Enjoy!
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Sorry it took a while, but this chapter required a lot of editing (14 of 18 pages needed redrawing, one of which took almost 2 hours). Decided to change the fonts a little bit this time and I kinda like the result. Feel free to leave comments!
Because Raw-Paradise has changed their raws to 2500 px instead of 1400 px, I might be able to use those now instead of Rena-Chans and get a good result. If this is the case, I'd be able to release a lot sooner in the week. I'll check them out and if I'm satisfied with the result, I'll use those from now on. If it doesn't come out as good though, I'll wait for Rena-Chan's. I'd personally rather wait for good quality. :)
EDIT: Just a head's up, my future releases will be most likely through Binktopia. I was informed if a member was particularly dedicated to a series (as I am), it's general policy to adopt it and have other members pitch in to help if they aren't busy. I'll still probably update here whenever a new one comes out for the time being, but I'll likely just link to the Binktopia release page. So look forward to it! :)
EDIT2: Looks like R-P still has 1400 px Negima scans instead of 2500, so seems I'll be staying with Rena's. :)
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Thanks a lot for this
ReplyDeleteYou should wait for the better scans. Waiting a few days for a better quality is fine.
ReplyDeleteAppreciate the effort!!
ReplyDeleteKudoes. Would you tell our studio audience what fonts you use? I mostly plod along with Georgia Bold (Jerry Pournelle put me on to it) and Meiryo (nice sans-serif font from The Evil Empire which also has all the commonplace kanji in a simple, easy-to-read form.) Anyway, I like the way you use different fonts for different characters in Negima 269; it suggests that each has a distinctive voice, and yet avoids the "Ransom Note" look I've seen on all too many web pages.
ReplyDeletePardon me for being a clueless, toothless old man, but who exactly is Rena-chan and where do I go to get her large-format scans? Large format is not a luxury with Akamatsu-san; only the mangaka of GTO can rival him in stuffing so much text per page of manga.
Negima 268, I mean; I had the wrong number on the zip. BTW, Raw Paradise has a decent 1400-height scan of the genuine 268th Period up now. Thank God for the French!!
ReplyDeleteThat is, Raw Paradise has a decent 269th period up now. I guess I must shamble about and eat more brains to replace the ones falling out of all those holes in my skull...
ReplyDeleteHeh, figured you meant the 269th Period raw. Unfortunately, I really can't work with files that small and get a good result, but it is at least good enough for translators to get most of it going. :p
ReplyDeleteTo answer you're question of where to find Rena-Chan's raws, you can find them using IRC by going to #irc-disto@irc.irchighway.net and downloading the newest from bots there (read the topic for the list of triggers). She also use Mediafire and Megaupload accounts where she shares her archives in folders, but asks people not to directly link to those. You can, however, get the links by going to the same IRC channel and typing "!archive". Unfortunately, the shops where Rena-Chan lives don't get their Shounen Magazine magazines until Wednesday, so her's will pretty much always be later than R-P.
Groan! IRC is one thing I don't do.
ReplyDeleteI've gotten fairly good results (in GIMP) by scaling up, using a bit of Gaussian Blur, and then shrinking the cleaned unit back down. Of course, if you really are willing to go for the full Monty, clean out all the shading, punch up and prettify the line art that's left, and then put in your own shading (or coloring.) That's how I made the banner for my now-defunct Sailor Moon site (gotta restore it; been putting it off.)
The question here is: Is it worth spending all that time cleaning up? I'm reading tutorials on cleaning and typesetting, and the authors seem to share a certain anal retentivity. Pretty is nice, but one doesn't have all the time in the world. I figure my readers care more about getting new chapters than about the perfection of my work. Rarely a group can do both (Aquastar or the Goddess Myaku Team, for two) but they never seem to be able to keep it up through the whole run of a popular manga.
Heh, that's too bad because IRC is a pretty good way to get raws and scans. I don't *think* I'm supposed to PM her archive address either, but I'll check. Speaking of which, check your PMs on MH (assuming I guessed user names correctly).
ReplyDeleteThe question you posed is why I'll be waiting for Rena's raws. I could most likely make R-Ps nice and pretty, but it'd require lots of grey replacing and redrawing. So much so, that Rena's raw would likely be out before I even approached finishing with the R-P raw. :p
In any case, there are 1-2 other groups doing LQ speed scans of Negima, so there's no point in skimping on quality with these releases, since the people reading them will be the readers that prefer quality over speed (or read both versions), as long as I'm not falling behind a weekly schedule. One of the reasons I applied to Binktopia (aside from the fact they do a lot of series I read) is because they are quite good at getting good quality fast. Not perfect, but that's what groups like Maximum7 are for.
Since you mentioned reading guides, have you found http://senbonzakura.kageyoshi.net/ yet? There's some rather nice tutorials there for someone interested in cleaning and typesetting.