Comics/Manga on the kindle - the right way (using PS)

[curstpriest]

GG freaking posting so quickly after that other guy with the fail avatar.
Can't use backwards elbow doubles guy.
Look closely

Sigh, Kai's power goo

http://www.algonet.se/~dip/goo_1p.html

Then AGAIN I COULD BE WRONG

but it looks like the same source image.

[el_brio]

So that is where that came from. I'd take credit for it, but it is actually really old. I swiped it from a different forum years ago. I like the Picard facepalm better I think.

[curstpriest]

That's cool, i only picked this avatar temporarily for that stone cold guy =) it is more than overused

[psycholoner]

I remember using canti but I couldn't get it running on windows 7 and I gave up. I only convert black and white images most of the time anyway, so I'm not really willing to go through all that to build an algorithm. I'll just stick with mangle. Its simple and has a GUI.

[curstpriest]

Some more filters:

If you want to trim borders conservatively:
It will only trim pages that actually have borders - use Image -> Trim
Best to do this first (before any other actions such as resize)

If you want to take up the full frame to remove page turning artifacts from the viewer to add borders, for your last step, go to Image -> Canvas Size, enter your screen resolution, and chose a background color (probably white will be good) Make sure for input you are using pixels, and use the center anchor.

[JeremyR]

Seems like so much work, why not actually, you know, buy the comic book?

[NiLuJe]

You know, what if we actually *do*?

[curstpriest]

I have boxes full of comics, and walls full of books, as I am sure many of you do as well =)

I also have all 3 guild comics, and I also watch the show - it's great.
don't have the various covers though =(

[vugtitan]

Originally Posted by curstpriest

Oh now an additional comment before everyone chimes in. I realize that the image isn't going to be 1:1 to the

By the time you have DONE ALL THAT converting of the comic book on YOUR PC with it's LARGE SCREEN you have READ the comic books.


So what is the point OF CONVERTING IT for the kindle?

[curstpriest]

You only have to make the conversion profile once, you can tweak it easily later.
Example - I can convert an entire directory of 200 comics with 1 batch command (all that work) requires 3 mouse clicks.

And who said I want to sit at my pc and read them anyway?

[ninjafox250]

Hi Curstpriest,

Thanks for the detailed instructions, I just got my Kindle DX today and I am looking forward to a lot of comic reading on it.

One thing I am a little lost on is to do groups of folders.

I am trying to a folder and it's subfolders, but what I get is the following...

I have for example...
Folder
Folder/sf1/sf1pic1.jpg
Folder/sf1/sf1pic2.jpg
Folder/sf2/sf2pic1.jpg
Folder/sf2/sf2pic2.jpg
Folder/sf3/sf3pic1.jpg
Folder/sf3/sf3pic2.jpg

When I select Folder and its subfolders I end up with one of 3 things:
Newfolder/sf1pic1.gif
Newfolder/sf1pic2.gif
Newfolder/sf2pic1.gif
Newfolder/sf2pic2.gif
Newfolder/sf3pic1.gif
Newfolder/sf3pic2.gif

or

Folder/sf1/sf1pic1.jpg
Folder/sf1/sf1pic2.jpg
Folder/sf1/sf1pic1.gif
Folder/sf1/sf1pic2.gif
Folder/sf2/sf2pic1.jpg
Folder/sf2/sf2pic2.jpg
Folder/sf2/sf2pic1.gif
Folder/sf2/sf2pic2.gif
Folder/sf3/sf3pic1.jpg
Folder/sf3/sf3pic2.jpg
Folder/sf3/sf3pic1.gif
Folder/sf3/sf3pic2.gif

or

OriginalFolderIUserWhenIMadeTheAction/sf1pic1.gif
OriginalFolderIUserWhenIMadeTheAction/sf1pic2.gif
OriginalFolderIUserWhenIMadeTheAction/sf2pic1.gif
OriginalFolderIUserWhenIMadeTheAction/sf2pic2.gif
OriginalFolderIUserWhenIMadeTheAction/sf3pic1.gif
OriginalFolderIUserWhenIMadeTheAction/sf3pic2.gif

Do you have any idea what I'm doing wrong?

I'm looking for:

NewFolder/sf1/sf1pic1.jpg
NewFolder/sf1/sf1pic2.jpg
NewFolder/sf2/sf2pic1.jpg
NewFolder/sf2/sf2pic2.jpg
NewFolder/sf3/sf3pic1.jpg
NewFolder/sf3/sf3pic2.jpg

Thanks in advance!

[curstpriest]

Are you trying 1 comic (folder) at a time, or like 10 comics at a time?

You may have to change your "save as gif" step in actions if you are trying to do multiple folders (lots of comics) or change/remove this step. I'm not 100% sure how all versions of PS batch handling works, you may have to read up on that, but it can handle it for sure =). I don't think this is the issue however.

Also, you may have to change output directory (DESTINATION) options in the batch job.

I assume it works fine when you just try to do a single folder? Make sure you are specifying a NEW directory, or else you will just get the new GIFs mixed in with the source jpeg directories, which is what it sounds like is happening.

I just got CS5 and haven't set up everything yet, I'll mess with it later.
Looks similar to old versions though. Looks like you can chose destination or save and close.
Worse case scenario, you should be able to use "Save and close" it will jam the gifs in with the jpegs, and then you can just do a search for *.jpeg, and delete them all when you are done, and everything should be in the right place (I know this is a backward way of doing things) and there is likely a better way to do it, but I'm not sure.

[ninjafox250]

Wow! Thanks for the fast reply

Yeah I was trying to do like 30 comics at once. Like above, you said you can do do a directory with 200 comics, so I thought you had done what I was trying to do.

Single folders work fine, it's just a bit of pain going through the Action-Batch-Set Folder-Set Destination one by one.

I'm using CS4 and in playing around with the options as you can see I did get some different results.

Dumping them into the original directory and deleting the jpegs after isn't a ad idea actually.

[Kam_El]

@curstpriest -

Firstly - Thank you!!!

Have literally looked all over the place and took ages before I stumbled across your post.

I've got a Kindle 3 and CS5 - I've followed your instructions but I realise they should probably be a little different for CS5.

Anyway, converted two comics today and it worked no problem, when I set the third to be done I specified the input folder and the output destination but it created a single image and it had the name of the previous comic I converted...instead of the file name of the original image :S

Instead of converting every image from the original - it converted them one at a time and saved them all with the same name, saving over each file as it converted the rest, leaving me with a single image file of the last page in my output folder after the batch was finished. I'm totally confused because its just worked twice no problem and third time its gone a bit funny.

Any help would be great - once again many thanks for posting this to begin with!