Thursday, 13 August 2015

Make Cd Covers

Bands which are signed to big record labels don't have to worry about creating CD covers. The rest of us, though, aren't as lucky. For those who aren't particularly talented when it comes to drawing or painting, there is a website which allows users to upload a picture and create a professional looking CD cover.


Instructions


Making CD Covers Online


1. Begin by either creating or finding a picture that you want for your CD cover. Many people decide to make their own picture in a program such as Paint. Other people will use a photo of the band. The picture that you choose or make will be dependent on the interests of you and the other band members (if you have a band, that is).


2. Log onto the Big Huge Labs “Create a personalized CD/DVD cover” web page. This is the site you will use for creating your CD cover.


3. Click the “Browse” tab next to the “Choose a file on your computer to upload” heading. From there, upload your desired picture to the server.


4. Choose which part of the picture you want to remain if the photo needs to be “cropped.” Your picture may have to be reduced some in order to fit on a traditional CD cover. Just in case, select either “Center,” “Top/Left” or “Bottom/Right” depending on which portion of the picture you desire to keep intact. To avoid your picture being cropped, select a smaller picture which will fit on a traditional CD cover.


5. Write the title of the CD (or band if you wish) in the text box underneath the “Title (appears on back, top flap)” heading.


6. Add any other text (such as the name of the band, title of CD, band members or anything else that you desire) in the text box underneath the “Text (appears below title)” heading.


7. Click the box next to “Add a credit to image” if the image is copyrighted or if the artist or picture taker wants you to do so.


8. Select the “Create” box at the bottom of the screen and your CD cover will be made. Inspect the cover and make sure that you like the CD cover and don't want to make any changes. Click the “Printing and folding instructions” link to read over how you should set up your CD cover once you've printed it. You will see dotted lines on the file which will instruct you on fold the CD cover appropriately. You can also just save the file and then print it as normal if you believe that you can complete the process without any instructions.


Making CD Covers With Your Computer


9. Create or find a picture you want for the cover of your CD in the same manner as you would in Section 1. Once again, this could be a digital photo, a hand drawn picture you've scanned into your computer or a picture you've made yourself using your computer. Once you have this picture, be sure to save it in a place where you can easily find it (such as your Desktop).


10. Open the picture with your favorite photo editing software (Paint would work fine as well).


11. Make sure that the picture is the correct size. A standard CD cover will be about 600 x 650 pixels. Different CD cases, however, mean different sizes, so you may want to measure yours just to be on the safe side. The reason you'll want to do this first is because you may need to crop or edit your picture before you begin creating your CD cover.


12. Place the name of the CD and/or band (depending on your wishes for the cover) on the cover. When doing this, it's important that the text is in both a font and color which can be read by those viewing the cover. Placing black font over a black background, for example, doesn't make much sense. The colors you use can be dependent on the picture, the favorite colors of the band or anything else that you come up with.


13. Create a back cover of your CD with a list of songs on it. This should be the same size as your front cover. Your back cover shouldn't be as “busy” as the front cover, that is there shouldn't be as much pictures or as many colors. This is because the back cover will have more font on it, the names of songs and the order they appear on the CD.


14. Print the two documents and insert them into the CD case and you're all set.