DGT Editing tips

It's always safe to assume that most peoply don't know how to speak Japanese. But sometimes leaving words in japanese instead of translating them looks better on the mangas. Terms such as Onii-chan (brother) or Onee-san (sister) sounds better than plain english bro or sis. Thus always remember to translate the word for the reader if your going to let the words remain in Japanese.

eg.

Most mangas have hearts to emphasize a certain feeling or point.

What most editors do is that they have a heart brush ready and basically stamp the heart near the text.

How to make a heart brush.
1. First find a page with the heart. (Our example page has one so we'll use this one.)
2. using the Marquee Tool make a selection containing the heart.



3. Copy the selection (press CONTROL + C). Then open up a new page and paste the heart (press CONTROL + V)



4. Then go to Edit > Define Brush Preset




5. Then use it like a stamp ^^



Here's the correct image.

Different font styles can be used to show an emphasis on words or a change in situation (e.x. flashbacks.)



Depending on how you used the style... it can show alot of different emphasis.

This is text on BOLD ITALICS (you can use this on major confession scenes or if the character is mad.)


This is text on STRONG


This is text on ITALICS + STRONG


As you can see, there's a slight difference depending on how you use it. ^__^ so when you have the time... try to fiddle with it to get the effect that you want.

Just in case your fonts comes out like this:


Open your character palette.


Set tracking to value: 0 and not 100 or any other values.



The standard setting for text should be this: (just in case you fiddled with ur palette and can't remember the default)

As explained before, editors should remember to end sentences and phrases with different kinds of markings. But also remember not to over mark the sentence.

Picture with too many markings


It should be changed to this one.


Some formats that I know of:
... <-- always comes in 3, I have no idea why. But most people use this. ?! or !?! is good. ! <-- always 1. Never !! or !!!! ? <-- always 1. Same rule its not ?? or ???

When you have "-" you don't usually follow it up with "..."
You either choose a "-" or "..." but never both.
Also the "-" is usually never placed in front of the sentence.
Also notice that almost all the sentence ended with a "..." kinda feel it out if there's too many "..." and change it to either a comma "," or a period. "." So that it doesn't look like a run on sentence.

In typesetting manga, always remember to place any form of mark at the end of each bubbles.
Whether its a period, comma, exclaimation point or question mark; the sentence shouldn't be left hanging.

More often than not, translators sometimes miss and forget to place it in, so the editor has to be the one to place what kind of markings that are needed in the end.

Sentences left hanging


Sentences with all (different) marks.


*Please excuse the wrong spelling in the translations.

Ok. This is one of the biggest problems that I usually encounter with editing. Let me just explain a bit on editing, editing is mostly split into 2 kinds of work.

1. cleaning which is the basic resize the image, level the page then erasing the text on the dialogue bubbles.

2. typesetting wherein you write in the english text.

Always remember that the shape of your dialogues matters! I've seen numerous editing decrease in quality just because the text weren't place in so nicely.

Let me give you an example.

For my example we'll be using this dialogues.
Right bubble: Y-You’re still here?
Top left bubble: Because I haven’t returned you the favour for yesterday~
Centre left bubble: Favour?
Bottom left bubble: I said it, didn’t I? I would thank you!

Wrong image (left) Right image (right)


As you can see there's a big difference in how it looks. These are some of it:
1. The shape of the text looks terrible.
2. A lot of the words are cut.



In most cases this happens because the editor uses the type tool and creates a text box. On occasion this is an easier way of editing but you have to make sure that the text will have to fit. This is also considered as the easier way of editing because adobe photoshop automatically refits the text to fill in the text box that you created.



But as you can see... if the textbox is small enough, it automatically chops the word and carries over the word to the next line.

My technique is a bit (just a bit) harder but can be hella fast if your used to it.
1. Copy a whole bunch of text. (Usually I copy around 1 whole page worth of text. )
For our example you copy the whole paragraph of text.
Hotkey for copy: CONTROL + C

Right bubble: Y-You’re still here?
Top left bubble: Because I haven’t returned you the favour for yesterday~
Center left Bubble: Favour?
Bottom Left Bubble: I said it, didn't I? I would thank you!

2. Create a normal text line (take note this is a line and not a box)


3. Paste all the text on the text line.
Hotkey for paste: CONTROL + V


Since the text line isn't restricted, there is a big change that it will overlap the page. That's perfectly ok.

4. You then manually press "enter" to chop the lines to new text lines.
Be sure to align your text center so that the words are centered.



As you can see. the words: Y-You’re still here?
is split to the following

Y-You’re
still here?

Once your satisfied with what you see, highlight the remaining text and cut them.
Hotkey for cut: CONTROL + X

*The highlighted text on this example are the ones that has the black outline.

5. Then you basically repeat the process
a. Create a text line


b. Split the text to fit the bubble.

Dialogue
Top left bubble: Because I haven’t returned you the favour for yesterday~

For unusually long text what you do is basically split the sentence first into 2 lines.



The dialogue is split to the following:

Because I haven’t returned
you the favour for yesterday~

but since it still doesn't fit you can split it into smaller lines.


"Because I haven’t returned" is split further into

Because
I haven’t
returned

you the favour for yesterday~ is split further into

you the
favour for
yesterday?


*Splitting dialogues will be a bit hard at first but once you get used to it, estimating the space available etc. This would be really easy to do. It also saves time because you don't need to keep switching to your translation document per line. Instead, since you copied 1 page worth of translation, you just do this once every page.

c. Highlight the remaining text that you'll need on the next text bubble.


I'll just place in the other pictures for reference, so that you can see how I completed this whole image.

*paste text, highlight next lines


*paste text, split lines


*split dialogues


*split lines some more (blah blah. You know the drill ^^)



And your done!

I'm not exactly telling you to use this technique but I highly encourage you to use it. Because it eliminates the problem of : chopped words, uncentered text, shape of dialogues.

But in case you still want to use the text box technique just remember the following:
1. DO NOT (and I can't stress this enough) chop the words when they can fit in the dialogues. It's better to place them on the next text line rather than having chopped words all over the places.
2. Make sure that the shape of the dialogues look nice, usually they have some sort of circular shape. In short, make it look good.
3. Centralize the text, make sure that the text is at the center of the dialogue bubbles.

Wrong spacing of dialogues

Correct spacing of dialogues

Stroke is basically a colored outline that you place around the text.
Layer Style > Stroke

Usually we use stroke when the words that we place in are either:
1. goes over the dialogue bubbles and the font is already really small.
2. text outside dialogue boxes
3. positioning the text where there are drawings.

Stroke makes the text looks more readable and makes it look neater.

e.g.
Without stroke text

Kinda hard to read right? with all those stuff behind the words.

This is where stroke comes in

Here are black text stroke in white.
As you can see, as you increase the size of the stroke, it makes the white outline thicker.



I'll now show you how it looks with stroke.

Stroke 1 White

Stroke 2 White

Stroke 3 White


The thickness of the stroke entirely depends on you, but personally I think Stroke 2 is just right for scanlations. Stroke 3 are used by others but its a bit too thick for my taste.

Most people tend to think that just because the dialogue bubbles are big, that you have the unexplainable urge to fill it up. Definitely wrong...

On most cases, scanlators use font 14 or 13 for standard dialogue fonts (resolution of 72)



e.g.

Font 13 text

Font 14 text

Too big fonts (in my opinion)

As you can see... bigger fonts doesn't necessarily translate to better quality. Oftentimes people mistake the size and the scans look more cluttered.

This rule doesn't always apply. There are times when you would want to use bigger fonts for emphasis.
e.g.

Like this picture above me, that's like a "DADADADAAAN!" moment. So you are free to make the font bigger to show emphasis.