How to print CD album Covers?

PhotosbyKW · February 21, 2010

Hey folks. I got a request tonight to print some things for a band. One of the things the guy was interested in was Band portrait and advertising for CD album covers.

Shooting: Sure, got that covered.

But...

Printing album covers: I have no earthly idea as to how I'd setup or print such a thing.

If yall have any software or technique suggestions, then that be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.

KAW.

BradfordBenn · February 21, 2010

That one is very open ended as there are many different formats and sizes of CD cases, sleeves, holders etc. I would suggest you ask who is doing their duplicating and then go to the duplicators website as they often have the technical specs and even templates.

if not, really it is no big deal, it is just like printing anything else just make sure the size is right. Of course there are many many variables, such as do they want to do text, is it front and back of the case... etc. I would recommend looking at a commercial CD and see how many different pieces there can be, the back of the case, the booklet or just a insert for the cover, a postcard in some of them. I would ask the band for more info.

eur0ed · February 21, 2010

drop your artwork into one of these templates to get the sizing right first try.

http://www.proactionmedia.com/artwork_templates.htm

Macushla · February 27, 2010

If they only want a few you can print them out but if they are going to be making a lot of CD's the company that does the reproducing usually does that. They have equipment that prints directly on the CD's. It is much more professional than using a stick on.

I made a DVD for a family event, I only needed 20 and I had it done by the DVD company, it was included in the cost of reproducing the DVD. I just had to include a disk with the photo I wanted on the disc.

Art Scott · February 27, 2010

I have 3 softwares depending on what I want......total creativity....Adobe pagemaker.....I do believe it will still interface with Photoshop.........I also use Sure Thing CD/DVD labeler.....CLIK and DESIGN for CD STOMPER.....and LIGHTSCRIBE.............I guess makes for.........in the pro world CD jewel case inserts are pretty much the same size.....where the read difference comes in is in the layout of the insert and quality of the seperation perforations.......if low quality the inserts won't separate nice and clean...there will be a lot of waste..................The best disks I have ever run across is the Mitsui Gold (MAM-A out of Colorado).....the University I used to work for tried memorex, TDK, Sony and then it was recommended by a local recording studio that we try Mitsui Gold.....the failures went from 10-20/100 disks to less than 10/1000 disks........for real professional look get the unbranded disks............The Mam-A website has a great history on their products also...........

For our use everything had to be the best we could get.....we hosted a huge jazz fest every year and recorded and printed labels and inserts on the fly.....as a performer would come off the stage and walked to our recoding studio office they were handed a Finished CD with printed inserts and labels.........then we were doing another 2-6K for a choir here and also all the student recitals and guest artists the University brought in and a few other Pro recording artists thru out the year.............

How to print CD album Covers?

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