Two-page spreads are the manga spreads where one continuous image takes up both the left and right side of the manga. If you have really good (flat) scans, you can splice these two images, so the scan is one continuous image. If your scans aren't so good, what most groups do is put a blank white break between the left and right pages, but keep them on the same page. This way, your mind "fills in" the missing stripe of the image. I'll be working with this scan as I go through how I recommend doing two-page spreads:
First of all, I recommend leveling the entire image (but not taking care of any gutter shadow). Then, copy each side and paste them into new psds. Rotate them as needed. Copy these rotated sides, and paste them as separate layers in one large psd. This is where you'll do all the work.
Next up, take care of the gutter shadow. Since the pages are on different layers, you don't have to worry about the right side being affected by your leveling. Then, clean up the gutter edges and line up the left and right layers (Note that I also darkened the gutter on the right page). Now, if you're not going to splice the two sides together, just add two black lines to distinguish the two halves, resize, and typeset: (the space between the two sides should be narrow)
This scan, however, is good enough to splice. To splice the image, you would need to clone in/redraw the image that is missing (the white stripe in the above image). I recommend splicing the image before you resize, as it's easier to clone small details this way. Simply line up the right and left side, clean up the gutter edges, and merge the two layers down onto the background layer (to merge, select the layer and hit ctrl+e). Then splice them together, crop as necessary, and resize. Most groups standard size for two-page spreads is twice the width of a single page.
Don't panic; I realize you've hardly learned anything about cloning. More advanced cloning and redrawing techniques will be covered in the Typesetting section, but to a large degree, you have to practice to build up your cloning skill (and be able to do things like splicing). Save this scan to practice splicing on for after you've gone through the other cloning sections.
The standard size for a two-page spread is 1400. Don't ask why it's not 1380 ^^; Depending on the scans, some of our two-page spreads might not be good enough to splice, but otherwise we do require actual splicing.
Congrats, you've just finished the first section of this editing guide! To practice everything you've learned about cleaning, head over to the Practice/Tests :: Cleaning section and grab some raws. When you're comfortable with all this information, head on over to the Typesetting section to continue your lessons.
