Digital Raws
The first step in the process of scanlating any manga is obtaining the raws. The first step is to download the file the raws are in, then the second step is to extract the raws from this file.
After extraction, they made need to be post-processed.
Screenshotting
A usually easy way, but can be low quality due to the resampling that may occur, and is labor-intensive.
PDF raws are most common when obtaining self-published raws from websites such as https://booth.pm/en
Most raw PDFs are single pages with the images embedded in each page. So the next step is to extract the images that are embedded. There are two tools that are often used.
- pdfcpu
- Install pdfcpu
- Ensure the executable's directory is on your PATH variable
- Open the directory the PDF file is in
- Run
$ pdfcpu.exe images extract .\RAW_INPUT.pdf
- This will output the files in the same directory as the file. To change the output directory, append an output directory path to the command.
- Poppler Tools' pdfimages tool
- Install Poppler Tools
- Ensure the bin directory is on your PATH variable
- Open the directory the PDF file is in
- Run
$ pdfimages -png RAW_FILE.pdf ./
- This will output the files in the same directory as the file. Change the final argument to change the path of the output directory.