Scanlation is a mixture of scan and translation. It is often a manga translation process completed by fans with the following procedure: scan, image retouch, translation and lettering.

It usually uses the following tools:

  • Scan: a document scanner or a camera
  • Image retouch: Adobe Photoshop
  • Translation: ABBYY FineReader, Microsoft Word
  • Lettering: Adobe Photoshop, Adobe illustrator

There are tools specifically designed for scanlation. For example, ImageTrans is an integrated tool we can use to do text recognition, translation and lettering with high efficiency. It can generate PSD files with editable text areas whose styles are unified for further editing with Photoshop.

Scanlation is made by fans and usually has a piracy problem. But its quality is considered good.

If we only need to read raw manga and do not need to create high-quality distributable images, we can use ImageTrans to batch translate images or directly read a manga by taking a photo or screenshot with the phone.