03-07-2009, 12:29 AM | #1 |
Junior Member
Posts: 2
Karma: 10
Join Date: Mar 2009
Device: None
|
Manga on Kindle/Cybook/V3 - Automatic Photoshop Image Conversion!
Editor's Note: While this was written for the Kindle, it will likely be useful for other eink devices.
In gearing up for my Kindle 2, I decided to create an a script/action set in Photoshop to easily convert manga (and any other image) to a Kindle optimized version. This Photoshop action/script set will automatically convert your image to greyscale, flip it to portrait mode (if it isn't already), apply a few contrast, sharpening, and smoothing filters, resize and center to 600x800 and finally, export as an optimized .gif file (using 22 colors, just to give the Kindle a bit more to work with -- outputs to c:\Kindle Manga). You may still want to run Mangle to rename and create a book for your files, but UNCHECK any image optimizations in that program if you convert images with this action/script first. This will work with any image you throw at, but I mostly optimized for manga images with the applied filters! To install, put the two script files in your photoshop/presets/scripts folder and install the action via the action menu. If you have any problems getting it to work, post here! Rapid share link: XXXXX (see attached) (I have tested it on my Kindle 2, seems to work great, however, my Kindle suffers from pretty terrible contrast, so it'll be going back to Amazon! ...rather annoying given that I live in Osaka, Japan!) |
03-07-2009, 03:09 AM | #2 |
Zealot
Posts: 133
Karma: 118
Join Date: Feb 2009
Device: Kindle 2 DX
|
Great, thanks, but after using it, I think that Mangle works better:
http://www.foosoft.net/mangle/ |
Advert | |
|
03-07-2009, 03:49 AM | #3 |
Junior Member
Posts: 2
Karma: 10
Join Date: Mar 2009
Device: None
|
I mentioned Mangle in my post! This isn't a Mangle replacement... Mangle doesn't actually do any major filtering or compression of your images, aside from moving to greyscale and GIF (256 color GIFs as far as I can tell). Since the Kindle 2 is limited to 2GB of space, the Photoshop script/action cuts down file size significantly by reducing color count, without sacrificing much (if any) image quality. As far as I can tell, Mangle doesn't actually improve the contrast ratio or get rid of compression artifacts either.
Anyway, Mangle is totally great (I use it!)! This is NOT a total Mangle replacement, and you should STILL run your images through Mangle to get the book thingy, BUT, it doesn't do nearly the same thing this does! Of course, you can also one shot any image with this too, for screensavers (waiting on that for K2) or the general image browser (which seems better this time around). The newer version of Mangle also does image trimming and centering too, which is great! *Note: If you want to drop file size down even more: get rid of the centering part of the action (the canvas resize part), and set your output to a 16 color .gif file, that'll cut things down even more without losing much quality (though it won't center your images on the Kindle anymore). If anyone wants that version, I can post it here too. Last edited by OsakaTom; 03-07-2009 at 03:56 AM. |
03-07-2009, 04:31 AM | #4 |
Member
Posts: 13
Karma: 11
Join Date: Dec 2008
Device: Kindle
|
It would be interesting to figure out exactly what colors are native to the Kindle native display. I can do some testing with the Kindle 1, would be nice if someone did the same for Kindle 2, since I don't have one. That could trim file size down a bit. I'm also adding optional JPEG output to the next version of Mangle, that should help alleviate some storage issues on the space-starved Kindle 2
|
03-07-2009, 09:02 AM | #5 |
Banned
Posts: 1,300
Karma: 1479
Join Date: Jul 2006
Location: Peoples Republic of Washington
Device: Reader / iPhone / Librie / Kindle
|
If you post a test gradient I'd be happy to shoot it on my Kindle 2 for you.
|
Advert | |
|
03-07-2009, 09:15 AM | #6 |
Sir Penguin of Edinburgh
Posts: 12,375
Karma: 23555235
Join Date: Apr 2007
Location: DC Metro area
Device: Shake a stick plus 1
|
I attached the Photoshop script to the first post. (I effing hate Rapidshare.)
|
03-07-2009, 11:08 AM | #7 | |
GuteBook/Mobi2IMP Creator
Posts: 2,958
Karma: 2530691
Join Date: Dec 2007
Location: Toronto, Canada
Device: REB1200 EBW1150 Device: T1 NSTG iLiad_v2 NC Device: Asus_TF Next1 WPDN
|
Quote:
|
|
03-07-2009, 11:29 AM | #8 | |
Zealot
Posts: 133
Karma: 118
Join Date: Feb 2009
Device: Kindle 2 DX
|
Quote:
|
|
03-07-2009, 12:18 PM | #9 |
I'm Super Kindle-icious
Posts: 6,734
Karma: 2434103
Join Date: Apr 2008
Location: Long Drive, Calinadia Candafornia
Device: KDXG, KT, Oasis
|
I actually played with rendering manga pages with PDFRead. There is an album in my profile with the results.
I've never read manga and don't know what it should really look like but nekokami (who writes it) is helping me with my experiments. It would be great if unrequited and OsakaTom would help in the testing. You can pull the images from nekokami's album in her profile. |
03-07-2009, 12:38 PM | #10 | |
Addict
Posts: 241
Karma: 2617
Join Date: Mar 2009
Location: Greenwood, SC
Device: Kindle 2
|
Quote:
Kind of obviously, the palette ends up being #000000, #111111, #222222 ... #ffffff Not so obviously, only 15 shades of grey are rendered (both on the K2, and in the screen shot image). For whatever reason there's no #eeeeee. And if I make a 16 color image, again only 15 are rendered. |
|
03-07-2009, 12:55 PM | #11 |
Sir Penguin of Edinburgh
Posts: 12,375
Karma: 23555235
Join Date: Apr 2007
Location: DC Metro area
Device: Shake a stick plus 1
|
Here is the same image on the original Kindle.
|
03-07-2009, 01:17 PM | #12 |
GuteBook/Mobi2IMP Creator
Posts: 2,958
Karma: 2530691
Join Date: Dec 2007
Location: Toronto, Canada
Device: REB1200 EBW1150 Device: T1 NSTG iLiad_v2 NC Device: Asus_TF Next1 WPDN
|
Here's the '256 shades - test pattern' rendered by PDFRead with the modified NRhtml2mobi.exe using 4, 8, and 16 colors.
I don't know if the 32, 64, 128 and 256 color versions will look any different... I also got a "full color/grayscale" version using 2 colors (I guess it's a bug with PDFRead). Last edited by nrapallo; 03-07-2009 at 01:24 PM. |
03-07-2009, 02:10 PM | #13 |
Zealot
Posts: 133
Karma: 348
Join Date: Jan 2008
Device: Kindle 2
|
How come you want to do preprocessing than just let the Image Viewer does its job to do the dithering? Isn't it painful to preprocess instead of just drop the files into the Kindle and let it display it on the fly?
- resize - zoom - panning - rotation Aren't all those supported in Kindle 2? Last edited by stevenmoy; 03-07-2009 at 02:20 PM. |
03-07-2009, 02:53 PM | #14 |
Member
Posts: 13
Karma: 11
Join Date: Dec 2008
Device: Kindle
|
Nice work with the gradient shots! Now I'll be able to predither images in Mangle, should trim size down a bit
@stevenmoy - the image viewer (at least on Kindle 1) kind of blows. In Kindle 1 you can't do rotation or panning. I don't know if it got any improvements for Kindle 2, but in my 5 minutes of playing around with it on my friend's Kindle it seemed pretty much the same deal. As far as resize goes - when you only have limited storage it doesn't make a whole lot of sense to store image data that you won't see when you are in zoomed mode (which is the only thing you can use since panning doesn't work). Besides with preprocessing it's possible to run the image through other filters that the Kindle doesn't have. |
03-07-2009, 03:01 PM | #15 |
Zealot
Posts: 133
Karma: 348
Join Date: Jan 2008
Device: Kindle 2
|
https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...0&postcount=10
In the Picture Viewer: C - Toggle Actual Size [This overrides all other image effects] F - Toggle Full Screen <-- forget this for now since Kindle 2 Image Viewer has a bug regarding to full screen mode. Q - Zoom In W - Zoom Out R - Rotate e = reset zoom level The 5 way joystick can be used as panning. P.S. I should have also mentioned that Mangle is great. I guess I have used too many other Swiss-army-knife-like image viewer that preprocess is just too much trouble to go through. |
|
Similar Threads | ||||
Thread | Thread Starter | Forum | Replies | Last Post |
Cybook ou Sony 505 ( ou bebook ), Utilisation : Manga ! | Icey | Assistance | 11 | 11-11-2010 08:05 AM |
Classic Automatic Webblog conversion to epub by Calibre | bthoven | Barnes & Noble NOOK | 2 | 03-25-2010 06:18 AM |
cybook gen3 vs sony 505 vs bebook for Manga | Icey | Which one should I buy? | 4 | 10-27-2008 09:09 AM |
Manga/pdf in the Cybook? Help, please! | screenreader | Bookeen | 37 | 05-20-2008 03:35 PM |
How would you group image file from a manga? | hamh | Sony Reader | 11 | 10-18-2007 12:28 PM |