graphic novels/comics

[Annah]

On the chance of being heckled from yon lofty heights of the computer literate (oh how I wish I were among you!), I need a little help.

I got my iliad in the mail today, put some books on it, then tried uploading a graphic novel. Alas, no. Two and a half hours later of fustrated fiddling; definately not. I think I know how to use the rasterfarian program but I have to make the pdf's from my files (mostly .rar). Atleast that is as I understand it. I then tried using je-comics but I'm stuck after downloading it. I opened it with WinAce but I can't seem to find th .exe file anywhere.

So if anyone would kindly give some insight/advice on how to convert my comics in a pdf format via a not-so-technical description for this (unfortunately) non-technical person, I'd be nine-kinds of thankful

[kapoira]

you can search here for a script i used to convert it, the problem it's for linux.... there are two one to convert to html, and one to pdf (better the second)
and i see that you use windows...

the option i use now it's gqview a visor of images in the iliad, but you have to need the shell access and more important touch the loaders of the iliad, and if you don't know what are you doing you can get a bricked iliad, i don't recommend this option.

you can search for the visor of .cbz from scotty

[nekokami]

You don't need Rasterfarian for the iLiad. Get the Java-based CBZ reader posted by Scotty1024.

And don't be shy about your computer skills. Everyone starts somewhere.

[NatCh]

Welcome to MobileRead, Annah!

I think there's a pretty good mix of levels of computer skills here, and we hardly ever heckle people for stuff like that ... actually, we rather frown on heckling entirely, come to think of it.

Anyway, as nekokami said, we all start somewhere, and I hope you'll find MobileRead a good place to start.

[Annah]

Thanks for the welcome everyone! And hopefully I will pick up a few things here

As for the mobiopocket viewer booster pack, I've downloaded it then extracted to my iliad's internal memory, but when I click to install, with either the pen or the confirm button, nothing's happening. I'll post in Scotty's thread for any info but if anyone has some advice it'd be greatly appreciated

Thanks again for putting me in the right direction

[athlonkmf]

You can use my program https://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=11261 to automaticly create comics-collections into PDF-files and then use rasterfarian to convert it to illiyad's format. Just make sure to fill in the correct resolution, because the program is set for the sony reader on default.

[rlauzon]

Originally Posted by Annah

So if anyone would kindly give some insight/advice on how to convert my comics in a pdf format via a not-so-technical description for this (unfortunately) non-technical person, I'd be nine-kinds of thankful

I've had more success with HTML when doing this.

The only issue that I've had is that most graphics have text that becomes too small (for me) to read when scaled down for the iLiad's screen.

[athlonkmf]

Originally Posted by rlauzon

I've had more success with HTML when doing this.

The only issue that I've had is that most graphics have text that becomes too small (for me) to read when scaled down for the iLiad's screen.

Doesn't have to be. It's usually the scaling that's causing the fuzzy text.
If you convert them into pdf and then use rasterfarian then the text are very readable on the Sony Reader. I assume with Iliad's larger screen, it'd be even easier to read.

Here's a sample I just made, it's meant for the sony reader, but should be good for the iliad too.: http://kmfstudio.com/downloads/ultim...der_sample.lrf

[rlauzon]

Originally Posted by athlonkmf

Doesn't have to be. It's usually the scaling that's causing the fuzzy text.

Scaling up (i.e. the comic is lower res than the reader) causes fuzzy text.

I'm talking about scaling down. The comics that I've seen so far (like MegaTokyo, for example) are higher res than the iLiad. So displaying them on the iLiad makes the text smaller - and for me almost unreadable.

[athlonkmf]

Originally Posted by rlauzon

Scaling up (i.e. the comic is lower res than the reader) causes fuzzy text.

I'm talking about scaling down. The comics that I've seen so far (like MegaTokyo, for example) are higher res than the iLiad. So displaying them on the iLiad makes the text smaller - and for me almost unreadable.

I don't know about the Iliad since I've got a sony reader, but when I compared the higher resolution paid manga from tokyopop to those that I've created myself, the paid manga is fuzzier and less sharp. This is to be expected, even downsampling would cause some resampling.

I've just did a small test with a couple of mega-tokyo's images. The fonts they used are even bigger than the usual american comics and therefor perfectly readable with my method. Even the small copyrights underneath each page are clear to read.

[rlauzon]

Originally Posted by athlonkmf

I don't know about the Iliad since I've got a sony reader, but when I compared the higher resolution paid manga from tokyopop to those that I've created myself, the paid manga is fuzzier and less sharp. This is to be expected, even downsampling would cause some resampling.

That may be the issue. I've only used versions I've downloaded. Probably much lower res than if I had scanned them myself.

Originally Posted by athlonkmf

I've just did a small test with a couple of mega-tokyo's images. The fonts they used are even bigger than the usual american comics and therefor perfectly readable with my method. Even the small copyrights underneath each page are clear to read.

You probably have better eyes than me.

[athlonkmf]

Originally Posted by rlauzon

That may be the issue. I've only used versions I've downloaded. Probably much lower res than if I had scanned them myself.



You probably have better eyes than me.

No. you probably just loaded the images in without any processing. Why don't you try using my converting method and see if that's better?

[rlauzon]

Originally Posted by athlonkmf

No. you probably just loaded the images in without any processing. Why don't you try using my converting method and see if that's better?

I did process the images. My first attempt had the iLiad scale the images down. My second attempt had me scale the images - that improved things, but not enough.

I can't use your method because I do not use Microsoft products. I do not believe that your method would greatly improve anything anyway. You cannot scale only the picture portions of a graphic - leaving the text larger. If the resulting graphic has 3 point (for example) text and that is too small for me to comfortably read, there's nothing that can be done to fix that.

The only other option would be to not scale the graphic smaller - but that would mean that the "page" would span more than 1 iLiad screen. Not much of an improvement.

[kapoira]

you can prove my method and get a little more of screen geting real fullscreen with the iliad, but you have to touch the loaders of the gtk in the iliad, reset, and call the gqview, after that with the buttons arrow up you can go fullscreen or goes to normal, and the flipbar works, the problem it's always at 400Mhz and the led goes blinking "all" the time

[athlonkmf]

Originally Posted by rlauzon

I did process the images. My first attempt had the iLiad scale the images down. My second attempt had me scale the images - that improved things, but not enough.

I can't use your method because I do not use Microsoft products. I do not believe that your method would greatly improve anything anyway. You cannot scale only the picture portions of a graphic - leaving the text larger. If the resulting graphic has 3 point (for example) text and that is too small for me to comfortably read, there's nothing that can be done to fix that.

The only other option would be to not scale the graphic smaller - but that would mean that the "page" would span more than 1 iLiad screen. Not much of an improvement.

Well, I believe there is a python version of rasterfarian too.
But to show you the result of my method, here's a couple pictures I made from my reader. With the smallest fonts I could find. I believe that these fonts are at least 7 if not 8.

Megatokyo which you said are too small to read.





A sample of nausicaa, which has the smallest font for manga I've seen.


And an A4-sized comicstrip which has been processed with my method for the reader:


Could be only me, but they're quite well readable to me, even on the 20% smaller screen on the Sony reader. The Iliad have a larger screen, therefor should be even more readable.

Maybe you can take a pic of yours result so I can see what you're talking about? Not trying to proof anything, just wanted to help.

Thing is, with my program I resize and optimize the pictures already, and then it gets vectorized into a PDF which gets rasterized by rasterfarian. This produces high-contrast sharp images. If I just resize my pics to the reader's resolution, they become blurry too.

//looks like photobucket resizes the pictures itself... will go and upload the real-size pics somewhere when I got the time...

Uploaded the pics here if you want to see the fullsize images: http://kmfstudio.com/photo/thumbnails.php?album=62