[EN] MTL Scanlation Guide

[kn4ll]

Posted in the scanlation subreddit.

From the original poster im_not_a_name: «I saw some people here still using tools like scanlate.io for MTL scanlation, so I put together a little guide on how to do MTL scanlation properly. Hope it might be of help to some.

Imgur link for better readability.

For raws, I recommend using HakuNeko. Otherwise finding them on various raws places, though quality might vary and they might have watermarks. Screenshotting should be the last resort, though if you do, the iPad bookwalker app usually has the best quality. You'll have to crop out the two-three bottom pixel lines with bar codes though, which can be done by using a photoshop action batch script easily.»

 

[happypurple]

shut up

 

[Luoir]

Didn't I read this thread before

 

[daruna]

the absolute state of scamlation

 

[DarkTheFailure]

DeepL and other traditional translation software in my experience can be pretty crap by itself. I would recommend a mix of multiple other programs. A combo of ChatGPT, Google Gemini, DeepL, and Google Translate gives you the best sense of what's going on in my experience. Chatbot AI can actually understand a bit of the context, allowing a more accurate translation and also just better results so you don't have to interpret nearly as much compared to DeepL or Google Translate. Of course, this still will give you a max of around 90% accuracy on a good day, and you still have to convert the results into natural-sounding English. In the end, it's still always much better to actually know Japanese for translations

 

[alrightcock]

Human Supremacy>

 

[kn4ll]

DeepL and other traditional translation software in my experience can be pretty crap by itself. I would recommend a mix of multiple other programs. A combo of ChatGPT, Google Gemini, DeepL, and Google Translate gives you the best sense of what's going on in my experience. Chatbot AI can actually understand a bit of the context, allowing a more accurate translation and also just better results so you don't have to interpret nearly as much compared to DeepL or Google Translate. Of course, this still will give you a max of around 90% accuracy on a good day, and you still have to convert the results into natural-sounding English. In the end, it's still always much better to actually know Japanese for translations

Nice thing about chatgpt is that you can ask it to break up the sentences and display different meanings for the kanji. This is also a great way to understand a sentence that doesn’t seem to make sense, in many cases the wrong meaning of the kanji is used.

 

[Fris44]

Or, and this is coming from an ex-MTLer, you can find someone to translate for you or learn the language yourself

 

[kn4ll]

Or, and this is coming from an ex-MTLer, you can find someone to translate for you or learn the language yourself

It's getting harder to find translators, and in a lot of cases it's just easier working on something yourself with less people.
I'm currently learning the language though.

 

[kn4ll]

Another thing I've done lately is using an own OCR program (in this case poricom based on manga OCR) and feeding the entire script to chatgpt. The nice thing about that is that you usually get a better and more accurate translation, as chatgpt is better at figuring out context this way. The bad thing is that you have to OCR manually, though you can get manga OCR programs that do it automatically. My guess is that it's going to screw up the order and maybe include furigana like google lens though. Manga OCR is worse than google lens on handwritten text though, and also messes up the kanji more occasionally than google lens, so I'd recommend a double check with google lens afterwards.

If you pay for chatgpt you can also feed pages directly to chatgpt, but it seems to mess up a bit more. I haven't tried it myself though, only seen examples from others. Also if you translate everything at once you get translation done by GPT4, which probably is a little bit better than GPT3.5. Don't forget that if you stumble and can't figure something out, you can ask chatgpt to break down the sentences and also give context, which might make you figure out the sentence.

 

[daruna]

bro will do literally everything except learn the language

 

[kn4ll]

bro will do literally everything except learn the language

https://djtguide.github.io/

 

[kn4ll]

Other tools that might be of help:
Panel Cleaner: Can both do automatic panel cleaning (you can also save as a mask and put into your psd file, or as a PSD directly) and automatic batch OCR.
TyperTools: Add-on for photoshop to help with typesetting.
Calibre: Used for ripping raws. You'll also need an account and a program from your store like Amazon or Kobo.
DeDRM: Used to remove DRM from ripped raws (duh).
IOPaint: Free AI generative fill. Pretty decent, but it's kind of hard to install if you're not into using the terminal. I managed to make it work with pytorch 2.5.0 and torchvision 0.20.

 

[haozz]

Thanks for sharing. Happy to see you actively participating in 4chan scanlation thread

 

[aceredshirt13]

if i wanted to read a machine translation i would just ocr the Japanese and put it in deepl myself lmao, stop getting people's hopes up that a human actually tried when all you're using is mtl and ai bullshit. it's worthless to do and you're wasting everyone's time including your own

 

[kn4ll]

if i wanted to read a machine translation i would just ocr the Japanese and put it in deepl myself lmao, stop getting people's hopes up that a human actually tried when all you're using is mtl and ai bullshit. it's worthless to do and you're wasting everyone's time including your own

I've made like 130 releases proving you wrong though.

 

[KATCRX]

So, about Panel Cleaner, how accurate is the OCR? Can it OCR everything, including SFX and hand-drawn style text? And when the output of the text is put into a file, is the dialogue arranged correctly and well, or is it out of order?

 

[aceredshirt13]

I've made like 130 releases proving you wrong though.

That doesn't prove me wrong at all. It's very sad to me that you think the quantity of releases is success - quantity isn't success. Even a single translation by a human being is better than 130 by nobody at all. They aren't even your releases, because you didn't translate them! All you did is plagiarize a series of machines.

AI can't think. The "intelligence" is nothing more than a glorified text generator with no brain behind its actions. A machine translator can't interpret. It is no substitute for a human translator, something that has been reiterated again and again in the field of translation both amateur and professional. You've been poisoned by a corporate mindset into thinking that translations are a product instead of an art form that requires skill and finesse, and it's even more depressing that it's done so because unlike the corporations shilling bad AI translations, you aren't even making any money off them. Why do it, then? For false glory, for stolen valor, for deceit?

Reevaluate what success means. Because it sure as hell isn't this.

 

[kn4ll]

So, about Panel Cleaner, how accurate is the OCR? Can it OCR everything, including SFX and hand-drawn style text? And when the output of the text is put into a file, is the dialogue arranged correctly and well, or is it out of order?

It's a bit worse on hand written text and sfx than google lens, but otherwise it's fairly accurate. After the OCR has been done, you can manually go in an fix it before it's written to a text file. I usually double checked with google lens to be safe, or did hand written text manually since I know enough Japanese to do that.

That doesn't prove me wrong at all. It's very sad to me that you think the quantity of releases is success - quantity isn't success. Even a single translation by a human being is better than 130 by nobody at all. They aren't even your releases, because you didn't translate them! All you did is plagiarize a series of machines.

AI can't think. The "intelligence" is nothing more than a glorified text generator with no brain behind its actions. A machine translator can't interpret. It is no substitute for a human translator, something that has been reiterated again and again in the field of translation both amateur and professional. You've been poisoned by a corporate mindset into thinking that translations are a product instead of an art form that requires skill and finesse, and it's even more depressing that it's done so because unlike the corporations shilling bad AI translations, you aren't even making any money off them. Why do it, then? For false glory, for stolen valor, for deceit?

Reevaluate what success means. Because it sure as hell isn't this.

Are you psychotic or on drugs or something. I don't need to have any reason besides liking anime tiddies really.

 

[aceredshirt13]

It's a bit worse on hand written text and sfx than google lens, but otherwise it's fairly accurate. After the OCR has been done, you can manually go in an fix it before it's written to a text file. I usually double checked with google lens to be safe, or did hand written text manually since I know enough Japanese to do that.

Are you psychotic or on drugs or something. I don't need to have any reason besides liking anime tiddies really.

Ah yes, what a very intelligent response. If a completely normal message convinces you that I'm "psychotic" or "on drugs" then clearly you're a waste of my time and everyone else's.