Here you go, courtesy of Phosphor!
Phosphor "Resources: Patterns, Brushes, Custom Shapes, etc." 9/4/03 4:52pm </cgi-bin/webx?14/6>
thats still in my pastebaord Yearbook, you just beat me to it 😉
thanks so much! now the only issue i have is printing it out. the width of the DVD cases is exactly 11". for some reason i can only print 10.75" wide. so there is the white border from the photo paper that goes unprinted. i can’t use that! i need to print on the entire sheet! what i have been doing is opening up the form in word, choosing the landscape print setting and resizing the margin to print all the way to the edge. how do you guys do it? thanks so much!!!!
"how do you guys do it? "
NOT by using MS Word or any other non-professional DTP application.
I’d lay it all out in InDesign, then print to a unit that can handle the proper size stock, including bleed and trim marks.
Print on 8.5×14 paper. You may have to trim photo paper to fit.
This sort of job is so much easier in InDesign.
Steve,
I print all day long on 8.5 x 11" paper. I have yet to see DVD case sleeves that are longer than 10.75". While many of my peers here would use a Layout program like InDesign, I don’t – I don’t have InDesign, so I use Photoshop. I don’t know what advantage a layout app brings to the equation since the issue is image size v. paper size.
First realize this – as Phosphor alluded to in his post, Photoshop is an image editing program. So your DVD case needs to be the IMAGE ONLY. That is, you take that template and crop it down to the correct dimensions. 10.75 W x 7.25 H should do nicely.
If you print on 8.5 x 11" paper, your problem will be printing close enough to the edge (hence the recommendation to use 14" paper). I use a special photo glossy paper that I can’t get in 14" so… My printer is the Epson 1280 which supports wide format.
I rotate the paper 90 degrees and put it in the printer, and define a custom page that is 11" wide by 8.5" tall. That way, there is enough margin on the "back end" to accommodate the size of the image.
If you don’t do that, or if your printer doesn’t support wide printing, then you will have a very large (about a half inch) margin on the "back end" of the print. The way around this is to print half the DVD cover, then flip the page and print the other half.
But the key point is, you have to crop that template unless you use 14 inch paper.
Peace,
Tony
Or, for test prints, do it in two pieces, and hide the seam in a smooth black or white place.
I love InDesign. If I didn’t have it, I’d probably still composite the whole thing in Illustrator, because it’s so eazy to stick sundry sized objects on a page, regardless of resolution, color depth, vector/raster, or source location, and play until it works.
r_Harvey,
because it’s so easy to stick sundry sized objects on a page, regardless of resolution, color depth, vector/raster, or source location, and play until it works
That’s interesting – I might have to play with that – for now, my solution works, and works well. The limits are the printing boundaries, so I’m not clear how ID would help. It may be a "different route to the same answer" thing. <shrug>.
Steve, I beleive I ordered my paper from Neato.com
thanks guys!! tony that is exactly what i needed to know. i’m sure i understand what you are saying. we are on the same page but i just need to digest what you’re saying. you’re saying to actually crop that template? i completely thought i would need to buy 14" paper so it was a relief hearing you say that so i know i’m not that crazy.
you’re saying to actually crop that template?
Yep. The dimensions of a DVD cover are smaller than that of an 8.5 x 11" piece of paper.
Be aware though – how you do this depends on your printer. Here’s what I mean. I used to have an Epson Stylus 600 printer – old. So when you create the cover and then print, you will find that towards the end of the print, there’s a wide margin – not what you planned. This is because you run out of paper to push underneath the print heads. So what *I* had to do was to crop the template so that I was just looking at the back and the spine. I would print that, then have the Front as a Layer that I turned on, flip the paper and print that.
Now, I have a wide carriage printer (Epson 1280). So now I can avoid that bottom margin altogether by physically rotating the paper and feed it landscape into the printer.
When you print, you’ll see.
If you don’t want to flip the paper, or don’t have wide carriage, then yes, 14" paper.
If you have more problems, come back.
Peace,
Tony
will try cropping that layer and printing right from photoshop…using the landscape print setup option so it prints horizontally. cuz what i do now is change the photoshop layers to a final jpg and then copy and paste into word. i print that way. i HATE doing that since there has to be a way to print via photoshop. and yeah, it should work i thought, since photo paper or printing paper is smaller than DVD covers! that is why i came here. i will have to try the cropping thing and go from there.
tony, stupid question, how do you crop it in photoshop to be 10.75 X 7.25. all i found was the image resize and when i enter those settings it makes the image a little smaller, which would make more white borders. i can’t find crop anywhere. i have my photoshop image open and i want to crop it. there should be an area that lets you crop from the top, bottom, left, right.
thanks and sorry for the stupid question.
steve
Steve,
There are several ways to crop the image. One of them is using the crop tool from the tools pallet.
What *I* did, and I’m not saying there isn’t a better way, is I had a template that gave me the dimensions I needed. I then simply created a new image to use as a template, based on the printable dimensions. I used the measure tool to place guides where the spine would be, and set guides around the perimiter of the image so that when placing images, I could make them snap into the proper dimensions.
But for true cropping, I would place guides at the borders provided by the template – you can place guides by eye, or place them at precise locations by using View|New Guide. Then you use the crop tool and let it snap to your guides. Note: you could also use the rectangular marquee tool to crop. Draw the marquee, then Image|Crop Image.
Peace,
Tony
have tried everything and i’m so fedup!!!! I STILL GET A NON-PRINTABLE WHITE BORDER ON THE RIGHT SIDE! IT WILL NOT PRINT TO THE END OF THE PAGE! i have cropped, resized, chopped, enlarged, created a new image after cropping this template i got off the web, and nothing works! i cropped, cutting exactly along the lines of the template. there has to be a print setting in photoshop creating this print area. this sux.
Steve,
Relax, it’s not as hard as all that, it’s just a little shift in thinking. If you tell us your printer make and model, that will clue us in on the limitations of your printer.
The reason for the non-printable area on the right is as I said two posts ago. Your printer cannot physically print in that area unless you have a late-model printer with a 0.116" margin or borderless printing. If you tell us what model you’re using you’ll get better instructions.
The alternative is, again, as I said two posts ago, that is, you print half, then flip the paper and print the other half.
Keep in mind that paper is being pushed underneath the print heads. At some point you run out of paper to "push". That is a physical limitation of your printer; there are two ways around it if your printer does not support wide carriage or have smaller margin settings: one is to print in two passes (flip the paper), the other is to use 14" paper.
Photoshop is just reading your printer margins…
Peace,
Tony
tony and the rest of you guys who helped out a lot…….
finally got it by macguyvering the thing! i spent 5 hours on saturday. yeah i’m driven. i experimented with many options and the long and short of it, what i did was this…..
have an epson 785epx photo printer. i’m using 8.5 x 11 photo paper by kodak. what i did was go to printer options before printing and chose option of printing on 11 x 14 paper. and i started the print 0.5" from the top and 0.1 inches from the left margin. this give me 1/4" border on the left and it prints all the way to the end of the graphic with no border (cuz the border will appear around the 13" mark but there is no 13" mark since i’m printing on 11" paper only.) so i psyched it out. i got rid of that border by taking it out of the equation by telling photoshop i’m printing on longer paper than what i am. sorry i was ranting above but when you try and do something and it just won’t go, after you have exhausted ALL avenues, well you all know where i’m coming from.
<nodding> Glad you got it sorted. Had I not bought the wide carriage printer, that’s what I would have eventually done – told it I had 14" paper.
Peace,
Tony
