Custom cover art for Blu-ray printing thread

[bpmford]

This thread is for everyone who owns Blu-rays that they want to use custom covers for.

EDIT: Thread updated on February 17 2012. My original method of printing has been changed to a much easier method of just using Photoshop!

I will use this thread to give a clear presentation of how I have printed all my covers.

1. The first thing you will want to know is that you need the high quality version of the cover that someone has made on this site or any other sites that provide covers. Some of the other popular ones I use are:

AVS Forums - Blu Ray Custom Covers Thread
Customaniacs - Low priced paid subscription to download
HiResCovers - Great covers, high quality material for making your own
This Site - Blu-Ray custom cover art thread

* Note that Both this site and AVS are provided free, so any covers that members are posting they are doing so without any compensation, so please respect their work and understand if mistakes are made or requests aren't fulfilled right away.
* Please never post covers you got on any site on other as your own, respect the hard work of the creator.

2. Wherever or however you print, ALWAYS make sure your printer is not set to scale the image, or it will not fit properly.

3. Covers are generally sized around 10.3933" x 5.8267". This means that they will fit on a standard 8.5x11 paper, albeit closely fit. If your printer doesn't have a great printing area, it may cut off your cover. For this reason you may want to use legal 11x14 paper if you can to be safe.

4. Now, all computers have a problem printing JPG covers, because they want to re-size the image to fit the page, and never really allow you to choose the size. So, unless you have Adobe Creative Suite, you will need a program like UndercoverXP. This program sizes them properly and other users seem to think it is the best one to use (I don't use it myself tho, because I don't need to!).

5. For those of you that do have Adobe's programs (specifically Photoshop), you can use them to print covers at their actual size.

6. After printing, you will want to use something to cut it, probably not scissors by hand. My recommendation would be a paper cutter if you have access to one, or even a cutting board, exacto knife and ruler if need be. When cutting, make sure you have an empty Blu-ray case with you to put the cover in and make sure it fits properly (it should, the size stated above is slightly smaller than the space in the case for a bit of leeway).

Hope this helps!

I have about 300 custom covers and they all look great, the process isn't hard and well worth it.

Please use this thread to state some of your own methods or ask any questions.

Thank you!

[Beta Man]

https://forum.blu-ray.com/showthread.php?t=5822

[Beta Man]

Re-opened.

[Mr. J]

I wish there was a Kinko's in my area!

[jamclaur]

I did all of this when I made a custom CD cover for my Michael Jackson CD and they told me that they couldn't print it since it had a copy-written picture on it. I explained to them that it was for personal use, and that I had taken copy-written pictures and edited them in such a way that it created a new piece of artwork and thus is ok to print.

Anyway, my question is, how do you get them to print your covers? What do you tell them? Or do they just do it because they aren't stupid?

[bpmford]

My InSource (Kinkos) is self-serve, so they aren't sure what I print. Also, the two guys who are always there are pretty cool and don't mind. I have printed hundreds, so I guess it's just a matter of where you go. You aren't the first person to have this problem!

bpm

Originally Posted by jamclaur

I did all of this when I made a custom CD cover for my Michael Jackson CD and they told me that they couldn't print it since it had a copy-written picture on it. I explained to them that it was for personal use, and that I had taken copy-written pictures and edited them in such a way that it created a new piece of artwork and thus is ok to print.

Anyway, my question is, how do you get them to print your covers? What do you tell them? Or do they just do it because they aren't stupid?

[Trip]

I sent a cover via email to Costco and they wouldn't do it... The girl said it was because it had a Blu-Ray logo on it. I tried to tell her that it was a custom cover and she still refused. I took it to Sam's on my USB and the guy did it with no problem, of course, it was too small and wouldn't fit.

Bottom line on printers, YMMV. Some may take issue with it, while others won't. I know that's obvious, but just wanted to pipe in with my .02 on the topic.

[Trean]

Step by Step Printing Custom Covers at Kinkos

Originally Posted by YodasFootPowder

I went into Kinko's myself going off the info found here and was able to print everything with minimal trouble. But...

1. There are two types of service you can use when you go into Kinko's and use their computers yourself. A 25 cent a minute service which gives you basic access to printing functions and a 40-45 cent a minute function that lets you use Photoshop for printing if you so choose. I would simply recommend bringing your covers into Kinko's in JPEG format and simply using the basic 25 cent a minute service. Both will get the job done in the same way.

2. You pay right at the PC with a credit or debit card. There will be a timer on the screen that shows how much time you've been on the PC and what your current charges are. It typically takes me 5 minutes or so to print off 10 covers. Which equates to $1.25 for the time usage. Beyond that it is 99 cents per page that you print. But, that is obviously, totally worth it when you consider the cost of ink cartridges for printing them at home.

3. First, you put in your credit card. You do not get charged until you have access to the PC, so the whole booting up and logging in process does not count toward your time.

4. Once you are at the desktop and ready to go, put your thumb drive in the PC. Open the thumb drive and folder containing your pictures. Whether you want to print just one picture or multiple pictures simply open one of the pictures you wish to print, you'll have the option to check or un-check certain ones later in the printing process. Once your picture is open choose the print option on the JPEG picture menu. This will bring you to the printer screen, which gives you the option to click "next" or something like that. Choose the advanced options when you see the button for it and make sure you have selected "landscape" for printing. This will ensure the picture comes out side to side like it should and not up and down.

5. Once that is done it should move you onto a section that lets you click if you want to print multiple pictures. Check the boxes for which pictures you want and un-check the ones that you don't want. At this point or after clicking "next" you should get some more picture options. Make sure you are printing to their color printer, which they will have labeled as the color printer near their computers. Also, make sure that the box labeled "fit picture to frame" is unchecked. Otherwise the image will print out too large and most likely not fit. Use paper size option "letter". Make sure that paper type is set to "sensed" or "auto" the printer will know what kind of paper you put in. I prefer semi-gloss, but you can certainly use whichever kind you think looks best. Their printers are awesome and thus, will do a good job regardless of which paper type you choose. Which paper to use simply comes down to which you like the look of most.

6. Finally, you should be using 8.5x11 paper, which is standard size paper. Put your paper into their color printer before you hit print. Once you've loaded your paper you may hit the print button. It usually takes a minute or two for the printer to warm up. So rest assured your pictures will print, but they typically don't come out for a minute or so. Once your pictures have come out you may log off the computer and it will spit your card back out at you. (You can certainly log off once you've told the PC to print your pictures, but I prefer to wait until they've actually come out so I can see that they all came out normal).

7. Lastly, I use their paper cutter to cut the covers. I also bring empty Blu-ray cases in so I can put them all in right away and make sure everything has printed out and been cut correctly.

I've never had anyone question what I was doing or tell me I couldn't. As long as you're off in your own world and not asking them questions about potential copyrighted material, they don't care.

Keep in mind, most Kinko's are probably the same, but obviously, they may vary a little bit. However, all my steps should be basically the same Nationwide.

[thisizbrian]

is there a guide on how to make this template in illustrator?

[jamesaevans]

Hi,

Thank you for putting together this useful guide, I have been working on a couple of custom covers, so this will be useful when I come to printing them out.

I'm planning to print them out on my home inkjet printer. From what I have read in other threads matt paper tends to be best. So does anyone have any recommenddations on the best paper to use?

I'm also thinking of creating some custom slipcovers for to go along with my custom cover art. I'm assuming the heavier the weight the better, I've seen upto 250gsm but not sure how this would compare to the original slipcovers. Again any recommendations on the best inkjet card to use?

Thanks
James

[bluerry]

I might have missed it but what kind of paper should I be using to get close to the original artwork paper?

[bpmford]

It would be hard to get close to the studio paper, as they use a glossy production paper that is designed for digital or offset printers.

To get a similar look, glossy photo paper works, but is not needed as the printed cover goes into the case and any gloss the cover had wouldn't be seen.

So, a standard high quality copy paper works at about 24 lbs.

Hope that helps,

bpm

[bluerry]

Originally Posted by bpmford

It would be hard to get close to the studio paper, as they use a glossy production paper that is designed for digital or offset printers.

To get a similar look, glossy photo paper works, but is not needed as the printed cover goes into the case and any gloss the cover had wouldn't be seen.

So, a standard high quality copy paper works at about 24 lbs.

Hope that helps,

bpm

Thanks for the info and your custom cover artwork is great!

[bpmford]

No problem bluerry!

Glad you like them!

Originally Posted by bluerry

Thanks for the info and your custom cover artwork is great!

[NinjaNinja]

i was wondering what if you don't have kinkos? then how would you make the cover?

[DJ Manyak]

what happened to the other thread ?

[bpmford]

This is just a thread for printing covers computergeak, there is still a cover thread and group!

Originally Posted by computergeek

what happened to the other thread ?

[bpmford]

Ninja, steps 1-5 of my OP explain how to do it if you aren't going to kinkos!

Originally Posted by NinjaNinja

i was wondering what if you don't have kinkos? then how would you make the cover?

[EPHiCS]

thanks a lot for the guide. it helped me out.

i was wondering if u can post the Adobe Illustrator template? i'm using an exacto knife so it's kinda hard to cut without a guideline and my images come out a little bigger on the paper. the template would really help. thanks.

[mtugodfath3r]

I have just recently began doing custom covers for all of my blu-rays. I came across a site called 9 Covers (http://www.9covers.com). It costs $20 for a year but there are lots of members who do covers and for me, $20 was well worth it. The site admin personally examines all the covers that are uploaded to make sure they are high quality and meet site specs. Every single cover I have downloaded has looked amazing and they have a great selection. If they don't have what you are looking for, cover requests seem to get filled very quickly as well.

I then realized I had no good way of printing these off however. The printer I have is not good enough to print high quality images and I didn't feel like going out and buying a $200-300 printer and the cost of ink. I searched online for sites like Office Max, Staples and Kinkos but the cost was around $1.00 a page for glossy paper. I then came across a site called http://www.moxicopy.com. When making my order, the copies came out to $0.20 a piece on 80# glossy paper. I did a test batch through them of 5 covers and they came out looking great! I just recently made an order for the 110 covers I had collected for all of my blu-rays and with shipping it was only $22. Their customer service was also very good. On my most recent order, I had forgotten to include 6 covers in the original file I uploaded so I emailed them and was able to get them added with no problem. Lastly, I also requested for them to cut the covers for me and they did that at no additional charge and I couldn't even tell that they had been cut from a full 8.5x11 sheet.

The way I upload all of my covers is using UnderCoverXP which was mentioned in the OP and print to a PDF. I then use a PDF merger and merge all of my covers into one PDF file. The file I uploaded for my large order was over 80 MB but their site had no problem accepting it.

This is all just my own experience and the way I plan on doing custom covers for now on but I feel it is a very easy and cheap way of doing it. I recommend either of these two sites to anyone who is looking to do custom covers.