Comments on: Top Ten CD Sleeve Design Tips

By: Andrew Kelsall

Andrew Kelsall — Sat, 07 May 2011 12:51:07 +0000

Alyssa → Any good printers should have them available to download free on their site. There’s so many to choose from, so there’s no point in providing one I have on file, as it will probably be the wrong one.

casey → Well, Photoshop and Illustrator, but these programs are costly. Cheaper alternatives may from older versions of these programs (try eBay), or use free programs such as Avery – although I can’t vouch for this program; never used it.

Thanks for commenting…

By: casey hamm

casey hamm — Sat, 07 May 2011 11:46:22 +0000

Hello,
I wanted to get your opinion on a CD designing program (software obviously), Any advice would be great. (Mid range in price)

Thanks
Casey

By: Alyssa

Alyssa — Sun, 27 Mar 2011 14:03:34 +0000

Thanks for the tips!! Ha, the outline idea is good… I have to remember to do that for more of my creations. OMW I have little white images, text, even full logos off the artboards just waiting to be discovered.

Also… do you have a template for a CD booklet?

Thanks!

By: How to Design a CD Album for a Local Band | Andrew Kelsall | Graphic Designer

Thu, 10 Jun 2010 13:37:31 +0000

[...] there isn’t a lot of space on the jewel case spine for the allocated text. My article on CD Design Tips (on point 7) address’s the issue of getting this critical text positioning [...]

By: designfloat.com

designfloat.com — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 00:49:09 +0000

Top Ten CD Cover Design Tips…

Here is my Top Ten CD Cover Design Tips in order of design process. This article is written for an intermediate Photoshop/Illustrator user and upwards, focusing on the technical side of things, so here goes……

By: Andrew Kelsall

Andrew Kelsall — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 12:28:55 +0000

@Jason → Thanks for the helpful colour information

By: Jason

Jason — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 11:33:37 +0000

Just thought I would chip in on the colour thing, It’s always best to work in Adobe RGB, or even better ProPhoto RGB, with images and then convert to specific colour profiles at the end of output, you never know when that web project turns into a print project and vice verser!

It is also best to not use Image>Mode>RGB/CMYK etc, but to use Edit>Convert To Profile which gives you greater control of the conversion. Lab is great too, but best for beginning adjustments and final adjustments in my opinion.

By: Andrew Kelsall

Andrew Kelsall — Sat, 16 May 2009 21:28:18 +0000

@Montana

Thanks for the info. I must admit, I’ve only ever read about using LAB color, but never actually used it. This is something I will experiment with when I have chance.

Thanks for your helpful comment and contributing to this article.

By: Montana

Montana — Sat, 16 May 2009 17:15:32 +0000

Hi,
I was reading the replies here and I may have a bit of help for those who have trouble with the RGB > CMYK convert because of the visible colour change. One way to make this less noticeable can be (in Photoshop) to convert RGB > LAB and then from there LAB > CMYK.
Just something a teacher taught me at college and it seems to work pretty well.

Montana

By: Andrew Kelsall

Andrew Kelsall — Sat, 16 May 2009 10:57:34 +0000

@Anestis G

Sorry, but I am a little confused as to your question. However, I will try and offer some info which may answer it (as best I can).

1. I advise you start all work in RGB.
2. When you have done all you need to in RGB, save another version of the file(s) and convert to CMYK.
3. After all is finished, and the client requires changes to a particular layer, go back to the RGB version and start the re-saving process again.

* When saving the CMYK TIFF files, I just stick to 8-bit files, making sure LZW in turned-on (check that the printer accepts LZW compressed files, they should now in 2009), make sure layers are flattened and that no alpha channels remain as they will add to the file size.

Hope this helps