larwils,
Someone may be along to help you directly with your request. My comments are not intended to upstage anyone, but I purchased some jewel case labels and inserts about 2 years ago. The product is called Fellowes
NEATO Media Face, and it came along with an installation CD for a program just for the purpose you have outlined. There are templates for jewel case inserts, CD labels, etc. One can import picture files.
As I recall, I bought the package either in Staples or OfficeMax. It even has a press to apply the labels to a CD.
Ken
Kenneth – Thanks for your reply. I have a similar program to NEATO. My situation is that I’m developing what used to be called "camera ready" input to a professional CD layout/printing and duplicating company for an initial order of 1,000 CDs. Larry
Larry, Elements is poor at handling text. I saw this post earlier and hoped I’d be able to get a chance to test something, but no telling how long that will be. Here’s what I was thinking about doing.
Compose your text using Word. My version of Word (Office X) allows me to save to PDF, although I’ve never tried. If you can, do that, then open that document in Elements. Next do a Save As to either PSD or TIFF format and see what you get. If the text retains its formatting, you’re set, because you can use Image>Transform to scale it down to the right size (hold down the Shift key to maintain proportions while you scale.) Once you get your text into one of those formats you’ll be able to add your image on a separate layer and play with the opacity if you need to.
Like I said, I haven’t tested this, but it’s what I would try. I’d also do the lyrics to each of the songs separately so they’d go into your final doc on separate layers. That would give you maximum flexibility for placement.
Elements isn’t really a great piece of software for doing this (assuming I’m correctly envisioning what you want your final product to look like.) You might have to resort to using another piece of software.
Good luck! (And let me know if this works, because I’m curious!)
I agree with Beth, that Elements is not good at handling text layout in the way you are wanting. Avery.com has some blank MS Word templates you can download for free, you might want to try them. Create your graphics in Elements and then import it in the Word doc setup with the template.
This is the page at Avery with the blank templates for CD labels and inserts: <
http://tinyurl.com/ytjv5>
If you have the full version of Acrobat you can save in PDF which is usually more acceptable than a Word doc to most print shops and will keep your insert design intact.
Just my 2 cents.
Patti
Thanks Beth and Patti for your very responsive replies. You’ve given me some good ideas to try. It just never occured to me that I wouldn’t be able to do this in Photoshop Element. Thats what I get for assuming.
oasiscd.com also has templates and theirs are geared to professional designers, i.e. they include crop and trim lines, etc. There is also some useful advice about setting up your files there, but you’re still up against the text limitations of PE.
If you do decide to try the pdf route, try using the high pass filter for text sharpening, but I doubt you’ll find the result satisfactory.
This problem has bugged me in the past so I did some experimenting. Try this if you haven’t found a better way:
1. Type the text in word using 20 pt font size, bold.
2. Select the text in word and copy to the clip board.
3. Select File, New in Elements. Set to RGB color with transparent background, resolution 1200 pixels/inch. Leave the size parameters alone.
4. Edit, Paste.
5. Select the Magic Wand tool. Set it to Tolerance 16, anti-aliased and uncheck contiguous. Click anywhere on the white back ground and use the Delete key. Deselect,
6. Select All
7. Copy.
8. Open the background image file. With it active, Paste.
9. Select the move tool.
10. While holding down the shift key grab a corner of the text and drag to an appropriate size. If necessary grab the center of the text and position properly.
I was able to compress the print down to 1/16 th of an inch height and produce perfect text on a flower as background. I’m sure I could have gone smaller but my eyes are to old. Very large print also appears as perfect print. Printed on plain copy paper set to best.
Hope this helps.
Bob
Bob – Thank you, thank you, thank you. Your directions appear to be clear and specific. I’m new to Photoshop so I may have some followup questions. I’ll try this tonight to see if I can pull it off. Thanks again. Larry
Bob – Just used the cut and paste functions to import the text I wanted to. Worked like a charm. With the road map you’ve provided and the manual I’m confident that I will be able to do this. Thanks very much. It’s continues to amaze me that there are helpful people like you out here on the web. Larry
Larry,
I’m not sure why that worked. I’m a newbie, too. When I tried just a copy and paste I got really terrible results. My theory is that by reducing a really large set of text treated as an image the power of Elements cuts in. If you intend to use Elements for other projects (what it’s main reason for being is working with images) come back. You will find that all the artists here will teach you as much as they have taught me. There aren’t many forums like this one.
I should have included that what you get as an actual print of text does not always match what you see on your monitor. If it looks bad try a test print. You may be surprised.
Bob
Larry,
PS: Please let us know if this works for you. If not someone else will probably have an answer. Feedback on success or failure helps everyone.
Bob
