[Bobble]

Hi,

Attached to this thread are 2 Templates I have made to use in Adobe Photo Shop (CS2). I have made them at 300 dpi.


A scanning tip as always is to ensure your scanner glass is perfectly clean.The cover you are going to scan is also clean and removed from the jewel case.Always scan at 600 dpi with the only enhancement setting descreen.Out put size 100%.
Place your cover on the glass and close the lid,then place a heavy book on the lid this ensure the cover is perfectly flat.Preview your scan first and crop outside the cover (this allows for straightening with no loss of part of the cover)And Scan.

Once you have saved your scan files at 600 dpi.Open PS if not already open and straighten and crop your images.Then file/open and select the 2 templates.
Next Open template Box Cover Front,select file/place and browse to your front cover and click.The cover will appear on the template,if your cropping and straightening is good all you need to do is drag the edges of the cover to all 4 sides (if not go back to your cover file and straighten it) Once the cover fills the template right click and and place.Save and you will now have a 600 dpi scan saved at 300 dpi with no loss of quality but a nice user friendly file size.PLEASE REMEMBER WHEN SAVING YOUR FILE TO SAVE AT NO LESS THAN QUALITY 10

For the back cover do exactly the same as before but with the the back cover template.If you have some deviation of the spine once you have dragged all 4 sides to the edges right click (before place) and choose warp,you can now encourage some parts carefully into place.If you have one damage spine on a cover using this template is ideal.Firstly open your cover and crop the good spine and save.You can also crop the original cover minus the dodgy spine and save.Then just introduce the good remade cover minus the removed spine to the template and drag to fit where it should be.Then remembereing to rotate the spine file choose file/place and add the new made spine,drag it into place.Right Click and choose place and save your back.

At this stage you will have noticed a lot of the moire (spots) have now dissapeared this has occured naturally by reducing a crisp 600 dpi scan to a 300 dpi template.

You now need to edit your covers.If you followed my other post and have Akvis noise buster you need to run the cover through this prog ( reduce noise to 60%)Once this has been done select image/adjustments Brightness and Contrast and increase contrast by 10.then click on control +
L and drag the slider to to the first upward line.Next select control + M and use the black and the white ink droppers to ensure black = 0-0-0 rgb and white = 255-255-255 rgb these tasks will only be as good as you see them so try a couple of times until you have the best finish.

Hope this all helps (btw Akvis saves a lot of time sorting moire / gaussien blur)


Bobble

Just realised I can't attach the templates file sizes are too large for here even though only around 400kb for both.

[Bobble]

You will need to use PS to be able to do this.

CD Jewel Case

CD BOX FRONT


Open File/New

Enter Name - CD Box Front

pixels 1418 - 1418

Resolution 300dpi.

CD BOX BACK

Open File/New

Enter Name - CD Box Back

Pixels 1843 - 1418

Resolution 300 dpi

You now have to make the spine lines.I think these will work.

Open View, go to New Guide and enter 18 pts vertical and the first spine line will appear,next same again but enter 424 pts and the second spine line will appear. Save as either Photoshop PSD or JPG both will work.


Hope this helps If you have a bash let me know how you get on if you do take the time I can assure you you will take a different look at how you scan things in the future and It will bring you a lot of pleasure.

BTW it is very similar in creating DVD Box Templates for those nasty big things,once you have the templates its simple

Bobble

[Johanna]

must make good covers

[Gaco]

I'm pretty new to photoshop so I don't know how to use create or use templates, and the ones Bobble kept referring to was never posted here. So front covers are supposed to be 1418*1418 @300dpi or 2836*2836 @600dpi? But how do you go about doing this? I would think that scanning, then finetune-rotating then finally cropping to the specified size. Can you make the crop box a specific size? If so I can't figure out how to do this.

Another question, what is meant by "CD BOX BACK" in the above post? If you mean the back cover that has to be a little larger to include those two side flaps, I have tried 1843*1418 pixels (x2 because I work in 600dpi mode) and it seems too big, always having an edge around the actual cover. Are you sure about these dimensions or is something else meant with "CD BOX BACK"?

[rmutchie]

Not everyone has Photoshop or can afford it. So I use a program called Surething Label Maker and it does a very good job. I have been using it for a couple of years now and have found nothing better. So give it a try. Go to surething.com to find it.

[Gaco]

Originally Posted by rmutchie

Not everyone has Photoshop or can afford it. So I use a program called Surething Label Maker and it does a very good job. I have been using it for a couple of years now and have found nothing better. So give it a try. Go to surething.com to find it.

What does it do exactly?

BTW I'm still very interested to hear if you should trim every cover scan to a fixed resolution each time, for example 3600*3600 or if you should trim each individual scan to the best of eye measure in photoshop so that some may be 3590*3607, another 3616*3585 etc.
If I should chose to print out covers later to recreate the CD + case, would it matter?

[rmutchie]

If you go to surething's website you can see all the thing that it can do. But don't think that it will do the same things that Photoshop does it won't. It is for making labels and inserts only. I use it to make all my disks lables and inserts after I have downloaded the artwork that I need.

[Gaco]

Ok as far as I can see it doesn't have anything to do with scanning and cropping your CD's, it's used to design or print existing artwork you have on your computer?

If so can you answer me how significant it is to have exact pixel dimensions, does it need to stretch/resize uneven dimensions for front cover for example or what? When you download the artwork you need, does it always have some fixed standard dimensions or does it vary (probably by less than 1%) everytime?

[rmutchie]

Your right Surething is for designing you label but you can make adjustment to the artwork with the properties of the background. I believe Surething has a trail you can download and give it a try. I like to download the best artwork their is it make for a better label and you can make more adjustment.

[Gaco]

Could you do me a favor and take a look on a couple of my scans to assess their standard, both in terms of quality and measurements? If you'd find them good I'd take your word for it and stop worring about it