Hi, long time listener, first time caller...

[leonardsean]

Hi all,

I have been dabbling in creating cover art for myself for a number of years now. I only do DVD covers and labels.

Unfortunately, I do not have access to Photoshop or other professional graphic arts software. I have been creating covers in PowerPoint.

I have created covers for a number of rare older movies that I wanted to share with the community, but not quite sure how to go about downloading your DVD template in a form that can be accessed in PowerPoint and then I can save it in a format that is compatible with the users of your website.

Also, not sure about what you require for information on a cover (i.e. actors, directors; duration, DVD region etc.) as I typically only add movie stills, a title still and movie synopsis.

Here's an example. (not really looking for a critique, I know you have feedback/Work-in-Progress forum. Just added pic to show an example). Really looking for advice or direction to instructions to upload my covers in a way that you can use (if desired). --Sean

[attachment=44747:sinbad.png]

[ctaulbee]

Your image needs to be in landscape or horizontal orientation.

Should be saved as a JPG.

Dimensions would be 3240 pixels wide by 2175 pixels tall @ 300dpi.

A free program like IrfanView can help you rotate the image, then correct the dpi setting.

The preview above appears to be 150dpi.

[leonardsean]

Ok downloaded the Irfan program and used it to modify the file to a .JPG, rotated it and I think it changed the definition to 300 DPI and size to 3240x2175. Let me know if this is what you're looking for, or if I did something wrong. --Sean


[attachment=44748:s.jpg]

[leonardsean]

Next question: I typically will use Poster art for the front cover, does that relegate my covers to "scanned" if the rest of the cover (back and spine) are original?

--Sean

[ctaulbee]

Scanned means retail, so as long as it's not the same art as used on the Retail cover and the back is self made then it would be considered a custom work.

The quality of the images used in your example would not be high enough to get approved for inclusion to the gallery here, the images need to be clean and crisp and those are quite blurry.

[Jazzy]

[leonardsean]

I think the decrease in quality may be due to the transition from Powerpoint (not created large enough) output to JPG, modified in Irfan...Will play with it a little to see if I can get a conversion system that will retain the quality. --Sean

[leonardsean]

I resized it in Power point (96 pixels = 1") then saved is a JPG opened it in Irfan and it was (5068x3401) I resized it to 3240x2175, and 300 dpi. saved it as a JPG. Let me know if the picture quality is till fuzzy, or if it improved any. It may be just that I chose low def pictures to include. Any additional advice or insight would be appreciated. --Sean

[attachment=44765:Sinbad_big_2x.jpg]

[bazzah]

We make allowances for lower quality images for older titles, when the images are difficult to source. But there are some issues with the quality of this still.
The main one I can see, is the text at the bottom of the front. That would need to be removed, as it is very low quality.

[ctaulbee]

As a point of clarification the dpi in Powerpoint does not matter, that is a printer setting so going from 96 to 300 just makes the image print the correct size.

The problem is the resizing, should not have to do that.

You should be working at the correct size in Powerpoint (3240 pixels by 2175 pixels DPI does not matter at that point), this way no pixel resizing is required.

Then once you save it as a jpg at whatever dpi from Powerpoint, open that in file in IrfanView.

Then on the resize screen only change the dpi to 300 from whatever it is and re-save it at 100% quality, that way the image is not resampled as the pixel count remains unchanged.

Here is a overview of what DPI is LINK as it has nothing to do with quality only changing the number of pixels or compression rate will affect image quality.