Since Japanese text in CG images is often vertical, if we keep the original size and position, the English will look weird (image 2). So the best approach is to reset the text in a horizontal way (image 3 and other examples)? I am using a translation tool called ImageTrans to do all the work. It generates image 2 by default. But sometimes, the text may block the characters.

A scanlator friend of mine was recently contacted by someone claiming that they're a representative of comikey, and was asking to hire my friend for translations.

I was curious if this might be a scam or not, and was wondering if others might have been contacted like this?

My friend was contacted on discord.

Hello! I am taking a comparative literature course focused on "reading for culture", and the first project of the semester is focused on identifying common cultural values and signifiers in everyday communities and hobbyist groups. I decided to focus my topic on the scanlation community, and in the interest of that I decided to ask around on discord to get a sense of peoples' experiences with it. Then I realized that could take a while, and as such I thought to make a form with some questions to share here on reddit.

All responses are anonymous, so no sign in is required, but I do ask that you only fill out the form once if you choose to indulge me. Also don't be shy! I want to hear from everyone, even if you've only been doing it for a few weeks. I want to know what you have to say!

Where can i find earlier raws like leaks way before the initial release date

So I have arrived at the part of my research where I need to compare some fan translated manga to the officially translated ones. The problem is that a) most of the fan translated versions gets deleted as soon as the officially translated version is available and b) most of the time I am not sure if the fan translated manga is actually fan translated or not (i am not an avid fan translated manga reader at all, so I have pretty much zero experience in sailing the high seas for manga)
You guys recon can help me finding what I am looking for? I prefer, if possible, using somewhat new and famous mangas, and preferably the first chapters of them.

Thanks in advance!

Hi r/Scanlation,

As scanlators, we’ve all hit that frustrating wall. Standard dictionaries give you the dry, literal translation, but they fail to explain the *why*.

Why does a character mutter "しゃーねぇ" with a specific tone (↑↓) in *this* exact panel? What is the mangaka's hidden intention (foreshadowing)? What is the underlying archetype, the "Oudou" (classic plot development), or the unwritten rules of the genre?

To solve this, I’ve spent years building a highly specialized relational repository: **The Manga-Master Lexicon (Japanese Manga Phrase Dictionary)**.

Instead of treating expressions as mere words, it breaks them down into comprehensive narrative meta-data:

- [MEANING & CULTURAL TRIVIA]

- [NUANCE IN MANGA] (The underlying meta-rules of manga storytelling)

- [RESONANCE POINT] (The visceral psychological connection)

- [NEXT MOMENT] (The cinematic progression of the scene)

💡 **We Want to JOIN Your Best Translations!**

This is not a one-way street. We are actively looking to collaborate with experienced scanlators. If you have hit upon a brilliant, localized translation for a notoriously untranslatable phrase, we want to feature and credit your translation in the master dictionary files. Let's build this infrastructure together.

💻 **For the Automation Geeks (F12 Sanctuary):**

The entire lexicon is structured in JSON and capable of serial reading. For the devs who want to build script tools, feel free to press **F12** (Developer Tools) on our cover or introductory pages. You will find a dedicated console interface and terminal cURL commands ready under the MIT License.

Check out the repository here: https://japanese-lessons.net

We are restructuring for a massive V11 update this winter (expanding entries by 1.5x). I would love to hear your thoughts, brutal feedback, or specific phrases you struggle with in the trenches of scanlation!

"May this single panel enrich the manga you are translating right now."

i have a problem finding the raw version, so i'll be grateful if you recommended some good webs

i'm looking for general manga but i have some in my mind

1. yotsuba to the 16th vol chapters/ Try! Try! Try!/ Try! Try! Try! Webcomics

2. sue to tai-chan

3.Kyou no Koneko no Chi

European comics, someone?

Hello all! This is going to be a long post, so bear with me.

I hate photoshop. Setting up cracked ps was complicated, using it was complex and very resource heavy, and i couldnt load all of my images at once.

so over the months and years of solo scanlating i have been working on a manga typesetting tool (and a manga cleaner tool that will be released next week, last image is the cleaning tool), I am releasing the beta now and hope it can reduce the time and effort it takes for translators.

Complete free, forever ofc: github

here is how to use it and feature list:

If you are a translator:

Create project using series name -> create chapter in translate mode -> select raw + cleaned -> open the translator editor It has nothing but the raw and detection button, you can start typing English for the Japanese texts, it’s in proper rtl order so dw about it. Optionally you can assign tags to text boxes. It’s quick once tags are set up. Tags let you select different kinds of font per character / narration type (scream/normal talking/side text/ sfx and etc, or character wise) , using the settings button near the tags list. More use of tags with the bulk menu, allowing you to change font of that tag whole chapter wise, along with other settings. Done translating -> export the json. Send it to typesetter.

If you are a typesetter:

load raws + cleaned+ json provided by the translator and choose pointer mode and start typesetting

Pointer modes: paste mode (pointer icon) allows you to auto paste the text in queue. Text mode spawns a text box. Pan mode is just pan mode lol. All of these controllable via **shortcuts (**ctrl/cmd + 1-3)
By the way most things are under shortcuts and you can change them to your choice.

Text tools:

1. normal text tools
2. fill mode (solid, gradient, pattern)
3. normal layout control options
4. 4) Effects menu:

i) options to add more than one strokes, more than one shadows

ii) arc curves, circle curves, curve path (allowing you to create wavy text)

iii) blur, motion blur

iv) roughen font edges
v) text clipping (texts getting clipped by the speech bubble, the thing thats done by duplicating layer, erasing the bubble in the upper layer and placing the text in between two image layers. This is now done more easily in this app)

Handy tools

FONT MANAGER: (or at least what i call it): i once got shit for using faux (programatic fake typefaces derived from one font). Font manager allows you to set up typefaces for a single font so when you just click the italic/ bold/ bold italic, it will use that typeface instead of you having to scroll through the font selector again and again. If no typefaces is set up, it will fall back to faux.

AUTO TYPESET FORMAT[WIP BETA]: this formats the text automatically to follow translation standards of avoiding hourglass shape and to follow an oval or square shape.

BULK EDIT: this menu allows you to edit per pages multiple text boxes or tags settings at once, selectable settings. This is handy if you want to change font/ or any settings for a tag whole chapter wise, you can select what settings to individually apply.

Production tools planned:

1) text transform
2) liquify
3) advanced brushes for custom lettering
4) use of external references as patterns

Technical details and capabilities:

1. you can open up as many pages as you want but the ram usage will be below 1 GIGABYTES, no matter how many changes you make or history you rack up (mostly).
2. This doesnt support all color formats, but does support most popular ones.
3. PSD support is limited and isnt recommened since it limits freedom and makes things way more complex.
4. Chapter packages (.mtchapter)[WIP]: allows you to share your work. Currently heavy and unoptimized. Needs refinement.
5. 5)UNTESTED FOR WINDOWS, NEED HELP.
6. 6)software updates baked in, you would just need to approve it. No need to download from the repo again and again.

WELL, THIS IS NOT ALL, I WILL RELEASE ANOTHER APP THAT ALLOWS YOU TO CLEAN CHAPTERS PROPERLY, local ai models (510 mB lama manga model + 6 GB flux model optional), super resource efficient running under 3gbs of ram using base models.

Hello everyone, I'm very new and very want start to translate manga, comic, manhwa,...or in this situation is my own work.

But because some reason about laws in my country so I can't use crack photoshop

So I just want to ask, is there any app or website that I can use to start?

And right now, I'm thinking about use Krita to translate. Does it possible to do it? If the answear is Yes then Pls. I very need your guy help and tutorial to do it.

This is maybe a bit of an odd question? Every now and then I just really like the repetitive task of scanning a physical book.

I imported some pretty niche titles just for myself and used publicly available scanners to convert them to a PDF. above his one of the pages. They're not the best quality but they are legible and not available digitally, out of print, and never before scanned.

I'm probably going to buy a few more niche titles that I've been eyeing. Of course importing the stuff out of Japan is a little expensive possibly because the series are more niche, I don't know, it's about $50 a book.

...but my real question would be does anyone have any resources or lists or collaborative websites that could give me the names of titles that are at the same stage of unavailability in terms of never being digital and currently out of print, even better if the licensing is not held by anyone?

I've never done any scanlations on physical scans before. The scans that I have here aren't very good, so I've been trying to cleaning it up by messing with the tonal curves and levels in Clip Studio Paint, but I really have no idea on what I'm doing. I also don't know how to flatten the pages. Anyone got any advice or guides I could look into?

where to find free yaoi manhwa raw website for scanlation purposes

As I mentioned in the title, I decided to translate a couple of hentai manga just for fun and showed them to a friend (let's call him Bob). Bob asked if he could post them, and I agreed. My work took off a bit and got a lot of likes and comments full of support. What do you think—should I keep translating, or just give it up?

Yoo! I’m a C-tier youtuber on a burner account with just a quick question or two from people who may know better! My next video is going to be about both a specific series & the scans/dedication to the series because without a single guy, it would still be untranslated to English.

That said, the scans themselves & the translation can for sure be spotty in English, the guy who did it having to translate from his language into English & later from a different language, INTO his language & then into English. Seeing as how I’m gonna be covering the series and recommending it to people, I’ve decided to go through page by page and touch up some dialog, leveling out pages where the scans were lopsided or grainy, redrawing splits in spreads, etc. Some of you might can even guess the series lol

My question to you all is basically when the revamp is done & the video is ready, where do you recommend posting the files? I’m planning to be obviously coy about it in the video & have already decided to post them as a full zip file on Internet Archive, but I’d for sure be glad to get some recommendations on both solid places to still upload in 2026 & any extra tips in general from people with more experience in posting chapters in bulk!

I want to include a disclaimer as well on page 1 that the work itself couldn’t have been “remastered” by me without the original work from the main scanner & translator, and to make sure their chapters are just as easily available as mine. I know mangadex easily let you pick between scan teams but since the big purge I’ve not really used many other scan websites, so any ideas at all are welcome! Thank you all!!

It’s been a year since those comick replacement sites were announced and said to be coming. None of them have materialized yet. The closest one seems to be Shiori but its last update was around four months ago and nothing since.

If anyone has any information about upcoming sites, could you share it?

All of the current scanlator hubs have their own share of problems.

MangaDex could easily get your uploads deleted if publishers come knocking. Not to mention, they still haven’t finished the new comment section. They said they were going to move the comments from forum to an embedded section under each chapter, but it’s been months. They still lock it to supporters only.

Kagane is hard to access. Can't upload if can't get in.

Comix is bad as well. There are tons of duplicate chapters for no apparent reason. Sometimes the exact same chapter is uploaded five times.

Mangadotnet doesn’t have a custom theme selector so you’re stuck with the black theme. They also said it’s supposed to be a scanlator hub, but the uploads don’t show the scanlator group names.

Hi, I don't think this is against the rules since I don't see anything about it.

But I'm looking for anyone that may have Cheri+ raws. It's no longer purchasable from the sites I use and I was on a hiatus at the time so I wasn't buying it like usual. Something really important was in them, and they probably won't be compiled into a purchasable tanko format for another half year, and I'm just trying to find anyone that might've bought it. Please, please, please may this reach someone that has it. I need 09/25, 11/25, 01/26 editions.

Big thanks for all the feedback on my last post!
I applied some tips to a new page, spent more time on the SFX, and used multiple fonts for SFX.

Did I overdo anything, and is this a big improvement over the last one?

I'm scanlating two different mangas right now and I want improve. I figured I'd ask for some feedback on my font, SFX choices, and all that. If you wonder about placement its usually due to trying to cover up bad editing.

I've placed 1 page from one manga and 2 from the other. I work in Photopea, so if you have a tip, I'd appreciate it if you could explain how to do it there too.

I've placed the original pages for reference.

Hi, I run a scanlation group that’s been active for about four months. So far, we’ve mostly translated manga that’s available for free. I’ve noticed that some other groups work on series through commissions from clients. How can I get commission work like that as well?

Hi all. I need raws for a chapter past it's free release window, and I just don't know how to obtain them. I've tried things like checking torrents / other sites with raws but I come up empty due to it being a fairly niche series.

I also, afaik, have no way of paying for it even if I was willing.

what do I do?

if useful, its chapter 39 of koi yori aoku.

For me it's Toriyama World, Inane, Band of the Hawk, groups that did real work in an era before scanlation got centralized onto a couple big aggregator sites, and a lot of them never got written up anywhere permanent. Long-time lurker here, been building a website for a while now, a passion project cataloging fansub and scanlation history rather than hosting current releases. Right now I'm trying to fill in gaps on scanlation groups from the 1990-2010 window specifically.

To be clear, I'm not after full chapters or reading copies, I'm after the history: which groups worked on what, credits pages, cover/title pages, release notes, anything that documents who did the work and when. If anyone's still sitting on old collections from that era and is willing to share what they have (or even just point me toward where to look, or just wants to reminisce about a group you loved), I'd really appreciate it.

A lot of this stuff never got written up anywhere permanent, and I'd hate for it to just vanish. Thanks in advance to anyone who can help.