Cast Away
 

Blu-Ray cover for Cast Away from a raw scan by Jeff R 1...

Cover sized at 3173x1762 pixels with a 127 pixel spine

May I ask what you did to my raw scan. I know you re-sized it to 300 DPI and made sure the dimensions were correct for Blu-ray. I am also quite sure that you used the cloning tool here and there to clean it up. Is there anything else you did. Any info you can give me would be much appreciated as I am trying to get one of my own scans approved of "City of Ember" in "Maniaccess" Although I am just on the verge of getting it just right.
Thank You
Jeff

No problem, everyone has their own way of templating cover scans but here's a quick rundown on mine:

1) Align the cover to horizontal (if you're lucky this can be done in one step, if not, then front, back & spine may need to be aligned individually).
2) Crop the cover to the edges and resize to 300dpi. Then copy & paste into appropriate template.
3) Make separate layers for front, back and spine and align each indiviudally to the spine borders. Then crop any excess from each layer.
4) Merge the layers back together.
5) Address moire through careful use of Gaussian Blur followed by Unsharp Mask (sometimes you can use Despeckle in place of Gaussian Blur).
6) Tweak the brightness & contrast of the cover to get black & white closer to true black (0,0,0) & true white (255,255,255) and to increase vibrancy of the colours.
7) Study the whole of the cover and use the clone tool to remove dirt, scratches etc.).

I think that's about it but I may have forgotten something !

Thanks for that, I don't quite understand some of it, but don't tell me, I will find out for myself.
Thanks

Ok, good luck! Don't forget to check out some of the theads in the tutorials forum, there are several helpful guides there:

Forum Tutorials - DVD Covers & Labels by Customaniacs

I found a pretty good tutorial on how to remove moire effect. There are three methods in the article on how to do this... May I ask you which heading to click on to, to adjust the brightness and contrast ? I have a trial version of "Photoshop CS4". I have spent an hour looking for this one myself and haven't found it in CS4. Before I spend anymore time I will ask you. This is quite a specific request and I don't think it's your job to do this but, maybe other members can use this info. in the future. (provided they read this thread). Are other members expected to go this far to upload into this section ? I am getting into this deeper and deeper and I am appreciating the tremendous effort that goes beyond just a simple scan.
I am hoping that ounce I adjust for brightness and contrast that it will correct the amber colour in the cover "City of Ember". On the original it is a nice orange to yellow and when I scan it, it's just too bright and too yellow. Simply turning the brightness down just about corrects this, but it would be nice to get it just right. I found it's better scanning at 600 DPI and resizing to 300. Working with a 600 scan seems to yield better results as well when I am also adjusting the colour. Maybe I will even try scanning at 1200 DPI. My laptop is fast enough and it will do this without taxing too much.
Anything that you can give me on how to adjust the brightness and contrast will be most helpful.
Thank you very much for your time.

I have CS3 rather than CS4 but the heading for brightness & contrast is
Image> Adjustments> Brightness/Contrast (its about 7th down in the list in CS3)
I then check the box titled 'Use Legacy' and make small adjustments to brightness and contrast until I'm happy with the outcome.

About the dpi, yes I always scan at 600dpi and resize down to 300dpi. You can try at higher resolution still but it will probably only give you even more moire to get rid of !

If you wish to have access to upload scans without them being approved by the mods then you have to show that you will create a properly straightened, templated, cleaned etc. scan every time without trying to cut corners (as some have done in the past)!

Thanks for the quick answer. I have some more questions as you don't seem to mind answering them. Where on the site is the correct cover preview action for Blu-ray ? The spine on the "Outlander" cover is only 11 mm wide, maybe 10, and the professional version has only a template of 12.5. I contacted Imandix twice and asked them if there is a custom setting, but there was no response. They do have custom settings, but none for the correct lay out for this site.

What I did was use the DVD template which was 269 mm wide and then I reduced the height overall to accommodate the Blu-ray cover dimensions. I eye-balled it until it looked about right. (not very precise, but looks fine)

I waisted one credit downloading the wrong thing ounce already. Which download of the "Freemantix" software do I use for this. Or I will just ask, which preview template did you use for the "Outlander" cover ?

Thank You
Jeff

I use a customised version of a Photoshop Action file that I downloaded from this site. The orginal preview I thought was a bit small with borders that were too big, my version trims it and increases the final size of the preview. Mine also works for any size Blu-Ray cover as it changes it to a standard size first before creating the 3D image.

Do you have MSN? Drop me a PM with your email and I'll send you the Action file.

The other option is to resize your finished cover to the same dimensions that Imandix wants before running it, then it should look ok.

Great Cover And Tips Spot ON :-)