Editing for Morons, yay.

Here are some basic guidelines and pro tips for freelance Manga editors.

The Basics

I am going to go over many of the mistakes that newbie or inexperienced editors make.

Get it done!

Senior Editor (me) – Heya, I have some work for you! (Explains details and provides the raws+translations)
Newbie Editor – Great! I'll get right on it.
2 weeks later
Senior Editor – So you finish that work I gave you?
Newbie Editor – What work?
Senior Editor – (Re-explains details)
Newbie Editor – Oh, Okay, I'll get right on it!
Senior Editor – …

Getting stuff done can be hard, and we all know it. But start on it as soon as possible and avoid being embarrassed about it later on. If you don’t know where to start, just start, and see where it takes you.

If it seems like too much to get done, just work on it, don’t think about getting it done.

Use a good editor!

Big problem I see around is that people still use MS-Paint. Do not use MS-Paint to do your editing. No matter how good you (think you) are, you can always get better results with a more grown up image editor

There are many very powerful and very useful tools out there. One of the biggest used by novice editors is the GIMP. It is a very good and powerful image editor.

Newbie Editor – But GIMP is too big, I only have dial-up. ;.;

There are other programs out there, but if you have dial-up you will have to get used to the idea of things taking awhile to transfer, images are not small, raws can be very large. Even in the order of triple digits in size (per image).

Newbie Editor – Even so, I want to use something different, GIMP is hard.

Good editing can be hard. Occupational Hazard. Any program you use, you will have to learn to use. However anything with layers, selection, font/text, levels and basic editing support is usually enough for editing.

Everything starts with a good alignment.

Hah, ignore my D&D pun there, what I am really talking about is text alignment. In speech bubbles, center alignment is the best way to go, otherwise it varies depending on where the text is in the raw.

If you cannot do anything else, do this, this by itself makes your work look hundred times better.

Less is more!

This is one mistake that even a good number of ‘senior’ editors make. In speech bubbles, they try and make the text as large as possible to fill the bubble. That is not the way to go. While I agree that the text should take up a good amount of the bubble. The amount of edge space is based on the amount of text and the size of the bubble.

If you cannot see the difference, let me add some color margins.

Crowding the edges make the text harder to read, especially at lower resolutions. As an editor or typesetter, it is your job to make it easier to read, not harder.

Selective Erase Only!

I cannot tell you how many people erase with a big fat square over all the text they want to get rid of. You see it all the time in cheap productions. Big white square where the text was, with people just jamming left aligned text over it.

Instead you should fit your selections, you do not have to be entirely precise, but the less you erase, the less you have to cover back up. Usually I just adjust the size and shape of font to fit over the stuff I erased, and then using a layer behind it, redraw enough to make it look possible.

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The Obvious

JPEG is the bane of manga! Sometimes!

Sometimes is right. Never use JPEG during editing, use your editor’s native lossless format (PSD, SAI, PSP, etc), a format that supports layers (like tiff) or a compressed lossless format, such as PNG. By doing this you prevent loss of information during mid-edit steps (such as it getting passed from ripper to editor and back to the releaser).

The ONLY time you should be using JPEG is during release, and even here, be careful. If your program does not have a quality adjustment slider, find one that does! Once you have, make sure you release with at least 60% quality. Never go lower than 40%. Lower than this, really bad artifacts start to creep into the images. It is best you go over the image and determine if there are any major or annoying artifacts before releasing there. I always release at 60% to 80%.

Cleaning up

Before you can properly start editing a page, you need to clean it. Now sometimes you will get a precleaned version, which is great! That is if the cleaning is any good. Which, usually, it isn’t. So if you’re an aspiring editor, ask for an uncleaned version so you can do it yourself.

Rotation, spin spin spin!

First step in cleaning would be to rotate the image so that the edges are straight. This is important! Because if they are not straightened first, future steps become very hard. If you use Photoshop, you can press CTRL+’(apostrophe) to get on screen guides to help you out!

Chop and Crop

Next you need to crop your raw, usually raws are massive and have useless scanner stuff hanging off to each side. You need to get rid of this junk. But be sure to rotate first! Sometimes pages are uneven, so even the best rotation doesn’t even them out. Very strange, but it happens, crop as best as you can. DO NOT OVER CROP, IT IS BETTER TO KEEP SOME JUNK THEN LOSE GOLD.

Levels make your life easier!

Here is a simple guide for all those people out there who do not know how to level correctly!

Do always level to these points. Luckily, most programs that have autolevel, take care of this part!

You may level this part! But only the parts that touch the top, if and only if it is like that from the nearest side!

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The Hard Stuff

Be consistent.

That is right, nothing looks worse than inconsistency, you can be the best artist/editor in the whole expanse of time and space, but if you’re inconsistent, it will not look good! This only applies on a per Manga/Chapter basis.

What does consistency mean?

Font choice. Be consistent in your choice of fonts, nothing is more distracting than the font used for someone’s speech changing constantly. A change in font can add some impact to a statement, but that is it, one statement, one sentence, one bubble, one scene. Otherwise consistency is key. I go as far as keeping the font for everyone’s speech exactly the same. For minor impact I like to use bold, for major impact a different font.

What fonts do I use? That is a good question. I usually use the following.

Font	Usage
	All main text and speech. I am not going to do any “nudge nudge, wink wink” on how to get this for free.
	With an uncanny resemblance to Wild Words, this font is useful for “messy text”.
	Filling type holes in Wild Words, Titles, some SFX.
	I use this mostly for handwritten text.
	Used for Heavy or Violent Text or SFX.
	Used for Heavy or Violent Text or SFX.
	Used for text written on the side, asides and other small text.
	Used as an alternate for Kristen ITC, and when I need really small text.

Page Size. You think this would be a given. But for many it is not. Always use the same page height and width. Unless you have a combined double page (double the width). Height is somewhat more forgivable to change than width is, so a variation of a dozen or two pixels most people will be okay with, page to page.

Quality. Yes that’s right, be consistent in your quality. That is to say, in your cleaning and redrawing and font setting. It is very distracting to have a beautiful first few pages, and then garbage. If you don’t want to keep up the pace of super high quality, lower your overall quality for the entire thing, so it is consistent. It might not be as glamorous as a full max quality release, but if you cannot keep it up for the entire Chapter/Manga, don’t bother.

Working with groups

Anyone who does a great deal of editing work usually works with a group (except for the really amazing people). When you join a group, make sure you present them with your absolute best work. This shows them what you are ‘capable’ of. Next make an honest assessment of how long that work took you. Now tell them it takes you twice that long to get it done.

What? Why twice as long? Isn’t that dishonest?

In short, yes it is. In the long run, however, you might have wished you had tripled that number. As you will probably want/need that extra time. This also makes it so people who might not know so much about just how much work an editor does, from giving you tons of work to do, with a release date in two days, because you said you could do it in two. This extra time also gives you extra time to work with if you hit a rough patch in your life, or you run up against a large set of overly difficult pages.

Luckily, many groups are very understanding and will change the release date, or assign some of the pages to another editor. After all, if you’re good, they want to keep you around. Since usually your doing this for free and in your spare time!

But I did say most, some run it like a militaristic machine, but luckily those kinds of groups do not last very long.

Panel Guides

If you can, get your translators and proofreaders to use an easy-to-use format that tells you what panel and what text box what goes in.

Bad!	Good!
Page 1. Hey look at that! Look at what? That! BZZZT~! Arrgh Page 2. Ouch, that hurt… BLAM BLAM! Are you okay? Uh, I think… Good! Get behind me! Why? Because the sky is falling!	TLK = Speech Bubble/Box SFX = Sound Effect SML = Small Text Page 1 ============= P1 TLK1. Hey look at that! P1 TLK2. Look at what? P2 TLK1. That! P3 SFX1. BZZZT~! P3 TLK1. Arrgh Page 2 ============= P1 SML1. Ouch, that hurt… P2 SFX1. BLAM BLAM! P3 TLK1. Are you okay? P3 TLK2. Uh, I think… P4 TLK1. Good! P4 TLK2. Get behind me! P5 TLK1. Why? P6 TLK1. Because the sky is falling!