GRAYSCALE MODE

Change the RGB color mode to Grayscale. Because Grayscale mode has smaller file size than RGB color. And in this kind of image, I don’t see any need to use RGB so we’d better change it to Grayscale.

Go to Image->Mode->Grayscale.

Make sure to save the image to psd file ^^ OK. And do saving regularly.

ROTATING

Please zoom in the image until you can see the differentiation between straight line and not straight line.

Here, I zoom in to 100%.

This is the image after I zoom in .

You can see that the line is not straight enough. So by rotating, we can make the line fully/almost straight.

Go to Image->Rotate Canvas->Arbitrary.

The pop-up window like this will appear.

It’s depend on the image whether you should rotate clock wise (CW) or counter cloct wise (CCW). And I suggest you to use small angle, either 0.1 or 0.2.

I did 2 times of Rotate canvas with Angle 0.2 CW. Here’s the result .

See, now the line is straight.

My suggestion is judge by your eyes. Rotate the scan until the suppose-to-be-straight-lines are straight enough.

CROPPING

I will crop the image so that the unwanted side can be removed.

This is the Crop Tool .

And here’s my result after cropping.

RESIZING

Go to Image->Image Size.

This pop-up window will appear

Change the Width to 690, and Height to 1040. And OK.

Actually for size, it’ll depend on what you or your scan group want. But here, I use 690×1040.

And here’s my result after resizing.

LEVELING

Go to Image->Adjustments->Levels… The keyboard shortcut is Ctrl+L.

This pop-up window will appear

Here I changed the Input Levels to 10-1.00-200. I usually call it 10-200 input combination ^^

This choice of Input Levels will depend on the image. But for this Supergirl manga that I use for sample, 10-200 is a good choice. Usually for cleaner image, the combination will be 10-240 or 10-250.

Again judge by your eyes.

And here’s my result after leveling.

Other people use curves to clean that image instead of leveling. But I rarely use it ^^;;. If you want to take a look of how to, see this site.

QUICK MASK

Did you notice that the left side of image is seemed to be darker. One way to make it whiter and cleaner is by using Quick Mask.

To enter Quick Mask is by simply clicking Q in your keyboard.

Choose Brush Tool (B). Here, I used Circle type with diameter 30px.

Now brush over the darker image.

is the sample area that I brushed over.

Then exit Quick Mask by clicking Q in your keyboard.

Now you’ll see selection area from what you brushed over before.

Click Rectangular Marquee Tool (M) then right-click your mouse and choose Select Inverse.

Now you need to do leveling or curve again until that dark side disappeared. Judge by your eyes ^^

Here, I chose combination 0-160 in levels pop-up window.

And here’s my result after quick mask.

CLEANING EACH SIDE OF IMAGE

From previous image, you can see that there’re obvious dirts in each side of image.

To clean it, I simply used Rectangular Marquee Tool (M) or Polygonal Lasso Tool (L), chose the area that I want to clean then do clear (on the file menu, Edit-> Clear).

after clear –>

Now do the same step for other side too.

And here’s my result after cleaning.

Now our next step involves copy/paste area, redrawing, cloning, patch and removing text.

COPY/PASTE

This image need copy/paste to fill that white area with the supposed-to-be-pattern there.

By using Polygonal Lasso Tool (L) choose the pattern that supposed to fill that white area.

I choose this pattern

Copy (Ctrl+C) and Paste (Ctrl+V). Do it repeatedly until all of white area is covered.

. This is the result.

But you can see, the original image (the hair) is covered up by those layers resulted from copy/paste. So let’s remove that pattern.

Change opacity of all layers (I have 7 layers here) resulted from copy/paste to 40%.

and this is after opacity change

Switch layer to Background layer. And use Polygonal Lasso Tool to select the area that you want to remove the pattern from copy/paste.

Then I use Eraser Tool (E) with Circle brush type diameter 50px. And brush over each layer other than Background layer (in my case, layer1-7).

Deselect the area and change back opacity for all layers to 100%. Then Merge Visible (Shift+Ctrl+E) the image.

The result: . Nice and tidy right ^^

CLONING, REDRAWING

This image will take time to remove the SFX and redraw. But don’t worry, once you get used to it, you can do it easily.

The first step, I’m going to remove the SFX by using Polygonal Lasso Tool (L) and choose the area. Then either use Leveling (0-2 input combination) or Eraser (brushing it over the image).

Then make new layer (Shift+Ctrl+N). Cause working in other layer is safer in case you need to delete something.

. The image after removing SFX

First we want to recover the frame line. I use copy/paste like above method in Background layer. The line can also be recovered by using Clone Stamp Tool (S).

. The image after recover the frame line.

Now our next step is redrawing all those lines.

Set the Brush Tool to 1px.

Make sure the Foreground color is Black (#000000).

Choose Pen Tool (P) with this option:

Click one point and without releasing the mouse, make a straight line path until the other side. Then click at that point.

Right click mouse and choose Stroke Path…

. Choose Tool Brush, OK.

Right click mouse and choose Delete Path.

From above image, the line seems a little bit blacky. So later maybe you can change the color of Foreground to suit the image.

If you want to redraw the curve line, then click one point. Click other point and without releasing the mouse, turn down (or up or left or right depend on the image) until you find its curve enough. Then just Stroke Path and Delete Path.

I did it for this image

Then just do the redrawing lines until it resembles the original image.

And here’s my result after redrawing.

REMOVING TEXT

You can choose either brush over the image using Brush Tool with white foreground or select the text area and fill with foreground White color. Well I use both methods ^^

Finally, if you find the image is not dark/black enough, please use leveling once again. And use input combination 10-255 or 20-255. Judge by your eyes ^^

And here’s the final image after all those cleaning steps.

And I suggest you not to delete the layer 1 that you use for redrawing and removing text. Because by setting the opacity to 70%, you can see the original text and can be used as guide for putting text.