What OSS does for you

Due to the amount of people that seem to think scanlation is a walk in the park, I'd like to explain to everyone the process we go through for every single chapter.

First, every single page is carefully taken from the magazine. This is done through a careful process, so as to not get glue on the pages, and not rip the page. They are then scanned at highly specific settings, and if they don't meet OSS quality, they are all scanned again and again until they're are the perfect quality.

Next, A translator must take the scanned images and translate each bubble, taking care to format the document as we would typeset it.. Like so:

Spoiler:

This must be done for every bubble and box on every page. Imagine talking like that for a whole day.

After it has been translated, a small group of loud angry people we call "Proofreaders" will argue for hours over grammar and sentence structure, and days over whether a skill should be called "Chains of Frost" or "Icy Shackles". This is a debate in which you do NOT want to get caught in the middle of. Many-a-time have I logged in during a proofreading session, and left soon after so I may flee from the ferocity of the job.

While it's being translated, a cleaner will take the scanned image and pretty it up. This includes cropping, rotation, leveling, redraws, and once in a while, we get a page merge like this....

Spoiler:

and we manually redraw whatever was in between. The same goes for when text overlays an image, just so our lovely readers don't have an ugly gap or some foreign text in their page inhibiting their reading experience. You're welcome.

After it has been cleaned, a typesetter will take the cleans and slap the text on the page and call it a day......
Not really, it's much harder than that. The text will be fitted to the bubble, shaped to the edges. Every single bubble in our scans have been modified for easy reading. The leading and tracking are changed, the spaces between each word and each line, how stretched the text will be; anything and everything will be done to that text so you, the reader, can read without strain. The text must also be fitted to the absolute perfect position within the bubble; not a pixel off.

Lastly, the judgement day comes. The final parts are placed among scrutiny of the entire group, and critiqued throughout. Many people will redo their jobs during this phase, and more arguments may arise. Once the dust has cleared and we reach an agreement, one of our admins will upload it to the site, where it is quickly downloaded, read in a few minutes, and never viewed again. Hours, even days of work are read in a few minutes.

So to those who think we should be "working faster" or "release more":
1. You're breaking the rules by asking for releases.
2. You're disregarding the MANY hours of work we put into our releases.
Hopefully now you may all realize just what we do. Perhaps you may even be more grateful when scalators in general release, and more patient when we're late on releases.

Yea yea ...

When is the next chapter of HP released ? =p

Kidding, kidding.


I wonder what's the point of this message, since people asking for releases in chat box do not take the time to read the chat room (I suppose).
Ah ! It's because you wanted to show off your work with the dragon !!

Good job Enty
We know you rock already, ahlalala.

I would post examples from the others, but I had none. I had an old proofreader argument I was gonna post, but I can't find it :/
(And I can't remember what chapter had the Vines of Doom) Anyways, I was just posting to show people how long it actually takes to fully scanlate a chapter, and hopefully build more respect for scanlators in general, not just us.

Your own example is a good one anyway, don't be on the defensive


I think you can't really ask for respect. You don't receive it then you cut the dialog. Normal people respect you and your work naturally, because they like it and are grateful. Sure one can wonder when is 'due' the next release (hunger, hunger!), but it's free. You pinpoint the fact that there is alot of work to do, but what to think when one can clearly see that Cheese in the Trap episodes were released biweekly (or faster), and now way more slowly? Has the work became harder suddenly? The answer is obvious, whatever easy or tedious the work is, it is done on our free time, and when we feel like it. There's no need to explain the work is hard : it obviously is since the flamers don't do it themselves, and even free projects taking years to achieve are being flamed by ignorant people.


I like your post, because it's kindof informative.
But you won't affect (?) the public you want.