Glossary
Inpainting
Inpainting is filling in a removed part of an image so that it matches what surrounds it. In manga translation it erases the original lettering and rebuilds the screentone and background underneath, instead of covering the bubble with a white box.
White box versus inpainting
Inpainting rebuilds the picture where text used to be, instead of hiding it. The simplest way to remove text is to paint it out with a flat color. In a plain white bubble that is fine. On a toned bubble, a gradient or a textured background it leaves a visible patch. Inpainting uses a model that looks at the pixels around the erased text and fills the gap by continuing lines, tones and patterns.
What it has to rebuild
- Screentone dots and lines.
- Gradients and soft shading.
- Background lines and panel details that pass behind the lettering.
- The edge of the bubble when letters touch it.
How it works, in short
First a mask marks every pixel that belongs to the lettering. The masked area is then treated as unknown, and the model predicts what should be there from the surrounding image. A good mask matters as much as a good model: a mask that is too tight leaves letter edges behind, and one that is too loose erases parts of the art.
Where it struggles
Busy backgrounds are the hardest, and large, stylized sound effects are harder still, because there is a lot of picture hidden behind the letters. You may see faint ghost marks where the old lettering was, even when the translation itself is right.
How RuneManga handles it
RuneManga erases the original lettering and fills in the background under it, then sets the translation in the bubble. The fill is a simple one today, so busy screentone can show where the text was. Text outside bubbles and sound effects are not translated yet, so they are not erased either. In Translate mode the colors of a colored page are kept as they are.
Common problems and fixes
- Ghost marks on screentone: expected on busy tone today. A sharper scan gives the fill more to work with.
- A smudge where letters touched the art: the mask reached the drawing. Report the page if it happens on plain bubbles.
- Old text still visible: it was outside a bubble or a sound effect, which is left as drawn.
Related terms
Inpainting is one way of cleaning a page. It follows speech bubble detection and OCR, and comes before typesetting.
Is inpainting the same as cleaning?
Inpainting is one method of cleaning. Cleaning is the whole job of removing the original text; inpainting is the part that rebuilds the background.
Does inpainting change the rest of the page?
It should not. Only the masked lettering is filled; the rest of the image stays as it was.