Designing your CD cover art
In this age of desktop computers and simple-to-use design programs, many people have the means to design their own CD art. However, many people are only familiar with consumer-grade programs, which are neither intended for nor accepted by professional printers. Programs created for use with home printers, and CD labeling software is not meant to output high-resolution images for professional printers. In order to output high-resolution graphics and text, printers often require that art files be submitted in Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator, or Quark/ Xpress. Below is a brief explanation of the simplest way to prepare your files for a printer.
Photoshop
Photoshop is the industry standard for importing and manipulating photographs and images. Photoshop (PS) should be used to scan in your image. When scanning in any photographs, it is generally safe as a rule of thumb to always scan in images at 300 dots/inch (dpi). To make sure your image is at least 300 dpi, open the original file, and select Image>Image Size. This will tell you what the documents actual dimensions are as well as tell you the pixels/inch (same as dpi). Also files always need to be in CMYK format. If you notice that your image is RGB, you may select Color>Mode>Convert To CMYK.
Once you have determined that your image is a high resolution, you can begin to manipulate your image. In Photoshop you can resize, change the contrast, add effects, and a whole host of other cool functions. The actual size of a CD cover panel is 4.724” wide x 4.685” tall. therefore I recommend resizing your images to a 5” x 5” working size. This extra space will leave a little “bleed” on the edges of your cover and allow for full-color saturation. At least a 1/8” Bleed is required for all artwork that is printed on paper stock.
Unless your text is large and uses specific Photoshop effects, it should always be done in other programs such as Illustrator or Quark. Photoshop text is pixel-based and therefore can look rough on the edges. The above-mentioned programs are vector-based and this basically means your text will be very crisp and legible.
Once you are satisfied with you art files as images, you should save this file in the .PSD format. This will allow you to place it into Illustrator or Quark as a flattened file.
Illustrator
Illustrator is a very powerful program, which allows users to create amazingly complex line-art illustrations. Illustrator also by default, functions effectively as a layout program. First you should open up the .EPS template files, which you can download from our templates page. Once the file is open you should be able to assess whether you are working on the insert (cover/back), or the traycard (print under the CD tray). In order to place your image in Illustrator, you should select File> Place and select the .PSD file you will be using. This should be done in a separate layer than the template and in our templates, this layer is called “YOUR ART HERE”. Once you select the appropriate file, a dialogue box will appear which will ask you to select if you want to “flatten Photoshop image”. The answer is YES, and means that you will not be able to edit the separate objects from your PSD file in Illustrator. Once the image is placed, you should move it to fit on the template. Remember: You want to have some of the image “bleed” (extending) past the edges of the template lines. If you need to resize your image, in the tool bar, select the arrow in the upper left-hand corner. While holding down the Shift+Alt keys, drag the image either larger or smaller. You will see that by holding down the above-mentioned keys, you are constraining the image proportionally.
Once you are happy with placement you can begin to add your text. As we discussed earlier, by creating your text in Illustrator you will be ensuring your text will be as crisp and clean as possible. Select the “text” button in the toolbar (indicated by the letter “T”) and click on an area in on your image. Depending on the size and color of the text against the background, you may need to make text white or increase the size to see accurately what you are doing. Once you type in your band name or any relevant text, if you select the arrow in the upper left-hand corner, once you see your text high-lighted by a blue box, you can change either the font or the text size using the control in the Window>Type>Character box. Are we having fun yet?
Because of the enormous amount of fonts available for both platforms (Mac, PC) it is important to ensure that the text looks, as you want it to. It is for this reason that Illustrator allows us to “Outline” our fonts, which means simple to turn your text into artwork. Once your text is outlined, any computer regardless of the platform or font library will be able to see your text as the font you wanted. (*Important: before you outline your text, you should save your Illustrator art as an .EPS file. Also you should “check the boxes to “include linked files”, “include document fonts”, “CMYK Postscript”, and select “Postscript – Level 3”. Once you outline fonts, they become un-editable, so you should always save a version of your final art with the text preserved as fonts.) Now that you have a back-up version of your file, hold down Ctrl+A , which will select everything in the file. Next Select Type>Create Outlines and you will see all of your text turn red. Now select File>Save As and save this file as a different name than the previously saved version. For example if my file is called “cdbroker_cover.eps”, I like to call my outlined version “cdbroker_cover_OL.eps” so that I know this one is the outlined version. The reason we save the outlined version is if for some reason you notice a typo in your proof, should you want to make edits, you will need to make them in the original version of the file then repeat the steps to outline the text.
It's not difficult to learn to use these programs effectively, however, you may want to consider using a professional graphic designer who can make your album art really pop off the shelf. For a list of graphic designers we recommend, give us a call at (800) 275-0575
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