Quality Check Guide (Edit Guide) (Photoshop Tips)
So say you've been asked to QC something, or maybe you're an editor looking over something you just finished, and you want to go back and look for errors with the edit. What are the common mistakes people make? Well, I've divided things up into a few general categories to help organize your thinking, something like a checklist.
2. Placement
2.1 Bubble Centering
2.2 Text Alignment
2.3 Wordwrapping
3. Style
3.1 Consistency
3.2 Legibility & Visibility
4. Art
4.1 Reconstructions
4.2 Leveling
4.3 Edge Errors
4.4 Stray Marks
5. Packaging
5.1 Image Properties
5.2 Archive Properties
5.3 Extras
Usually I find it best to QC a chapter in two "phases"--the first covering text content, placement, and style, and the second covering art and packaging concerns. So basically, the first time I read it through, I look for errors in the text. The second time, I look at the art and look over the file properties.
Since choice of viewer programs can make certain tasks easier, I've decided to list some of the programs I've tried, and my opinions on each. Currently I use XnView 1.91.4. The numbers in parentheses represent my own humble opinion, out of 5. Other viewers I've tried, but didn't feel were worth the time detailing, include FastStone viewer, iBrowser, Focusviewer, TW's Manga Viewer, Picasa, Slowview, Susie, Thumbsplus, and Mangameeya, among others, so if the following don't suit your needs, feel free to try one of these.
- ACDSee (4/5)
- Pros: includes zip support, susie plugin support allows for rar support, clear browser interface, fast precaching, batch renaming functionality, good shell integration, highly customizable UI, viewer layout helps check for editing errors and image saving errors (illuminates edge errors, discreetly displays image dimensions and color depth), thumbnail view allows for easy detection of folder archiving inconsistencies (images directly in archive as opposed to within a folder in an archive).
- Cons: not free, "jaggies" appear with interlaced pngs (which can be an advantage, allowing a QC'er to quickly notice when pngs are improperly saved), variable functionality with different versions, more recent versions become increasingly bloated.
- Comments: One of the best viewer programs I've seen, although it can be frustrating trying to find which version best suits your needs. I've personally tried versions 3.1, 5.0, 6.0, 8.1, and 9.0. 3.1 was one of the lighter, more stable versions. Although it lacked some of the advanced functionality of the later versions (batch renaming was purely template+wildcard based), the use of susie plugins for rar support, stable shell integration, and use of the normal viewer for normal and recursive slideshows outweighs the inability to tag images or features like find-and-replace renaming. 5.0 included store-level rar support, though susie plugin rar support was still superior. Unfortunately, shell integration was somewhat buggy (essentially all or none), and autodetection of templates for batch renaming was also buggy (sometimes does not automatically detect starting number). 6.0 added a find-and-replace batch renaming functionality and image categorizing similar to danbooru-style tagging, and fixed the above-listed bugs from 5.0, but replaced subdirectory slideshow viewing with a separate and inferior slideshow viewer (if you want to view all images in multiple subdirectories, you either have to manually select each subdirectory from a tree view without shift-clicking support, or use the new viewer, which has no scroll-wheel or keyboard support to advance images, and requires a time interval for each slide - no advance-on-command option). Viewing of images inside archives also produced "jaggies" unlike previous or later versions. 8.1 fixed many of the problems of 6.0's inept slideshow problems, though the improved slideshow is still inferior to the normal viewer. 8.1 also included rar support comparable to that of the susie plugins. Shell integration was not as good as that of previous versions. For compters using Protector Suite software like mine, 8.1 occasionally crashes on program startup, or more commonly, encounters an non-critical error, which I remedied by uninstalling Protector Suite. 9.0 was, for the most part the same as 8.1, adding a new but useless quickviewer, as well as other mostly unnoticed features.
- CDisplay/CDisplayEX (2/5)
- Pros: free, good zip and rar support (as well as cbr/cbz "support", though those formats are identical to rar and zip), lightweight
- Cons: rigid clumsy UI requiring familiarity with several keyboard shortcuts, cbz/cbr system inferior to shell integration, mediocre shell integration, no batch renaming functionality, viewer layout lacks helpful information, underdeveloped slideshow support.
- Comments: Versions 1.8 for CDisplay and 1.4 for CDisplayEX were tested. A decent and fairly popular viewer, albeit undeservedly so in my opinion. As an image viewer, it has its merits, but is one of the more immature viewing programs available. Even for those seeking simply a viewer, and have no need for some of the advanced features available with other programs, superior alternative choices exist.
- Firegraphic (3/5)
- Pros: attractive interface, zip and rar support, good slideshow functionality, template-based batch renaming functionality, partial shell integration.
- Cons: not free, lack of shell integration for zips and rars, awkward browser.
- Comments: Versions 8.5 and 9.0 were tested. A rather unknown but effective program, Firegraphic deserves more recognition than it receives. Firegraphic has better slideshow support than many programs, and has good zip and rar support. Unfortunately, lack of shell integration for archives despite program support, along with a fairly limited browser (only tree view, no explorer view), makes navigating to the desired images slow and ineffective.
- Picwalker (1/5)
- Pros: zip and rar support, batch functionality, customizable interface, informative display
- Cons: clumsy UI, lack of explorer-view browser, lack of recursive slideshow functionality
- Comments: Version 4.2 was tested. There is no real browser, only an awkward drop-down box, making navigating to images tedious and time consuming. To my knowledge, you cannot select a directory and have the program load images within subdirectories. On paper it seems promising, with many of the features and functionality desired in a viewing program, but suffers from poor execution that makes the program ultimately inferior to most of the alternatives listed here.
- XnView (4/5)
- Pros: good slideshow functionality, batch functionality, intuitive browser, customizable interface, partial shell integration, supports susie plugins, support for zip rar and 7z.
- Cons: still lacks archive shell integration, have to fullscreen from browser mode to view images in archives without navigating to the temp directory, cannot view archives within archives.
- Comments: XnView 1.91.4 was tested. Irfanview 3.99 was briefly examined, but for the most part appeared to be an inferior alternative to XnView. With the inclusion of archive support, including 7z, one of the greatest weaknesses of this program has been resolved. Unfortunately, the "Browse with XnView" shell extension only applies to folders and not archives. Also, simply going to the viewer from browser mode takes you to the temp directory if you view images within archives, but this can be circumvented by going into fullscreen mode. I've included my settings .ini here, under options>system integration, tell the program to save options as ini in folder XnView, then replace your ini with this one. It's set up to take you from the browser into fullscreen with double-click or return, but middle mouse takes you back from fullscreen to the normal viewer. Double-clicking already extracted images in explorer also takes you to the normal viewer.