Forum › Scanlator Recruiting & Project Discussion

23519190_1784036034940610_3865802561690641399_n
joined Oct 4, 2016

Thanks for the info, ladies and/or gentlemen! Very informative.

Have you ever translated an English comic into Japanese?

Nishiki%20gosu%20rori%20dark%20hair%20sm
joined Jan 11, 2015

I have not. :x

As for English to Japanese translation in general, the same as what I said above holds true in reverse as well. The original tone is often lost.

last edited at Jan 21, 2017 7:30PM

Yuri Girl 1001 Uploader
Avitar
Fly by Yuri
joined Mar 29, 2013

Guess I'll comment on this. My way of doing things is a little different than most, in part because I'm a solo group (except that I get a translation check from Procyon, which helps the quality a lot). Also I'm using a very old version of PS that I was able to get free.

Digital copies are definitely easier to use, but I do most of my work from scans, both that I've done myself and from others. With rare exceptions, I only do manga that I've purchased myself whether or not I'm scanning it myself. Unlike most, when I scan a volume, I don't destroy it; I break the spine in several places, and then simply press it flat to the scanner using a flat object. If done right I usually get good quality virtually all the way to the center and the manga (usually) remains in one piece, though sometimes a page or two will fall out.

Once I have the scans, since I'm doing all phases myself, is where I start doing things differently. I work one page at a time start to finish, clean, translate, and letter all in one fell swoop.

Clean: 1. Rotate the image. 2. Crop the image 3. Repair the image. Erase glue tracks, tears, creases and the like. Occasionally fixing a little darkening or blurring at the page fold if I couldn't get it quite flat. If the repairs are simple, I usually do it directly to the image. If not, I'll do it as part of step 4. 4. Do redraws. I do these on a sparate layer which makes it easy to flip between unaltered image and redrawn image. This is mostly removing text from over artwork as shown in Malibu's video, though our methods vary a little. I also by preference leave Japanese sound effects in place and place English next to them, even when it's on white space and easily removed. 5. Now I finally level the image. If it's a quality scan, this can be easy (one layer with maybe just a little extra around some of the edges using a second layer). If the scans are poor, like my old scanner did, this can take some effort with several layers using carefully contrived and feathered masks. 6. Clean the image. I use a white fill layer with a mask to cover any text, dirt, paper grains and such. If there's white text on black, I use a second black fill layer with a mask to cover it. Any text over a tone or other artwork was already covered in step 4.

Translate and letter: I'm not fluent in Japanese so anything I don't immediately understand, I transcribe. Since I don't know readings for most kanji, I use optical character recognition on this step (unless it's hand written), correcting the many errors it makes. Once everything on the page I don't understand is transcribed, I translate it using rikaikun (a program that defines Japanese words under the cursor) and online tools including dictionaries, phrase definitions, slang dictionaries, contraction and shorthand references, SFX references, and others. And then I typeset the page. I often typeset as I translate.

Then I'll generate a completed test image of the page, and look it over for anything that doesn't look right, read right, or whatever. Then I finally move on to the next page.

Doing it this way means that sometimes I go back and make changes in previous pages as I gain better understanding from future pages, but altering an image is quick and easy so that's not a big deal.

Once I've done all the pages, I go back through the whole thing and look for translation errors, revisit anything I didn't quite understand, and look for anything that doesn't hang together or simply comes out strange. Then I go over it and look for missing text, verify fonts and punctuation, spellcheck, image size, and so on. Then I do one last read through for any final change and it's ready to go... to the next step that is. What I've just done is the QC version.

Now (in most cases) I send it to Procyon (I really appreciate his help.) along with any comments or concerns I still have about it. He sends back to me any errors, especially translation errors, he spots along with any suggested changes he has. I make the changes that seem good to me (I've also sometimes caught errors at this point) and send the results back to him. Often that becomes the final version, though sometimes there are a few more back and forth's before we're both satisfied with it.

And then finally I add the credits page and voila, upload it to Dynasty. Now that was no trouble at all, right?

Concerning how long it takes me? Well that varies with the source material. The fastest I've ever done a complete page start to finish was 8 minutes (that was page 20 of chapter 5 of Secret of the Princess.) It was a digital source and I needed no translation of the small amount of text on the page. The slowest? That's hard to say. There have been times I've taken at least 3 or 4 hours on one page. Afterword pages also take a long time since not only is there a lot of text, it's usually all hand written, and it can be very hard sometimes to figure out what that kanji really is, especially if the mangaka is using shorthand. Let's see, when I did vol 2 of The Last Uniform, I was probably averaging a little over a half hour per page. What I've done so far on Age 15 I've probably been averaging an hour to an hour and a half per page. Over time, I've gotten much faster then I was at the start.

And wow, a huge wall of text. This may be the longest comment I've ever posted.

last edited at Jan 21, 2017 9:07PM

513ovydfscl
Divulge Scans
joined Jun 17, 2014

Translation time can be pretty dependent on the author and the language they use—generally speaking, I find Takemiya a lot easier to translate than Kuzushiro (and LOVE/DEATH isn't nearly as bad as Inu/Neko). I find a disproportionate amount of time will be spent on a small number of tricky panels—everything might be going smoothly in Shinozaki and then Shou makes some weird cultural reference that throws me for a loop.

We largely gave up on redrawing SFX because this can potentially double the editing time, which is time that could be spent working on other manga.

We once did 12 releases during a 12 day period. Some of those were small, and I think most of the cleaning was done ahead of time, but a number of those were things we somehow powered through in a day. It was an interesting experiment, and the conclusion was: "never again."

23519190_1784036034940610_3865802561690641399_n
joined Oct 4, 2016

Here's an odd question for you scanlators. It's not precisely related to scanlation, but it's in the neighborhood.

I've commissioned an artist to draw a doujin I wrote. But she doesn't have a font that looks like the standard English doujin font. So her stuff always looks a little odd to my eyes.

Do any of you fine folks who do the typesetting know of a good, free font she can use that actually looks like the typical manga font?

Nishiki%20gosu%20rori%20dark%20hair%20sm
joined Jan 11, 2015

@Vankomycin
The main font we (Kouyuri), and I believe most other scanlation groups use, is CC Wild Words. I'm not 100% certain about the licence, but I believe it shouldn't be a problem as long as you don't intend to make money off the product.

last edited at Feb 3, 2017 12:03PM

23519190_1784036034940610_3865802561690641399_n
joined Oct 4, 2016

@Ropponmatsu
Thanks much! I have passed on the info.

Also, the script (and comic) is BDSM-themed, if you're interested.

513ovydfscl
Divulge Scans
joined Jun 17, 2014

The main font we (Kouyuri), and I believe most other scanlation groups use, is CC Wild Words.

All hail Wild Words.

Nishiki%20gosu%20rori%20dark%20hair%20sm
joined Jan 11, 2015

@Ropponmatsu
Thanks much! I have passed on the info.

Also, the script (and comic) is BDSM-themed, if you're interested.

Cough

23519190_1784036034940610_3865802561690641399_n
joined Oct 4, 2016

I think you know what I'm talking about...

last edited at Feb 4, 2017 7:12AM

91174211_215395393136656_8792315491096985600_n
joined Dec 5, 2016

"In glorious black & white" LOL

MoveslikeQuagger
joined Feb 7, 2017

Wannabe novice translator here. My Japanese isn't fantastic, but I'm always working on it. Can translate to and from English and Spanish, from Japanese. I have no experience working with this sort of project as of yet.

My most preferred genres: Shoujo, Josei, Romance, Shoujo ai, Yuri, Yaoi, Gender bender, Slice of Life, Comedy, School Life, Drama. Sci-Fi and Fantasy are both fine, as are adult elements, etc etc

If any group is desperate for a translator or proofreader, or is willing to take a newbie under their wing, I would love to help you out.

joined Jan 5, 2017

Wannabe novice translator here. My Japanese isn't fantastic, but I'm always working on it. Can translate to and from English and Spanish, from Japanese. I have no experience working with this sort of project as of yet.

My most preferred genres: Shoujo, Josei, Romance, Shoujo ai, Yuri, Yaoi, Gender bender, Slice of Life, Comedy, School Life, Drama. Sci-Fi and Fantasy are both fine, as are adult elements, etc etc

If any group is desperate for a translator or proofreader, or is willing to take a newbie under their wing, I would love to help you out.

Hello MoveslikeQuagger,
I wonder if you interested at helping translating "Amaenaideyo", a seinen manga.
I am not at any group. Please reply if you do.

23519190_1784036034940610_3865802561690641399_n
joined Oct 4, 2016

Another unrelated question:

Let us say PURELY HYPOTHETICALLY YOU UNDERSTAND that I wanted to recommend an upload or two (or...um...23?) to Dynasty Scans. Is there a format that's more useful to whoever has to look it over and decide whether to accept it?

The few times I've suggested an upload, I've just uploaded it into an Imgur picture album. But I was wondering if maybe uploading it to the web in a zip file would be better.

Nishiki%20gosu%20rori%20dark%20hair%20sm
joined Jan 11, 2015

@Vankomycin
We use zip files when we upload our releases. We use Google Drive, but there are many alternatives.

Page-11
Dynasty Scans
joined Feb 14, 2011

Another unrelated question:

Let us say PURELY HYPOTHETICALLY YOU UNDERSTAND that I wanted to recommend an upload or two (or...um...23?) to Dynasty Scans. Is there a format that's more useful to whoever has to look it over and decide whether to accept it?

The few times I've suggested an upload, I've just uploaded it into an Imgur picture album. But I was wondering if maybe uploading it to the web in a zip file would be better.

Either way works for images, since the uploader has to add them individually anyway. If you're looking to suggest chapters or a series a zip file or a link to the scan group would work best.

joined Jan 5, 2017

Korean to English translator looking for anyone recruiting

I've been translating webcomics by downloading the panels and using Photoshop to layer the translation on top without cleaning.

I've translated over 100 chapters of different webcomics so far, by myself and for another group. (not an exaggeration, but webcomics chapters are much shorter than the average doujin / manga chapter.)

If you need proof, I'll be glad to show you everything I've done so far.

I would like to focus on translating Yuri focused works, but I do not have too much problem with also translating other genres.

Thank you for your time.

1461894977557
joined Jun 12, 2015

^There's a thread on /u/ about Korean webcomics. They need a real translator for "Miss Devil and Miss Angel" (40+ chapters) and other series.

last edited at Feb 25, 2017 5:12AM

joined Jan 5, 2017

^There's a thread on /u/ about Korean webcomics. They need a real translator for "Miss Devil and Miss Angel" (40+ chapters) and other series.

I actually am the original translator for that and 7 other series that I've translated the prologue and chapter 1 for.

I've bitten more than I can chew and translating that many series has burnt me out. Because I translated all of them over holidays when I didn't have work or study, I actually had too much time so I spent it in translating yuri webcomics that I like. Now I have a full time job and studies, so I can't spent as much time as I want in translating anymore.

I'm currently still translating, but in a much less amount.

I wanted to see if any scanlation group needed a Korean translator, but there's no replies, so I'm just going to give it up.

Maco%20v0.1%20320px%20opt
joined Apr 2, 2011

I'd really like there to be a Disturbing/Twisted tag for stories like "Scandal" by Gotou Yuuki, so I'd know to avoid them. These sort of stories upset me - I can't be the only one? Even if only the more egregious instances were tagged, it'd help.

Another potential tag could be Mutilation - for the same reason.

last edited at Mar 7, 2017 10:18AM

drpepperfan Admin
Ss%20(2018-09-18%20at%2004.40.05)
joined Oct 12, 2010

Pretty much anything that would involve the mutilation tag is tagged with a suitable tag, such as violence, or in extreme examples, guro.

As for the former, we already have tags that cover that kind of thing, like Creepy, etc, so again, no need for another tag that'd cover the same ground. Not that that work will be tagged as such though.

Also this isn't the right place for this, comments like this should go in the Suggestions thread.

last edited at Mar 7, 2017 1:06PM

Maco%20v0.1%20320px%20opt
joined Apr 2, 2011

Sorry! I put the post in the wrong thread by accident.

Qndkfwtexmw51%20-%20kopie
joined May 20, 2014

We're still looking for a [b]2nd Ja->En translator[/b] but now also a [b]proofreader[/b] (must be Native English speaker).
We're focusing on doujinshi and original manga and would also tackle down a new yuri vampire series by Waterfall (Takano Saku) if possible.
Generally, you can expect fluffy SFW and NSFW manga/doujinshi as well as comedy, though we don't shy away from drama or angst. What we won't do is horror/violence.

Please contact me under https://mai88eternalscarlet.wordpress.com/contact/ if you're interested. Skype and/or discord is used for communication and Google Drive for proofreading work.

Our website: http://mai88eternalscarlet.wordpress.com/

edit: recruitment for the proofreader position is closed.

last edited at Mar 23, 2017 5:34AM

Masako2
joined Jul 6, 2012

Wannabe novice translator here. My Japanese isn't fantastic, but I'm always working on it. Can translate to and from English and Spanish, from Japanese. I have no experience working with this sort of project as of yet.

My most preferred genres: Shoujo, Josei, Romance, Shoujo ai, Yuri, Yaoi, Gender bender, Slice of Life, Comedy, School Life, Drama. Sci-Fi and Fantasy are both fine, as are adult elements, etc etc

If any group is desperate for a translator or proofreader, or is willing to take a newbie under their wing, I would love to help you out.

If you are still reading these posts, I could use some help on Yuri*Kome. One of my translator helpers is very busy and hasn't had much time. Releases are taking 3 to 4 months. Chapter 4 is moving much quicker but I could still use any help I can get.

Masako2
joined Jul 6, 2012

On another note, I have been following Yuri Projects guide to resize and save for uploading. A height of 2000 px. I am working with a translator on a seinen, all girl, martial arts manga. This one has some double page spreads. Would I use the same height? This is a first time thing for me.

To reply you must either login or sign up.