Up-scaling comic pages

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Qwe304
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Up-scaling comic pages

#1 Post by Qwe304 »

While messing around making gifs for the streams, I found a good predictive image up-scaler, which instead of just averaging pixels,
uses vectors to do a much better job, and this one was specifically tuned for anime art styles, I tried it on a few of the stream emotes,
and was pleasantly surprised at its quality
example with one of the stream emotes:
( https://imgur.com/a/P8yw2 )
So, I downloaded the program (so I wouldn't have to fill out a captcha every time) and began up-scaling the comic.
(i like to zoom in on things and the original quality felt lacking)

After 50 hrs of chugging away on my laptop, It finished yesterday.
The finished pages are each around 1600x2200 (vs original 800x1100) and are each about 12mb,
The entirety of the up-scaled comic is about 2gb (zipped)(12gb unzipped), and since I don't currently have my own server It is only available as a google drive link. (on one of my secondary accounts due to storage limitations)
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0BwjqK ... 0tILTFIeDQ

If y'all think this is nice or a good idea, I'll try to keep it updated as new pages come out.
Reality is a cool place but I wouldn't want to live there -anonymous

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GaySailors
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Fav. Twokinds Character: Alaric :D

Re: Up-scaling comic pages

#2 Post by GaySailors »

Interesting... I'll look into it later.


Also, nice choice on the emote you used to test it on. :grin: :flora:

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iliar
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Re: Up-scaling comic pages

#3 Post by iliar »

I guess you used waifu2x. Yes, sometimes it works wonders. For example, the result of this program is better even than the paid book version.
https://yadi.sk/i/kJShhool3MRyyK

But the text ... sometimes waifu2x breaks the fonts. Ideally, use the speechless version and redraw the bubbles. But this is VERY MUCH of work, so I do not think there is a need for this.Maybe the result is not perfect, but it's good.

And unfortunately waifu2x can not recover lost information. For example, to restore the hearts in the eyes of Natani on 973 page.
https://yadi.sk/i/6CGszeDL3NHNgT

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Qwe304
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Re: Up-scaling comic pages

#4 Post by Qwe304 »

iliar wrote: Thu Sep 28, 2017 6:49 am I guess you used waifu2x.
yes I did, it works quite well on the sketches too
iliar wrote: Thu Sep 28, 2017 6:49 am Yes, sometimes it works wonders. For example, the result of this program is better even than the paid book version.
https://yadi.sk/i/kJShhool3MRyyK
yes, In your example, the up-scaled version looks nicer due to the de-noising abilities of the program
also, is the comic available as a pdf in a higher resolution for money? i might need to get that.
iliar wrote: Thu Sep 28, 2017 6:49 am But the text ... sometimes waifu2x breaks the fonts. Ideally, use the speechless version and redraw the bubbles. But this is VERY MUCH of work, so I do not think there is a need for this.Maybe the result is not perfect, but it's good.
I did notice that, it sometimes combines letters and smudges them, however the text dosnt really need to be enhanced, since you dont need a ton of pixels to differentiate letters, however there isn't a way lo change it so it leaves letters alone. I could go and remove then reinsert the original speech bubbles, however this would hake a LONG time,

I'm currently seeing if I can get my hands on an nvidia gpu, so that i can use it to process the comic to 4x, since doing so on my cpu would take an obscene amount of time, and the end files would be massive as well.
Reality is a cool place but I wouldn't want to live there -anonymous

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GaySailors
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Fav. Twokinds Character: Alaric :D

Re: Up-scaling comic pages

#5 Post by GaySailors »

Wait, seriously? I never noticed the heart eyes, and now I can't stop thinking how cute it is... and how cute Keith is... and how Natani is cute...

What were we talking about?

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iliar
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Re: Up-scaling comic pages

#6 Post by iliar »

Qwe304 wrote: Thu Sep 28, 2017 3:49 pm
iliar wrote: Thu Sep 28, 2017 6:49 am Yes, sometimes it works wonders. For example, the result of this program is better even than the paid book version.
https://yadi.sk/i/kJShhool3MRyyK
yes, In your example, the up-scaled version looks nicer due to the de-noising abilities of the program
also, is the comic available as a pdf in a higher resolution for money? i might need to get that.
Yes, you can buy a digital edition:
https://keenspotshop.com/collections/twokinds

But... yes, technically this version has a higher resolution than the WEB version. But the JPG artifacts spoil everything.

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Qwe304
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Re: Up-scaling comic pages

#7 Post by Qwe304 »

iliar wrote: Sat Sep 30, 2017 4:14 pm But... yes, technically this version has a higher resolution than the WEB version. But the JPG artifacts spoil everything.
Have you tried using the auto denoise function? it you set the scale to 1x and enable that, it should quickly go through the pages and remove artifacting
Reality is a cool place but I wouldn't want to live there -anonymous

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iliar
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Re: Up-scaling comic pages

#8 Post by iliar »

Qwe304 wrote: Sat Sep 30, 2017 4:25 pm
iliar wrote: Sat Sep 30, 2017 4:14 pm But... yes, technically this version has a higher resolution than the WEB version. But the JPG artifacts spoil everything.
Have you tried using the auto denoise function? it you set the scale to 1x and enable that, it should quickly go through the pages and remove artifacting
No. Auto denoise function often damage small details. I tried to do it on the last pages. And I did not like the result. The foliage on the trees was damaged.

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