CD-R cover art

[Grant]

Here are scans of the CD cover of my recent 1973 yearly comp. I can never come up with good covers, but I like this one that I threw together in minutes. Now, I will attempt to do the 1978 series before I start losing them!

I haven't yet figured out what i'm going to do with the spine or back, but I like that Verbatim logo in the front of the spine.

[JonUrban]

Very nice, Grant! :righton:

[Grant]

I did eight of them. Even though It took me all of two minutes to come up with that in Mediaface II, I hate doing cover art. I find it boring. I can never come up with good designs. Now I have to think of designs for 1978, 1968 (whenever I get the CDs finished) and early 80s soul.

My new problem with that 1973 series is that I used those "vinyl" CDs from Verbatim. Labels don't work with those very well, and you can't really write on them. Any ideas?

[Sckott]

Cute.

Although I would not go with making labels for CDRs. No matter how, they end up falling apart in a short amount of time. The only way to go is to get a dedicated Epson CDR printer with the printable CDR faces already on the media. Oblio98 has something that works for him quite well, and it might be just that.

Labels buckle and "swim" in climate changes and no matter what, ruins the disc over 2-3 years time. I've backed up wav data and paid the price. Never again.

[JonUrban]

A few years ago I bought a CD Printer from a internet reseller. They modified an Epson 850 to accept Printable CDRs using a "tray" designed for their modification.

It works pretty well, of course, I wasted many a disc with alignment setup!

Still, I don't print on every disc. However, I never use stick on labels, as Sckott has stated and you well know, they bubble after a while, and can be a problem when left in a car CD insert player in the summer.

Now I see Epson printers straight from Epson for less than $200 that print on CDs. To me, this is the way to go!

[Grant]

However, I never use stick on labels, as Sckott has stated and you well know, they bubble after a while, and can be a problem when left in a car CD insert player in the summer.
I don't well know, and my labels don't bubble. I smooth out the label as soon as I apply it to make sure there are no air pockets. I use the Neato label stock, which is thick, and I live in an area of the country that has very low humidity, so bubbling up isn't a problem. See, you and Sckott live in areas that are much more humid. I don't have any label issues. The ones I labeled five years ago are still stuck.

I do not use labeled CD-Rs in the car. I make quick copies and mark them with a sharpie.

[Bertly]

Nice, it looks like a commercially released item. ;) Very cool.

[Sckott]

See, you and Sckott live in areas that are much more humid. I don't have any label issues.

...and that's exactly the point. AZ is very dry and can be very easy-going humidity-wize as you know...but our climate has certainly made enough example for me to stop using them unless it's a "vanity" thing and the blank is non-essential.

I put a label on a DTS CD a year ago and the disc's label has started to work on the laquer on the top-side. The disc is now unuseable since the playback has to be perfect or it will "chirp" though the decoder and sound terrible.

I too use Sharpies, and those have been the most reliable. Glad my penmanship isn't horrific!

[Kevin Bresnahan]

I do lots of artwork for my needle-drops. I use Power Point. For the backers, I find that it's better to perforate the paper with an Exacto knife prior to cutting it out of the paper. Here's a cover and back I did for a Booker Ervin date.

Kevin

[Metralla]

Very realistic Kevin. That is just superb.

Those jaggies are just from compression for posting, right?

[LowRideDuh]

WoW Grant and Kevin !!!

Those are both Fantastic Looking ... I really like the Feel of Both Labels . !!!
For my friend that I do needle drops for, I usually put two lp's on one CD-R... with the front LP art work put on the front and back of a std jewel case.
Again , I'm very Impressed with Both of Your Talents !

[MikePh]

Kevin,

Really nice job there. Anything more specific about how you use PowerPoint, for the illiterate among us?

[Grant]

Kevin's artwork looks like an authentic Blue Note release! I would never have known the difference.

[JoelDF]

Now I see Epson printers straight from Epson for less than $200 that print on CDs. To me, this is the way to go!I just got one - the Epson R200. I also ordered a spindle of 100 Taiyo Yuden white inkjet printable CD-R's from NewEgg that should get here tommorrow (New Years Eve day). I'm getting it hooked up as I type this - trying to make room along with my HP1220c 11x17 inkjet. It comes with 1 printable CD-R as a test which I will use using a graphic label I've already made up for a peel-and-stick label. I only did one of those stick-ons, then heard all the horror stories about using them and never did another one.

I've done a few full-blown cover inserts - mainly for needle-drops of albums. For those, I scan my LP covers, usually in 4 pieces per side since it's only 8.5 x 11 and can't get the whole 12 1/4" on any one side. Then I'll stitch them together in Photoshop. Takes a while, but it's worth it. In fact, my avatar is one that I did of The Alan Parsons Project's Stereotomy artwork as it looks outside of the colored plastic cover sleeve it came it.

My compilation inserts are quick and dirty ones usually just using some tileable graphic as a background that can be found all over the net usually used for webpage backgrounds and such. They are usually low-rez images but I'll use Photoshop to enlarge, add grain, or use other filter tweaks to disguise the blown-up pixels.

[AudioEnz]

For those, I scan my LP covers, usually in 4 pieces per side since it's only 8.5 x 11 and can't get the whole 12 1/4" on any one side. Then I'll stitch them together in Photoshop. Takes a while, but it's worth it.

Joel, you may be doing this already, but this is how I used Photoshop to align the four scan from the LP cover. By temporarily reducing the opacity of the scand, you'll find that you can align them much more quickly and accurately.

[JoelDF]

Joel, you may be doing this already, but this is how I used Photoshop to align the four scan from the LP cover. By temporarily reducing the opacity of the scand, you'll find that you can align them much more quickly and accurately.Good idea, I haven't tried that. The biggest problem I have to deal with is the slight amount of rotating and even some stretching because the the slightest distortion I get from scan to scan. Then I blend the greatly overlapping areas.

Here's a recent one: Heart's Dog and Butterfly, the whole vertical gatefold cover that returns the dog to that back cover where he belongs :). Took 8 scans. Although I have to put it in the jewel case cover so that the Heart name is sideways on the left side and the fold is on the right so that the song titles are right-side-up when I flip the cover open. I also took out the spine across the middle.

[Kevin Bresnahan]

Very realistic Kevin. That is just superb.

Those jaggies are just from compression for posting, right?

Yeah, converting a Power Point slide to a jpeg does make it look all jaggedy.

As for the templates themselves, it took several hours of trial and error to get them sized properly. The hardest part for these Blue Note jobs was the font. I had to find a free download of the Bodoni font. I never knew how hard it was to find free fonts. I was willing to pay, but the packages cost a fortune and they give you hundreds of useless fonts.

Here is the artwork I did for another Blue Note needle drop.

I would E-mail the Power Point slides to anyone who wants them. As I said, they won't look right unless you can get your hands on the Bodoni font.

Kevin

[Kevin Bresnahan]

In looking around the web, I can't find the Bodoni fonts any more so I have removed them from this post.

Kevin