)

If you plan to tone a 300 dpi image on the computer, flat greyscale fills or gradients are much easier to use than attempting to use actual screentone/halftone. Leave your 300 dpi image greyscale. The printer can still produce it, and it'll still look nice. It just won't be AS crisp as a picture scanned in and toned at a higher resolution.

[KaYoKitten]

Instead of scanning in at bw, scan in at greyscale, then go to "Image --> Adjust --> Levels."

And that would prolly be in...Photoshop. -_-() All I have is my scanner program, which does some decent toning if I erase all the gray stuff...Being dirt poor is no fun...no fun at all...*glances at shelf* ^^; And yet I still buy a single manga every paycheck. Just one. *glomps her small but meaningful collection* I can barely afford paper. ^^; I get Wal*Mart sketch diaries, which is actually fairly decent paper for the cost. I fill them up in less than two weeks every time. ^^;;;

[Shipuh]

I find it easier on me...of course, without a tablet, it's kinda impossible...curse you, job! Why can't you afford more than just food!? Wal*Mart cashiers don't even make that much...I can tell you that...-_-() And I should do a comic one day about the daily life of a cashier. I tell you, I'd have some of you rollin' on the floor in tears. Like today, I had this CRAZY lady come through my line! She had only three things and a food stamps card to pay for it and she got soooo mad because she couldn't pay for dishwashing soap with food stamps. Um, hello? You can't eat soap! Unless you REALLY need a cheap laxative, and then, let me introduce you to the prune juice...or better yet, management. :D I love my manager. He's soooo cool! ^___^ I wish I could have a manager like him for the rest of my life, but I'd rather not pick up Pepsi cubes that long.

there are plenty of non-tablet artists out there who are very talented. >___>;;

inspires me all the time to be tablet free.

my first art idol i drew with when i first started oekaki art. http://-achiru-.deviantart.com/ <-her work is a fine example and has a beautifully non-toned manga, "raven" in working. (done with a mouse)
http://acorn.chorwong.com/

i dont really like to show off my own artwork, but id like to just post a few examples of what you can do with a mouse:
http://www.deviantart.com/deviation/25049894/
http://www.deviantart.com/view/25050215/
http://www.deviantart.com/view/25050468/
http://www.deviantart.com/view/25050829/
http://www.deviantart.com/view/25050903/ <--ugh, ignore the facial porportions on that one
http://www.deviantart.com/view/25051182/
http://www.deviantart.com/view/25051319/
http://www.deviantart.com/view/25052026/ <--vecorted piece
http://www.deviantart.com/view/29815086/

and if you dont look at anything, atleast look at these oekaki animation examples of mouse work:
http://www.ochiba.net/viewani.php?xcord=350&ycord=500&id=4243&type=1
http://harupu.chorwong.com/cgi-bin/bbsnote.cgi?fc=open_pch&pch=s_001203.pch&width=500&height=300

i actually find tablets harder to work with than a mouse and much more frusterating. thats why i havent bought one, only reason ive considered it is for the pressure-sensitivity to use in my programs.

now i could sit here and show you several more pictures of BAD ARTWORK done with a tablet, but you dont need to see that.

just as said earlier, its YOU who makes the art with the tools, the tools dont make the art themseleves.

[Shipuh]

And that would prolly be in...Photoshop. -_-() All I have is my scanner program, which does some decent toning if I erase all the gray stuff...Being dirt poor is no fun...no fun at all...*glances at shelf* ^^; And yet I still buy a single manga every paycheck. Just one. *glomps her small but meaningful collection* I can barely afford paper. ^^; I get Wal*Mart sketch diaries, which is actually fairly decent paper for the cost. I fill them up in less than two weeks every time. ^^;;;

dont worry, im poor too. and yes, i do love my scanner i bought a few years ago that gives me great quality scans. but most of my drawings i do are done by my head to my gheto mouse onto the computer.

i dont reccomend photoshop as an investment right away, cuz it can be quite disappointing for its use, and may end up being a waste of money if you cant work with it. (which, it techinically isnt a "drawing" program. yes, you can draw in it, but there are other programs specifically designed for drawing that can be much easier, less of a headache, and well worth your time.)

dont believe me?
openCanvas artist: http://shirotsuki.deviantart.com/
Portal Graphics official site: http://www.portalgraphics.net/en/

practice at oekaki boards and get the original openCanvas (the first version, 1.1, is free i believe)

learn to use MSPaint [my tutorial (http://www.deviantart.com/view/25163190/)] and color with it if you have nothing else. (not the best drawing, but a good explination of how to mask with the program.)

believe it or not, theres also quite a bit impressive MSPaint work out there, one of the most under-rated art programs. so primitave, yet so challenging.

MSPaint Artist: http://torisan.deviantart.com/

i can understand the situation youre going through as ive been there myself.

all i can say is my best advice to you should be to join an oekaki community and just draw draw draw. learn the basics of layering and drawing digitally.

keep drawing by hand too!! and draw from life, dont just copy anime styles, attempt drawing styles you might not like either, it never fails to teach me something when i do that.

im still struggling to find my own individual art voice before i start on my own comic.

[KaYoKitten]

O__O OOoooooooh....preeeeeetty...I love the artwork, ish so nifty! ^_^ I personally can't do that at the moment, not on the computer. But with just traditional media, in particular watercolor, I'd say I'm still just a little below that level. This (http://www.deviantart.com/deviation/19883230/) is one of my recent watercolors (Half fan art, half OC...what can I say...^^;) This (http://www.deviantart.com/deviation/28736866/) one is all ink, a self portrait. ^^; This (http://www.deviantart.com/deviation/30664842/) is my toning that I use right now...I basically use Paint and my scanner program. I want to get a better program with more flexibility. I hope I can get the 50 dollar version of Manga Pro for my birthday at the end of April. I can only hope, ne?

[Shipuh]

O__O OOoooooooh....preeeeeetty...I love the artwork, ish so nifty! ^_^ I personally can't do that at the moment, not on the computer. But with just traditional media, in particular watercolor, I'd say I'm still just a little below that level. This (http://www.deviantart.com/deviation/19883230/) is one of my recent watercolors (Half fan art, half OC...what can I say...^^;) This (http://www.deviantart.com/deviation/28736866/) one is all ink, a self portrait. ^^; This (http://www.deviantart.com/deviation/30664842/) is my toning that I use right now...I basically use Paint and my scanner program. I want to get a better program with more flexibility. I hope I can get the 50 dollar version of Manga Pro for my birthday at the end of April. I can only hope, ne?

you do a very good job for what you have! :) i really like your page layouts. alot of people dont know how to do those when they first get started making comics.

[KaYoKitten]

^__^ Thank you! I study very, very hard from the RSoM comics, and from my collection, and I try to combine styles into my own unique one. I'm trying my very best. I tell you what, though, thumbing that one took a lot outta me. ^^; And the last ten or so pages weren't thumbed at all...That's what happens when you rush. ><

[Shipuh]

^__^ Thank you! I study very, very hard from the RSoM comics, and from my collection, and I try to combine styles into my own unique one. I'm trying my very best. I tell you what, though, thumbing that one took a lot outta me. ^^; And the last ten or so pages weren't thumbed at all...That's what happens when you rush. ><

my favorite rising stars is departure. simple, clear, clean and i love the work.

thats the type of comic i want to produce someday.

[RikkiSimons]

The reason most printers only care about 300 DPI is because the majority of their work is full color process

Hi, Rivkah. That’s not correct. I was a printing press operator. The majority of printing done in the world is black and white because it is cheaper to produce.

However, single color printing is capable of a much higher quality.

Single color? Are you talking about spot color for product design?

In full color process, each separate color (cyan, magenta, yellow, and the key color, black) is printed on a screen at a different angle. (Use a magnifying glass to look at any magazine or print, and you should be able to see it)

Yes, I know. That’s elementary printing.

Adding colors is like layering the same tone at different angles, it darkens and becomes less crisp, while a single layer doesn't have this problem.

Not entirely correct. Adding black, the K layer in CMYK makes the image darker — and by darker I mean black — in many cases. The image gets muddier — and by muddier I mean brown — if the original artist hasn’t learned to paint.

Most printers don't deal with single color process and are therefore unfamiliar with just HOW high of a quality they can get, therefore when someone comes to them with a grayscale image saying, "can you print this?" they immediately assume they'll only need the file at 300 dpi when they can really go anywhere from 600 dpi to 2400 dpi, depending on the quality of their machines, the paper used, and the ink.

Maybe if you’re talking to a small flier printer, but most major manufactures of posters, products and books know just what they are capable of.

Therefore, 1200 dpi DOES make a difference from 300 dpi if the printer knows what they're doing.

I’m sorry, but that just doesn’t hold up. They’re still going to drop it down when the ink hits the paper.

In TOKYOPOP's case--and looking at the quality of their current books especially in comparison to what they put out six or seven years ago when they first hit the market--their current printers definitely know what they're doing, as does the person working at TP who's prepping and sending those files out.

That can’t be said across the board for all books when comparing then to now. They’re all different and more often it’s the starting process, how they are scanned and how the tones are handled that makes the difference.

Also, there's a big difference between working in grayscale and working in b/w bitmap mode. Greyscale images are broken down into high resolution halftone images when they go to print, so while they don't degrade, neither do they improve in quality. Yet, for someone who inks digitally, I know just how much more crisp a 1200 dpi line inked on the computer is in comparison to a 300 dpi line either scanned in or inked the same way. The difference is pretty dramatic for a work scanned in or created at a higher resolution. The difference is minimal for something with a lower resolution.

The first part I know and have years of experience with, so yes, you’re right, the second part where you say “in comparison to a 300 dpi line either scanned in or inked the same way” YES! Beacause it’s the beginning process that marks the book from the start and sets its path for clarity or mudiness. I scan all of our pages in at 1200 dpi as black and white and then drop them to 600 to keep the lines thin, then posterize in gray scale. Book one of ShutterBox is too thick because I just came from animation where the process was the same but it had the addition of thickening the lines with contrast builds. It was all about thickening the lines. So again, it was the scanning and the beginning process that decided the fate of book one and made it look vastly different from the correct thin line art of books two and three.

As Peter basically said, if it works, keep using it, but if you can make it even better, why not?

Because it doesn’t make it better. That’s always been the popular generic argument: old is bad and should be discarded while new is better. It’s ageist and doesn’t hold up. I’m not somebody’s grandpa here being stubborn and holding on to the old ways. I’m a skilled professional with more than a decade working in print, publishing, animation, and design. It doesn’t make me unwilling to try new things. I even own a copy of Comicworks and use it for what I think it’s best at. I am constantly testing and experimenting and I have found that rasterized grayscale works best for me because, because A) it is flexible and workable across many programs and formats (including targa video), B) it can do layers, C) rasterized imaging is the industry standard throughout the world of print, design, and imaging and understanding its fundamentals will find you more work outside this very new world of OEL, and D) because it looks pretty and turns out right.

I can see where the differences in opinion come in, as printing b/w halftones is an area largely unknown by most people, even those who've worked in print for years

It’s not. It’s older than digital print. In it’s analog form with photo mechanical transfers it’s what manga in Japan was founded on for 50 years because they had no other way of doing things.

I was in the same position you were 10 years ago. I hated Photoshop in the beginning. I started off using Sketcher, the predecessor to Painter because it was less expensive. I moved on to Painter 2 when I finally found the money. I could have used Photoshop right off the bat but at the time it was obviously geared more towards what the name implies: photos. But, when we went to color, I still needed Photoshop at the time to convert to CMYK and I would use whoever had a copy to do it. But then, I was constantly looked at as the rebel guy, because I refused to use Photoshop. I came to the digital world from real, analog painting and print. Painter had everything I needed as an artist (except speed) and I let everyone know it. But when it came time to step away from comics to find a job in the “real” world I had no choice but to use Photoshop. And then I discovered why it was good. That’s fine if you want to use something else. I think that’s great. But don’t make out like you’re using the wonder program while everyone using Photoshop is some tired old man too stubborn to try the new and exciting. Then you’ll just sound like me in the 90’s.

Photoshop is not slow on the right machine. What is the wrong machine for Photoshop? Anything with a Celeron processor and an Intel video card. No amount of RAM will help you with that combination. For a PC user, use a machine with an Intel processor or better, minimum 2 Ghz, minimum 1GB memory with any one of the good Radeon or GeForce video cards available. For a Mac user, try to stay faster than a 500 Mzh G4, 1 Gb of RAm and again, use it with any one of the good Radeon or GeForce video cards available. Any G5 or Intel iMac will do wonders with Photoshop too.

-Rikki

[KaYoKitten]

My all-time favorite? Doors. It may not have been entirely perfect, but I loved the quirk and fantasy of it all. I like the detail to it, and how flawlessly the artist changed the mood of the story when the girl left. I aim above all else to be like CLAMP, though. Serious stories with beutiful renderings and odd juxtapositions. Especially their work on Tsubasa. I have been working on a novel for nearly six years, and then I came across this manga using a very similar idea to mine that still yet differed. I like quirk and humor, but it can't all be that for me. What's the point if everything's going to be okay in the end? Life isn't like that, and manga shouldn't be, either.

[RikkiSimons]

openCanvas artist: http://shirotsuki.deviantart.com/

That's a good program. And that's gorgeous work.

-Rikki

[PeterAhlstrom]

Well, that's because Tokypop changes their design policy very month. You say 1200 now, but this time next year your tech policy won't even resemble what it does now. You know that's true. We have to hang on to the tried and true because TP's "new" ways change too often.
Clearly it changes, but not every month. We've been saying 1200 dpi for at least the last 10 months...and have been using InDesign since early 2004.

There doesn't seem to be any point to doing 1200 unless you're planning to do billboard-sized posters, or if you are scanning in manga from Japan and you're trying to avoid moiré patterns. For comics, "grandfather or not," every printer I've ever dealt with only cares about 300 DPI in the very end, because that's what the final press outputs. Larger DPI only matters when you want to save the file for larger output without resampling the image (blurring or jagging it) for side projects, like posters. That's why the line art in a printed book doesn't look any more fresh or spectacular whether your original file is 1200 or 600 DPI.
That may be your experience, but Worzalla actually requests PDFs be at 2400 dpi. They use a different RIP than Donnelly uses, and books printed at Worzalla look slightly better than Donnelly-printed books, especially in tone areas.

An example of a book that I think looks pretty bad would be Idiotz volume 1. The original files were done in grayscale at 600 dpi, and when it came off the press, even the horizontal lines turned out fuzzy. Not impressive results. Now, whether this is a ripping issue or what I don't know, but our 1200 dpi bitmap books turn out looking better than that no matter where they're printed.

And this is the first I've heard of your 1200 DPI policy. But I'm not surprised. I love you guys but you're not exactly organized yet on the sharing information front. You need to make a hidden dedicated creators-only forum here and post this kind of info bulliten board style so we all know it (and can debate it) all at once. <snip> Really, please: official dedicated, hidden tech folder for your creators.
Sounds like a decent suggestion to me.

[RikkiSimons]

An example of a book that I think looks pretty bad would be Idiotz volume 1. The original files were done in grayscale at 600 dpi, and when it came off the press, even the horizontal lines turned out fuzzy. Not impressive results. Now, whether this is a ripping issue or what I don't know, but our 1200 dpi bitmap books turn out looking better than that no matter where they're printed.

I don't know, man. I've just never, ever seen that happen with 600 DPI grays. Sounds like someone pushed the crazy button.

-Rikki

[rivkah]

An example of a book that I think looks pretty bad would be Idiotz volume 1. The original files were done in grayscale at 600 dpi, and when it came off the press, even the horizontal lines turned out fuzzy. Not impressive results. Now, whether this is a ripping issue or what I don't know, but our 1200 dpi bitmap books turn out looking better than that no matter where they're printed.

I have that book, and IMHO it looks less like a ripping issue and more like a scanning and contrast issue, and also perhaps, the quality of the ink the artist was using. The blacks simply aren't dark enough, which you can especially see when you look close at the panel borders.

How you can tell is by looking at the word balloons which were obviously created on the computer while the inks were done by hand--they look perfectly fine, as do the greyscale tones. It's just the lineart that suffers in quality. I'd imagine that some simple levels adjustment durring the scanning phase would go a very long way.

[supersaiyanneo]

i never said i wanted an instant manga creater, i just want a program that can enhance my drawings and make them seam more professional.

[JayneCobb]

i never said i wanted an instant manga creater, i just want a program that can enhance my drawings and make them seam more professional.

the only way to enhance your drawings...is you urself! not any programs, because essentially they're pretty much the same (i mean, you can make a line both in photoshop and corel painter, right?) except for a few minor differences and several LARGER ones like operating time and such! *runs to use the toilly*

[supersaiyanneo]

well, im not very good at coloring and id like to add a splash of color. ive always admired the coloring you can do with a computer which you cant do with pencils

[KaYoKitten]

well, im not very good at coloring and id like to add a splash of color. ive always admired the coloring you can do with a computer which you cant do with pencils

Most of the time, if you're doing manga, they honestly don't want color. But for covers and such, color is really almost a need. However, if you're really certain that you're not good with color, then you need to practice with several programs, not just one. The problem is, some people can do gorgeous work in standard MSPaint--I've been told I'm decent with it, since I've got nothing else. But that's the tool--you're the artist. Using better tools doesn't make you a better artist. If you don't know how to use Photoshop effectively, like me, the image will turn out often times worse than what you'd normally do in a program you're used to. Bottom line of it all is: do you have enough experience (and practice) with the tool to do what you want to do?

And just to let you know, there are some effects you can't do on the computer. "Blood spatter" is one I can think of--flicking a toothbrush or a hard bristle paint brush with paint on it. (One I've recently discovered due to a terrific OEL manga-ka on here! ^__^) There's also some blending techniques that you really can't get on the computer. Watercolor is almost near impossible to recreate in Photoshop, unless you've really got it in your head what you want it to look like. I'd suggest getting a good set of Prismacolor pencils and staaaaart practicing! ^_^

[Tavisha]

An example of a book that I think looks pretty bad would be Idiotz volume 1. The original files were done in grayscale at 600 dpi, and when it came off the press, even the horizontal lines turned out fuzzy. Not impressive results. Now, whether this is a ripping issue or what I don't know, but our 1200 dpi bitmap books turn out looking better than that no matter where they're printed.

Hi Peter~! It sounds like the problem started from the Idiotz' end. (oh dear, that title sounds terriblly ironic considering the circumstances^___^***) If they got anything "fuzzy" in their printed results, especially showing in their linework, its because whoever scanned in their original artwork probably didn't scan it at 1200 dpi blk & wht (bitmap). After opening it in PS they needed to convert to grayscale 1 level and then reduce to 600 dpi and then posterize it at 2 levels BEFORE beginning any toning, etc. on the image. The posterizing is a very important step many forget to do, or don't even realise they need to do it. Unfortunately, the most common mistake with people working in grayscale is thinking they need to scan in their linework in grayscale. This is wrong~ I repeat: Do not scan your black line artwork at grayscale, otherwise you will not get solid, crisp black lines in your final print results.
Anyways, good luck to them for the next book~!

[KaYoKitten]

[QUOTE=Tavisha]This is wrong~ I repeat: Do not scan your black line artwork at grayscale, otherwise you will not get solid, crisp black lines in your final print results.[QUOTE]

Now I am most surely :confused: @___@ One person told me to scan in at grayscale, and then adjust with the contrast...and then you say to scan it just straight b-n-w...><...is this just a manner of taste??? I'm confuzzled...

[RikkiSimons]

Now I am most surely :confused: @___@ One person told me to scan in at grayscale, and then adjust with the contrast...and then you say to scan it just straight b-n-w...><...is this just a manner of taste??? I'm confuzzled...

You can scan in at grayscale but after scanning, if you are using Photoshop or (or any raster graphics program like Photoshop or Painter or Paint Shop, etc.), it's sometimes best to A) adjust the contrast and brightness of the image until the line art looks black enough and the white looks white enough, and then B) use Posterize set at 2 (2 for black and white) to make sure there are no pesky antialised grays mucking things up. Otherwise, you can follow Tavisha's method for bitmap scanning.

In the end though, every artist has their own way of doing things. Just experiment and find what works best for you.

-Rikki

[KaYoKitten]

You can scan in at grayscale but after scanning, if you are using Photoshop or (or any raster graphics program like Photoshop or Painter or Paint Shop, etc.), it's sometimes best to A) adjust the contrast and brightness of the image until the line art looks black enough and the white looks white enough, and then B) use Posterize set at 2 (2 for black and white) to make sure there are no pesky antialised grays mucking things up. Otherwise, you can follow Tavisha's method for bitmap scanning.

In the end though, every artist has their own way of doing things. Just experiment and find what works best for you.

-Rikki

So far, I've gotten used to trying to scan it at grayscale and then contrast and brightness it to death, but then I get even MORE problems with it than I really care to deal with. Like little spots of bizarre colors in among the black, and still gray residue left behind. If I try printing it, it comes out fuzzy, and trying to tone it is a pain in the rear. But scanning with just b-n-w causes another unwanted problem: it basically all but pixelizes the lines, and as I pride myself with how smooth my artwork looks before I scan it...^^; Not exactly wanting that, either. And I still have trouble toning it then because my lines are thinner that way and sometimes there are breaks in the lines. ><

[Tavisha]

Therefore, 1200 dpi DOES make a difference from 300 dpi if the printer knows what they're doing. In TOKYOPOP's case--and looking at the quality of their current books especially in comparison to what they put out six or seven years ago when they first hit the market--their current printers deffinitely know what they're doing, as does the person working at TP who's prepping and sending those files out.

Yes, I completely agree, in the case for bitmap and using bitmaped based tones, 1200 dpi is an absolute must to help keep out the moiré monsters, prevent dropouts, and most of all to keep your black lines clean. Since the beginning, in the digital world of traditional Japanese screen tones, its been all about fooling the eyes into believing the square is really a dot. XD Poor Jake Forbes... He had to be the unfortunate one to hear me give an earful of complaints about some of the poor reproduction print quality TokyoPop was releasing a few years ago. I think I refered to one title as- "I've seen better xeroxed doujinshi". But he was already well aware of the problem (I'm sure I wasn't the first rabid fangirl to complain) and really gave it his all in turning up the quality in the books during his time there. Jake is fulla awesomeness.

Also, there's a big difference between working in greyscale and working in b/w bitmap mode. Greyscale images are broken down into high resolution halftone images when they go to print, so while they don't degrade, neither do they improve in quality. Yet, for someone who inks digitally, I know just how much more crisp a 1200 dpi line inked on the computer is in comparison to a 300 dpi line either scanned in or inked the same way. The difference is pretty dramatic for a work scanned in or created at a higher resolution. The difference is minimal for something with a lower resolution. As Peter basically said, if it works, keep using it, but if you can make it even better, why not?

Which is why I prefer using grayscale tones over bitmap and prefer to import my own hand-picked tones. Using converted grayscale tones in Photoshop instead of bitmaped ones such as in Deleter's Comicworks or Manga Studio, allows us to make more special effects in our work (that includes even make our own tones). Bitmap is very limited and meant to simulate the look of old school analogue screentones. I'm glad there are many new artists, like yourself starting off in the OEL field eager to use the traditional tone patterns~ but these are the same old, same old basic patterns that the Japanese manga artists have already been using for decades that I've seen in countless Japanese manga over the years and now I'm seeing the same old ones being used in many of the new OEL. Of course I've used many of these same patterns too in the past~ ...Call me a prissy, but its kinda like showing up to a fancy tea party and everyone is wearing the same dress. I prefer to experiment more with the tones we use and create and innovate them into an entirely different approach from the traditional ones. My main motivation for this is our story, ShutterBox, is fantasy based and takes place in other worldly settings. I want the reader to feel they've experienced something completely different, and a big part of moods and feelings are provoked by the atmosphere the special effects (aka tones, lighting, etc) help create. The LAST thing I want is for some reader to look at one of our pages and exclaim; "HEY Lookit this pattern! They use the same one in NARUTO!" (no offense to Naruto its a fun read too~!) XD


by Peter Ahlstrom:
That may have been the case in the past, but nowadays the final PDF is done at 1200 dpi, and LPI for grayscale images depends on which of the 3 presses we use.
We prefer new artists to do everything at 1200 dpi. Several people like you who have been doing this for a long time get grandfathered at 600 dpi (why fix what's not broken? ).

I think what Peter doesn't understand is the process and intentions we work in. For us working in 1200 dpi isn't necessary because we've already scanned in the black line work at 1200 dpi and we're not trying to use bitmap based tones for the traditional analogue look. Working in 600 dpi with the grayscale tones is more than sufficient for us. As mentioned before, we work in PhotoShop because we wish to create our own tones/patterns and also to use layers for more depth in our work to move beyond the older "flat" analogue look. In the end, we're all about transcending our influences and offering something new and unique for our readers.

Thanks everyone~!
^_________^ (I think I need to crash in some sleep now...*z!*)

[Tavisha]

So far, I've gotten used to trying to scan it at grayscale and then contrast and brightness it to death, but then I get even MORE problems with it than I really care to deal with. Like little spots of bizarre colors in among the black, and still gray residue left behind. If I try printing it, it comes out fuzzy, and trying to tone it is a pain in the rear. But scanning with just b-n-w causes another unwanted problem: it basically all but pixelizes the lines, and as I pride myself with how smooth my artwork looks before I scan it...^^; Not exactly wanting that, either. And I still have trouble toning it then because my lines are thinner that way and sometimes there are breaks in the lines. ><


>___<*This might be a scanner issue~ Did you scan your art in at 1200 dpi?
Anyone else out there to give more suggestions?
(I'm so sorry, I need to sleep a bit~Good luck~!)

[KaYoKitten]

*sigh* It probably is the scanner, then...stupid cheap Lexmark...>< I was happy to have gotten a scanner at all with my budget, but it only allows 300 dpi scans...I guess I'll have to save up for a better one, then...>< Um...any suggestions for a good scanner? I'm sort of new at this whole gigabite-dpi-lpi stuff...Dad's the take-apart-everything-in-the-electronics-department guy, I'm just the artist. ^^; I barely know how to plug my computer all together, let alone what the difference between RAM and whatever else Rikki-san was talking about...O_o...Yes, stupid person asking questions...Only way I'll get answers, right? ^^; Makes me feel like a complete idiot, though.

[RikkiSimons]

*sigh* It probably is the scanner, then...stupid cheap Lexmark...

Epson has some very nice All-in-One scanner/printers in the $150 range that will scan at 1200 dpi plus: http://www.epson.com/cgi-bin/Store/ProductCategory.jsp?BV_UseBVCookie=yes&oid=-8182

The controls are easy and the machines last for years if you don't kick them.

-Rikki

[rivkah]

Rikki,

I wonder if scanning at Kinkos would be a decent alternative for those who can't afford a new scanner or a better computer to run it off of? I know some of the limits with scanners also runs with the limit of processing power for a computer. My old computer used to freeze up scanning at anything more than 300 dpi, even though my scanner was capable. However, I'm not certain what the prices are at Kinkos to use the scanners, and if it's better to pay to have an employee scan a document or pay to use the computers to scan it in oneself?

Libraries also sometimes have scanners as do school labs who'd probably be more than happy to let an aspiring artist use the equipment. :)

[ouch]

no...Rivkah, Kinko is evil!!

They charge me 20+ dollars for 2 "8.5 x11" painting to scan and print out...well I did try to do it on myself one time, they're computer and scan is really slow and they charge 0.5 per mintues (mac cost more, but only mac have photoshop install...) so another 20+ for them... -_-

[RikkiSimons]

Rikki,

I wonder if scanning at Kinkos would be a decent alternative for those who can't afford a new scanner or a better computer to run it off of?

That was how we started off. In 1993 scanners were way out of our price range, with a good one running about $3000. I used to have Kinkos down to a science: I could scan and get out and and end up paying about $2 for between 1 to 3 pictures. I imagine the prices are different now.

The security on their computers was easier to hack back then too. Ahem .. so I'm told ... .

-Rikki

[PeterAhlstrom]

I think what Peter doesn't understand is the process and intentions we work in. For us working in 1200 dpi isn't necessary because we've already scanned in the black line work at 1200 dpi and we're not trying to use bitmap based tones for the traditional analogue look. Working in 600 dpi with the grayscale tones is more than sufficient for us. As mentioned before, we work in PhotoShop because we wish to create our own tones/patterns and also to use layers for more depth in our work to move beyond the older "flat" analogue look. In the end, we're all about transcending our influences and offering something new and unique for our readers.
Well, no, I was never clear on the details behind your process and what you were going for, but I was never suggesting you change anything either. :) I was only saying what our guidelines are for other people who are not you.

I have that book, and IMHO it looks less like a ripping issue and more like a scanning and contrast issue, and also perhaps, the quality of the ink the artist was using. The blacks simply aren't dark enough, which you can especially see when you look close at the panel borders.

How you can tell is by looking at the word balloons which were obviously created on the computer while the inks were done by hand--they look perfectly fine, as do the greyscale tones. It's just the lineart that suffers in quality. I'd imagine that some simple levels adjustment durring the scanning phase would go a very long way.
I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure that the inks in Idiotz were straight 255-level black, but the lines still have the toothy quality.

Sometimes when bitmaps are accidentally saved as grayscale they print out like this in the office. Just had it happen to a large percentage of Queen's Knight pages (but not all) yesterday, and I know all the pages were scanned bitmap--the tones turned out looking like crap, but even the lines were toothy.

I think there may be an issue with the grayscale->K plate conversion, where 255 Gray is not converted to 100% K due to some colorspace problem.

I heard Felipe say he does MBQ as K-plate in photoshop instead of Gray, and it always prints great. However, I am somewhat removed from the technical details, since I'm a copy editor--I mostly deal with stuff when it's printed out on paper, not when it's on the computer.

[rivkah]

A bit of a belated reply, but I missed this whole post before.

Hi, Rivkah. That’s not correct. I was a printing press operator. The majority of printing done in the world is black and white because it is cheaper to produce.

I'm talking about publication printing, not printing for flyers and ads or corporate materials. In other words: offset printing. Not screen printing, not relief print, not rotogravure, not laser (or any kind of digital), not xerography, nor any of the more common technologies utilized by small and local presses.


Single color? Are you talking about spot color for product design?

I guess technically you could call it "spot color" since there's only one ink used. Full-color process is technically four spot colors. :P But no, I'm not referring to product design.


Not entirely correct. Adding black, the K layer in CMYK makes the image darker — and by darker I mean black — in many cases. The image gets muddier — and by muddier I mean brown — if the original artist hasn’t learned to paint.

Black darkens but it doesn't muddy.

In order to cut down printing costs, printers originally attempted reproducing black by blending cyan, magenta, and yellow. However, the closest they could get was a dark brown. This is a large reason why older print ads tended to be very brown and earth-toned. However, as inks became cheaper, black was finally added to the mix because it produces shadows and line much more clearly than simply blending CMY could. Hence it being called the "key" color.

As LPI increase in a print, the size of the dot not only becomes smaller, but denser as well. This both darkens and muddies the print. I've had this problem a couple times in the past with catalog printers that printed at too high of an LPI and solved the problem by slightly desaturating and lightening the image.


I’m sorry, but that just doesn’t hold up. They’re still going to drop it (1200 dpi) down (to 300 dpi) when the ink hits the paper.

Let me know when you've dealt with a RIP program. The printer may convert to 300 dpi in their system, but the RIP program is going to break it down to whatever LPI the system is capable of. Plus, larger dpi files take much longer to process, therefore potentially backing up the system, so it makes sense to most printers to stick to 300 dpi because it's gonna process much faster than something four times as large.

Which reminds me of the time I had to put in my first oversized poster order (5' by 3'), and stupidly sent them a file at-size at 300 dpi. It took them several hours to process the image, to which they called me afterwards and set me straight and that I only needed to send oversized orders at 100 dpi. ^_^;


the second part where you say “in comparison to a 300 dpi line either scanned in or inked the same way” YES! Because it’s the beginning process that marks the book from the start and sets its path for clarity or muddiness. I scan all of our pages in at 1200 dpi as black and white and then drop them to 600 to keep the lines thin, then posterize in gray scale.

I was going off you saying you work at 300 dpi, therefore assumed you meant the whole process. My apologies. I couldn't agree more.


Because it doesn’t make it better. That’s always been the popular generic argument: old is bad and should be discarded while new is better. It’s ageist and doesn’t hold up. I’m not somebody’s grandpa here being stubborn and holding on to the old ways. I’m a skilled professional with more than a decade working in print, publishing, animation, and design. It doesn’t make me unwilling to try new things. I even own a copy of Comicworks and use it for what I think it’s best at. I am constantly testing and experimenting and I have found that rasterized grayscale works best for me because, because A) it is flexible and workable across many programs and formats (including targa video), B) it can do layers, C) rasterized imaging is the industry standard throughout the world of print, design, and imaging and understanding its fundamentals will find you more work outside this very new world of OEL, and D) because it looks pretty and turns out right.

a) That's interesting about how it works better for video, but I'm only talking about print. b) I can do layers with bitmaps, too. Just not in Photoshop. :P c) No reason I can't convert a b/w image to grayscale if need be. Getting rid of moiré isn't difficult once you've learned how to do it; I can make a regular toned page look like it's grayscale with the right kind of tweaking if need be--useful for posting images on the web. d) As does b/w bitmap printing, which IMHO, is prettier


when it came time to step away from comics to find a job in the “real” world I had no choice but to use Photoshop. And then I discovered why it was good. That’s fine if you want to use something else. I think that’s great. But don’t make out like you’re using the wonder program while everyone using Photoshop is some tired old man too stubborn to try the new and exciting. Then you’ll just sound like me in the 90’s.

I've been using Photoshop just as long as (if not longer!) than you. I still remember when it first came out and being introduced to it by my biology teacher lol! It's a beautiful program which I still use on a regular basis and could navigate and control with my eyes closed. Yet, many ways as I've experimented with, it simply doesn't get the speed or quality I can get with B/W lineart in Comicworks. Comicworks isn't a wonder program by far! It has tons of bugs and it's palette is limited. It does what it needs to do and that's it. And I like that. I like things simple and neat, tailored exactly to what I need. And if I need export for lettering and ballooning? It supports turning my image into a layered PSD file. The program I use may not be perfect for other people, but I'm only stating what's right for me.

Photoshop is not slow on the right machine. What is the wrong machine for Photoshop? Anything with a Celeron processor and an Intel video card. No amount of RAM will help you with that combination. For a PC user, use a machine with an Intel processor or better, minimum 2 GHz, minimum 1GB memory with any one of the good Radeon or GeForce video cards available. For a Mac user, try to stay faster than a 500 Mzh G4, 1 Gb of RAm and again, use it with any one of the good Radeon or GeForce video cards available. Any G5 or Intel iMac will do wonders with Photoshop too.

I have an Intel pentium4 1.7 GHz with 768 memory and a 256 graphics card. And I can't upgrade my computer without having to purchase an entirely new computer. Trust me, I've tried. The motherboard is old and outdated so there's a limit to both memory and processor speed, and even the chasis is too old for upgrading the motherboard. -_-;

So I'm only making suggestions for those who don't have the capabilities of a faster computer and DO have to put up with all the lags and drags of a lower-grade comp and can't afford either expensive hardware or software. I get beautifully-reproduced lineart and tones using my current system, just as well.

[Tavisha]

d) As does b/w bitmap printing, which IMHO, is prettier

For me this only holds true when the bitmap is printed using the old analogue methods. When things were actually processed on film every thin line and true dot and pattern were flawlessly captured. Unfortunately, ever since the digital era has hit, a lot of the analogue toning methods,when digitally printed into bitmap images, just looks terribly flat, gets the moire patterns, and/or has an ugly xeroxed look to them. A pixel is not a "dot". Its my personal preference for aesthetic reasons, but I like to see the gray variation in the toning we do because it gives the scene more volume; more depth. For me, its a direction away from the old flat 2D analogue look. A lot of times I see something just straight black and white (bitmap) and I think; this would make a great coloring book. Which probably means, I've worked with color way too much. >___<***

[rivkah]

Unfortunately, ever since the digital era has hit, a lot of the analogue toning methods,when digitally printed into bitmap images, just looks terribly flat, gets the moire patterns, and/or has an ugly xeroxed look to them.

That is so true! Ever since printing became something that was easily achieved out of the home office, the world of print has lost a lot of it's understanding and quality. People understand what to do, but not necessarily why. My first job was in digital photography working with dye sub (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dye-sublimation_printer) printing. It was all computer. But when I moved to Pennsylvania, I got a job with a company that used screen printing (NOT the t-shirt squeegie kind, lol) to transfer customer images to products (pens, ornaments, whatnot, it was pretty standard). It wasn't the actual screen printing; we just got the files ready for the printers, but they did EVERYTHING the analog way. It was a real experience, and I learned a lot about how print actually works. I've also managed both full-color catalogs and simple b/w books with various companies, and nobody works the same. The print industry is insane. Standards range all across the board.

When my mom worked for the UT press, they'd send nearly all of their color work to Japan, because there simply aren't many places in the US that can produce high-quality art books. The grade of both color and b/w printing in the US tends to sacrifice quantity for quality, so everything hovers at a mid-grade level, IMHO.

I guess this is a little off-topic, but since we're on the subject of color . . . I'm dying to see a print comparison of four-color process and six-color. *drool* Hexachrome used to be a bit expensive, but apparently it's gone down in price lately, and I'd love to see the real difference. CMYK always dulls the image a bit, making greens and warm reds very dull, while hexachrome works off of an RGB image, giving you nice, vibrant colors.

Or so I've been told. :P I always like to see things with my own eyes before toting it around too much. ;) But can you imaging having your art printed looking like it does at RGB rather than CMYK?

[Tavisha]

I've also managed both full-color catalogs and simple b/w books with various companies, and nobody works the same. The print industry is insane. Standards range all across the board.

And that *IS* the major problem in the printing industry~ rarely there be two printer companies on the same page as the other. And since the digital printing has entered the scene~even more so. There really needs to be some sort of quality standard across the board established, but the real problem is HOW? Seems its still going to take years, and by then who will need that many companies specializing in live print if there's home printers and eBooks?
But I still like to open a real book~ ^____^

When my mom worked for the UT press, they'd send nearly all of their color work to Japan, because there simply aren't many places in the US that can produce high-quality art books. The grade of both color and b/w printing in the US tends to sacrifice quantity for quality, so everything hovers at a mid-grade level, IMHO.

~And not to mention Japan has the better PAPER quality and range of specialty papers (with textures, etc.) they deal with for print. Yes, I'm a paper otaku. In the Japanese culture not just content is important; but also, sometimes even more important, its the package and presentation. You just can't get the translated manga or artbooks with the fancy dust covers here in the states. As you said, they tend to focus on the quantity output instead of higher quality. I wish TP's translated manga & OEL all had cover jackets. Its just boils down to $$$. Drives me nutters. @_____@

Or so I've been told. :P I always like to see things with my own eyes before toting it around too much. ;) But can you imaging having your art printed looking like it does at RGB rather than CMYK?

I can~! All my prints are always printed at RGB on my home EPSON, and trust me, the colors are more vivid and true to what you see on the computer sceen ~and they look better than a professional CMYK print job. I've been home printing in RGB since 1998. Its true, CMYK mutes the colors and yep: Drives me nutters. @_____@

[rivkah]

Heeeee. I love print conversations. *^-^*

And that *IS* the major problem in the printing industry~ rarely there be two printer companies on the same page as the other. And since the digital printing has entered the scene~even more so. There really needs to be some sort of quality standard across the board established, but the real problem is HOW? Seems its still going to take years, and by then who will need that many companies specializing in live print if there's home printers and eBooks?
But I still like to open a real book~ ^____^

I can't imagine not being able to open up a book and read it. I've heard several discussions with people convinced print will someday be obsolete, but I simply can't see that happening, not even in the far future. Screen quality has yet to surpass 72 dpi, and I think that plays a huge factor in both readability and visibility.

However, they have managed to make a monitor/speaker the thickness of a sheet of paper. It's low res, but imagine if they could make books you could actually flip through at an extremely high resolution that you could literally read through like a normal book but had an imput device for "erasing" the pages and inputing a new book? O_O I think I might be won over by something like that. They'd need a spray-on new paper smell, though. :D


~And not to mention Japan has the better PAPER quality and range of specialty papers (with textures, etc.) they deal with for print. Yes, I'm a paper otaku. In the Japanese culture not just content is important; but also, sometimes even more important, its the package and presentation. You just can't get the translated manga or artbooks with the fancy dust covers here in the states. As you said, they tend to focus on the quantity output instead of higher quality. I wish TP's translated manga & OEL all had cover jackets. Its just boils down to $$$. Drives me nutters. @_____@

Fascinating! I didn't know that about the paper from Japan, though come to think of it, they always do have the prettiest stationary at Kinokuniya. *^-^* I'm quite amazed by the newsprint used in manga in Japan, though. It's incredibly thin yet dense and smooth for extremely high b/w reproduction. But it's obviously still a cheaper high-acid brand because it tends to yellow quickly--I'm guessing that's part of how they manage to print them so cheap and really keep them so disposable.


I can~! All my prints are always printed at RGB on my home EPSON, and trust me, the colors are more vivid and true to what you see on the computer sceen ~and they look better than a professional CMYK print job. I've been home printing in RGB since 1998. Its true, CMYK mutes the colors and yep: Drives me nutters. @_____@

Do you have a six or seven color printer? My beau has a seven color printer I haven't gotten to try out yet, but it's a little different . . . It's weird but hexacrome uses: cyan, magenta, yellow, orange, green, black. But high-end inkjet printers tend to use cyan, magenta, yellow, black, and lighter shades of the CMY and sometime a different kind of black (I'm not sure of the specifics on that last one). Hexachrome is supposed to be like . . . supper frickin' brilliant or something with proprietary inks from Pantone.

Must. See. With. Own. Eyes.

[RikkiSimons]

I'm talking about publication printing, not printing for flyers and ads or corporate materials. In other words: offset printing. Not screen printing, not relief print, not rotogravure, not laser (or any kind of digital), not xerography, nor any of the more common technologies utilized by small and local presses.

I know. I've done it.

Black darkens but it doesn't muddy.

That's what I wrote.

Let me know when you've dealt with a RIP program.

I can't, because I'd have to go back in time to before I ever heard of you. Photoshop is also a Raster Image Program.

d) As does b/w bitmap printing, which IMHO, is prettier

In some cases in side-by-side comparisons between individual books, that can sometimes be true. Looking at Steady Beat the last time I was in the book store, I don't think it would have made a difference for you. But you know, it's your book. I'm extremely happy you found something that you believe works well specifically for you. That's what everybody should do.

I've been using Photoshop just as long as (if not longer!) than you.

Your method of measuring time is bizarre. You were what, seven in 1990?

I like things simple and neat, tailored exactly to what I need. And if I need export for lettering and ballooning? It supports turning my image into a layered PSD file.

And when it comes time to layout your pages in InDesign and letter your book someone else has to do it for you at Tokyopop. That's not simple and easy to me.

The program I use may not be perfect for other people, but I'm only stating what's right for me.

That's all I've been saying. That's not what you were saying at the beginning of this thread.

I have an Intel pentium4 1.7 GHz with 768 memory and a 256 graphics card.

I have little mercy when it comes to computers. We started with a 25 Mhz Mac LCIII with 4 MB of RAM. The CPU and monitor alone cost $3000 and I had to buy and install the Floating Point Unit seperately. We couldn't even afford a CD burner until a year after we got the machine, and had to resort to passing files back and forth via SCSII SyQuests. The machines available to new users these days are GLORIOUS, convient, and affordable compared to what we started with both with power and price. If someone is really serious about being involved with digital print they will pay the money to start out right. If my dyslexic sixteen year old brother can save up his allowance money and buy his own digital art set-up then so can just about anybody.

The print industry is insane. Standards range all across the board.

I know.

CMYK always dulls the image a bit, making greens and warm reds very dull, while hexachrome works off of an RGB image, giving you nice, vibrant colors.

I know. Oh, God I know. Oh, Holy Christ in a mushroom hat I know (http://www.rhumbaghost.com/ZIM_Web.html).

-Rikki

[Tavisha]

Heeeee. I love print conversations. *^-^*
Do you have a six or seven color printer? My beau has a seven color printer I haven't gotten to try out yet, but it's a little different . . . It's weird but hexacrome uses: cyan, magenta, yellow, orange, green, black. But high-end inkjet printers tend to use cyan, magenta, yellow, black, and lighter shades of the CMY and sometime a different kind of black (I'm not sure of the specifics on that last one). Hexachrome is supposed to be like . . . supper frickin' brilliant or something with proprietary inks from Pantone.
Must. See. With. Own. Eyes.

^____^ If its dealing with honest to gods Pantone ink properties then I'll have to take a look. But, I've always used Epson photo stylus inkjet printers because they're completely affordable and last me at least 3 years. I make sure I use the Epson papers & ink(durabrite) for them as well and always get superb results. The one I have now is just 4 color (CMYK) but I've never seen a notable difference in quality compaired to the 6 color~or 8 color, other than price and you have to buy more cartridges. Currently we have a dual scanner/printer: Epson Stylus CX4800 (http://www.epson.com/cgi-bin/Store/DuraBrite/DuraBriteMain.jsp?BV_SessionID=@@@@1640425085.1143 892479@@@@&BV_EngineID=ccchaddhgjmmmlgcgemcfjgdfljdfok.0&BV_UseBVCookie=yes&ref=grh). As you said, seeing is believing, so, if you're at AX this year, I'll show you my portfolio of prints.

[rivkah]

Your method of measuring time is bizarre. You were what, seven in 1990?

I appologize. When Photoshop came out for Windows which was I believe 1996 or 97? I was in 10th grade. Which would have made me either 14 or 15. :P

And RIP stands for Raster Image Processing, not Program, which Photoshop is not: http://www.screenweb.com/index.php/channel/1/id/16/

You're very defensive. I know you know a lot of the things I say, but I often state what seems the obvious for the benefit of other people who may be reading this thread. I'm not here to argue with you but to hopefully make my own points and counterpoints so that people can figure things out for themselves in deciding what programs and setups are best for them. My setup may work for some and not for others, because when it comes to computers there is never one Right Way, just What's Right For You, as you should already know, eh?

[Pedes]

dont worry, im poor too. and yes, i do love my scanner i bought a few years ago that gives me great quality scans. but most of my drawings i do are done by my head to my gheto mouse onto the computer.

i dont reccomend photoshop as an investment right away, cuz it can be quite disappointing for its use, and may end up being a waste of money if you cant work with it. (which, it techinically isnt a "drawing" program. yes, you can draw in it, but there are other programs specifically designed for drawing that can be much easier, less of a headache, and well worth your time.)

dont believe me?
openCanvas artist: http://shirotsuki.deviantart.com/
Portal Graphics official site: http://www.portalgraphics.net/en/

practice at oekaki boards and get the original openCanvas (the first version, 1.1, is free i believe)

learn to use MSPaint [my tutorial (http://www.deviantart.com/view/25163190/)] and color with it if you have nothing else. (not the best drawing, but a good explination of how to mask with the program.)


I'd still recommend OpenCanvas rather than paint...
another great OC artist:
http://kidchan.deviantart.com/

[RikkiSimons]

And RIP stands for Raster Image Processing, not Program, which Photoshop is not: http://www.screenweb.com/index.php/channel/1/id/16/

I know. I know what RIP stands for. It's been my JOB for years to know everything about both print and video. Photoshop IS a raster program, which you can use in the aid of the RIP.

Yes, I am defensive when someone explains to me how printing works in a manner suggesting I'm ignorant of the process. It's like telling a surgeon which end of the scalpel cuts.

-Rikki

[rivkah]

Yes, I am defensive when someone explains to me how printing works in a manner suggesting I'm ignorant of the process. It's like telling a surgeon which end of the scalpel cuts.

-Rikki

"Two surgeons and a scalpel walk into a bar . . ." :D

[Tavisha]

I know. I know what RIP stands for. It's been my JOB for years to know everything about both print and video. Photoshop IS a raster program, which you can use in the aid of the RIP.


Well shoot... I always thought RIP was Rest In Peace.
:::runs back in the closet with drawing board & muses:::

[Pedes]

However, they have managed to make a monitor/speaker the thickness of a sheet of paper. It's low res, but imagine if they could make books you could actually flip through at an extremely high resolution that you could literally read through like a normal book but had an imput device for "erasing" the pages and inputing a new book? O_O I think I might be won over by something like that. They'd need a spray-on new paper smell, though.
*laughs* Are you one of those people who after buying a book smell it and gets looked at like and idiot? Me too :D



You're very defensive. I know you know a lot of the things I say, but I often state what seems the obvious for the benefit of other people who may be reading this thread.
Yeah... *confused to death already*
I just want to mime real tones, but tone sheets are too expensive for me...
And now I don't know whether playing in greyscale is better or bitmap &comicworks/mangastudio... O.o

Well shoot... I always thought RIP was Rest In Peace.
:::runs back in the closet with drawing board & muses:::
It's requiescat in pace actually (not sure of the spelling). The same but in latin. (though there was a time I also thought it was rest in peace :D )

[rivkah]

Yeah... *confused to death already*
I just want to mime real tones, but tone sheets are too expensive for me...
And now I don't know whether playing in greyscale is better or bitmap &comicworks/mangastudio... O.O

What manga titles do you like the toning in?

OEL titles that were toned grayscale or utilized a blend of grayscale plus scanned in tones are, "The Dreaming," "MBQ," "Shutterbox," "Idiots," and a lot of Rising Stars entries. You might want to take a flip through those to see if it really is your thing.

As far as I know, there aren't any Japanese manga that use grayscale toning. They tend to use either real tones or like "Hot Gimmick," digital b/w tones. I used Comicworks and various scanned tones to tone "Steady Beat."

[Pedes]

[QUOTE=Tavisha]This is wrong~ I repeat: Do not scan your black line artwork at grayscale, otherwise you will not get solid, crisp black lines in your final print results.[QUOTE]

Now I am most surely :confused: @___@ One person told me to scan in at grayscale, and then adjust with the contrast...and then you say to scan it just straight b-n-w...><...is this just a manner of taste??? I'm confuzzled...
I just found a way!
I had the same problem: it lookes like sh*t when scanning in BW, and it didn't look good when converting after scanning in greyscale. BUT! I scanned in greyscale, anjusted, so it looked like I wanted and converted into bitmap with TWICE THE RESOLUTION of the greyscale image. AAAaand *tadam* the lines looks smooth and almost like inked original YEEY, I'm soo smart!

What manga titles do you like the toning in?

OEL titles that were toned grayscale or utilized a blend of grayscale plus scanned in tones are, "The Dreaming," "MBQ," "Shutterbox," "Idiots," and a lot of Rising Stars entries. You might want to take a flip through those to see if it really is your thing.

As far as I know, there aren't any Japanese manga that use grayscale toning. They tend to use either real tones or like "Hot Gimmick," digital b/w tones. I used Comicworks and various scanned tones to tone "Steady Beat."

I analysed and I think I prefer BW toning :)
Though I still don't know whether Manga Studio or Comicworks is better...
The tutorial from Comicworks didn't wnat to work, so I downloaded half-translated verision where half of the features doesn't work and other half's 85% are in ASCII sings so I can't say much, but I don't like the feeling of it too much...

[RikkiSimons]

I just found a way!

Good for you. Like I said, everybody finds a way that works specifically for them. Any suggestions you read on a message board will only roughly help you. It's up up every individual artist to experiment and discover on their own what works for them. Good luck.

-Rikki

[supersaiyanneo]

i started experimenting with photoshop and im trying to paste a picture onto a new uhh i geuss you call it document? but it makes it SUPER small and i dont know how to make it bigger

[RikkiSimons]

i started experimenting with photoshop and im trying to paste a picture onto a new uhh i geuss you call it document? but it makes it SUPER small and i dont know how to make it bigger

From the description, it sounds like the document that you're dragging the image to is a larger than the DPI of the original image. You can fix this by making sure both documents are the same DPI before you start working. Say, if you're scanning in an image at 300 DPI and you want to place it in a new image, make sure the new image is the same DPI by either creating a new document and setting the DPI at the beginning or scan everything at the same DPI, 300, 600, 1200. Whatever you're going for, just make sure it's all the same.

-Rikki

[supersaiyanneo]

thanks, but how do you check dpi in photoshop?

[RikkiSimons]

thanks, but how do you check dpi in photoshop?

You can first set DPI on a new image under File: New. This is when you first create an image. Or you can set the DPI when you scan an image using whatever scanning software came with your scanner. In Photoshop you can change the DPI under Image: Image Size. When you select Image Size from the menu a window will pop up. You will also get different results with how your image changes when you change DPI in the Image Size pop up menu by selecting or deselecting the "Constrain Proportions" and "Resample Image" buttons. I recommend creating a test image and fiddling with the controls in the Image Size pop up menu in order to get a feel of what they can do for you. Good luck!

-Rikki

[supersaiyanneo]

thanks :D

[Gabycat]

I'd still recommend OpenCanvas rather than paint...
another great OC artist:
http://kidchan.deviantart.com/


Sadly OC doesn't work for MAC users yet, still Painter 10 is a good option

[supersaiyanneo]

this might be a dumb question but ive noticed alot of people talking about it and was curious...what exactly is toning? is it basically shadding?

[rivkah]

this might be a dumb question but ive noticed alot of people talking about it and was curious...what exactly is toning? is it basically shadding?

Yes. :) It's directly derived from "screentoning" or "halftoning" which use tiny black dots to indicate shade, but more modern references can also refer to greyscale fills and grey washes--basically anything that creates a midtone on the page.

[than_da_hanyou]

i'm a 13 years old, my prefer choice is the free opencanvas 1.1 downloaded from the internet. it works very simmiliar to the better known comicworks or cgillust.

[Pedes]

Oh, I forgot - for broke people for color there's always GIMP (One of these day I'll get myself to lern to use it -_-_. It's freeware. One snag: it opens tool options in new windows. There is a plug-in calles GIMPshop that makes it look like Photoshob but sadly enough it doesn't want to work on my computer/with my tablet/with me.*
*(optional)

[WuceBrayne]

This may have been answered previously, and I apologize if it was.

If you create your drawings in Photoshop or PSP, what program do you recommend for adding panels and for generally laying out the pages and a book as a whole? Would it be something like Quark? Thanks in advance.