DVD case cover software

and labels.

Not on your DVDs!

Here's how I make inserts of the main menu of my iDVD project.

Go into the Applications folder. Find the Utilities folder. Open it. Find Grab. Double-click on it. Go into the Menu, click on Capture and select Selection. Now, drag your cursor across the menu and release. Name and save the image (to your desktop?).

Open in Photoshop (or Elements). Crop to 4.75 x 4.75 inches for Apple's CD case. Crop to 5.125 x 7.25 inches for DVD case. Print and insert.


Not exactly "easy," but it works for me. 🙂

I just made a DVD case insert (for the large 'regular' size DVD cases, not the slim ones) using 'Pages.' I first tried to make one using AppleWorks drawing program, but I wanted the text to rotate sideways over the photos. The text would overlay, but disappeared with rotation. So, I tried Pages.

It was easy to set the margins for the exact size I needed. I used the landscapes layout in Page Set-Up. Pages is integrated with iPhoto so grabbing several of my photos was easy. They did need to be sized down, but just dragging one corner accomplished that.

The only thing I did by 'eyeballing' the space was the strip for the spine of the case. I knew where it should be based on the measurements from Memorex's Expressit that I had used up to now. [I finally gave up on Expressit because it is SO slow and won't import all the photos I select and the photos have to be in a separate folder because it won't read iPhoto, and it has started to freeze frequently; probably not so compatible with OS X].

Anyway, the Pages case insert looks great. I used about 17 photos and put the title on the spine in black and another one on the front in white. I am just using regular paper to print them , cutting them out and inserting. The whoe process was very easy, much easier to manipulate the photos than with Expressit.

I have an Epson R230 colour printer that allows me to print directly onto ink jet printable disks. Is that a problem??? Because they look fabulous. (And it deletes the need for a cover.

Hi
Or you could try the software disclabel (smileonmymac.com). It does CD and DVD cases - all sizes and CD/DVD labels. I have a Canon Pixma MP760 printer and print directly to the CD/DVD.

Cheers
NikkiG

I use Discus for both printing directly on disks and for DVD case covers, inserts, etc. A very good piece of software IMO.

Do you Twango?

Thanks for that Old Toad!

I used Discus prior to getting my Epson R300 printer...but, for the life of me, I couldn't remember the name of it! LOL!

Guess I'm getting old... but at least I'm not green..hee..hee

:)Sue

iMac ppcG5 1.8 GHz 20FP & (2)iMac G4 800MHz 17FP Mac OS X (10.3.9) OS X 10.4.6 / iLife 4,5,6 Superdrives & 1 G RAM / QT6 pro

www.jewelboxing.com is the best I have dealt with. No software but they have templates for photoshop, illustrator, pdf, you name it. They come with perforated paper that you just tear off the parts you don't need. The cases themselves are really nice, sturdy and clear which can aid to nice design for your inserts. Plus then you don't need third party software cluttering your machine. I have gotten many a compliments on the ones I have created.

Anybody know any good software to print for DVD case
covers and labels.

I use UnCoverIt from http://www.iwascoding.com/UnCoverIt/ to make case covers

hey guys!!!
yeah i was looking for some software to do this and was surprised that idvd or some other mac app didn't have software to print out DVD labels and cases etc
avery do some software for it but i dont think mac supports it!!
any ideas please on how i could use my avery DVD labels with mac please?

thanks

BM

I hope you continue getting old for a few more decades.

avery do some software for it but i dont think mac supports it

Yes it does. It is called:

Mac Label Expert EN (published by Avery)

Try googling for it, or VersionTracker, as I can't seem to find a link to where I got it from. Works brilliantly.

I wanted to make a CD cover and had read this and a few similar threads. Too bad there isn't a direct equivalent of the CD Cover making utility in iTunes. there were some suggestions about using different software packages, and about all kinds of cut and paste efforts in Adobe (which I don't have and don't want either because its too complicated for me.)

What to do, woe is me...... Life is hard......

I decided to Hijack the functionality in iTunes.
First, create a new play list in iTunes with the title of your DVD project.
Then drag ONE song into it. Anything will do, but make it something "expendable" or plan to reverse your changes later on. I choose something I had downloaded from an obsolete CD. Just one song.

Now, highoite the song in question and use Apple Command I to edit the song's information. Change the title and everything else so it reads the way you want your DVD cover to read (but the system thinks its talking about a CD for now) and you are in iTuunes.

If therre is already a photograph album cover that came with the CD, delete it.
Add your own cover art. In my case, the DVD is of a slide show (see iPhoto) and I just picked one photo from the slide show.)

in order to get that just one photo, I exported it from iPhoto onto my desktop and renamed the file to match the title of the DVD, only with the .jpg extension on the photo.

Now I imported that photo in as the album cover.

At this point I have song whose name and title have been edited to match the DVDs information.

I have my own album art associated with the music file, which is really inended for the DVD cover.

I have a playlist in iTunes with ONE song in it, and the info and photo associated with that song is really intended for use on the DVD cover.

Highlite the playlist in question (Its name is the title of the DVD) and hit Apple Command P. The iTunes CD Cover printing utility starts up. Select Single CD cover and hit print, then preview to make sure what you are about to get is what you want. (Never mind what we deserve, that's irrelevant and probably best avoided anyway.)

Assuming everything is OK, go ahead and print it. I print on special card stock that is made for CD album covers. Is Avery stock number 8693 and its especially made for printing CD covers. It has tear perforations that make the sheets come out exactly the right size for a CD cover, and the card stock is thicker than plain copy paper. This stufff is sold in the large computer stores, but its overpriced.

Anyway, now you have a custom made DVD Cover coming out of iTunes and you have not spent a dime, and you have only used the software that comes on your Mac in the first place.

Impress your friends and neighbours but don't tell them how you did it....

Enjoy and please let me know if anybody has an even better way, or wants me to amplify on this. It takes longer to describe this than it takes to do it.





iMac 20" Mac OS X (10.4.7)

...all kinds of cut and paste efforts in Adobe (which I don't have and don't want either because its too complicated for me.)

Hi Boris - and the iTunes method isn't complicated ? I guess at least it's free but I have to wonder what the final results turn out like - there's covers and there's covers.

Just for anyone who's interested, after spending months honing my skills in iMovie and iDVD I got fairly proficient at making DVD case sleeves in Photoshop Elements but got fed up with Discus RE (awful interface) and CD Label Print (similarly awful interface) for printing my picture discs. Then I read a couple of good reviews of Software MacKiev's Print Shop 2 for Mac. It's cheap even in the UK (£37).

Print Shop comes with templates for just about any creative project you can think of but I especially wanted something that worked well and complimented my discs.

The real beauty of Print Shop for me is that it not only integrates with iLife but there are matching DVD/CD covers and picture disc templates that have the same designs as iLife3, 4, 5 and 6 !

This program is a Godsend and it means that your entire project's theme can match from cover to picture disc to menu.

I highly recommend it.

iMac G5 20" 2.0GHz 1Gb RAM Mac OS X (10.4.6) eMac 1GHz 512Mb RAM

iMac G5 20" 2.0GHz 1Gb RAM Mac OS X (10.4.6) eMac 1GHz 512Mb RAM

You are right in a way Mr. Blue Sky. The use iTunes approach does have several steps. Probably someone already familiar with Adobe Photoshop might feel comfortable doing it that way. y understan ding of that program is that it is comploex, but for somebodhy who has already climbed the learning curve on it, then there is another case. And, I simply cannot comment on any of the third party disk cover making utilities since I don't have (and for now) don't want any of them. Maybe that would change if I was making more disks.

Different readers of this thread may conclude that (a) they are already familiar with the iTunes functions mentioned here, or (b) that the time has come to become familiar with them. That was my situation, so this is one of those: "works for me" but may not work for you kind of situations.

Results? First of all, they arrive. (Basics are good to keep track of).
What about quality? A third party utility or the Adobe approach you have described will definately produce better results. But, for somebody who does not already have either Adobe or a third party program and only needs to make the odd cover every so often, no cost, use what you already have approaches are OK. In the meantime, a photo, sized to fit thejewel case is not all that bad of a fate. I think somebody could pull a photo into a box within MS Word and add text on top of that if they had the patience. (Not me, at least not yet, but the idea just now occured).

For my own part, I'm just now starting down the path you have already traveled and expect to spend some serious time "honing my skills" with iDVD and iMovie, so its pefectly likely that at some point I too would be interested in a more capable approach. But, for me, and at the present time, editing iTunes song info and attaching a photo to that is just fine. Maybe pulling the project into Word and setting up a template or 2 would work as well, but I don't want to invest much time in covers for now.

Thanks for challenging my beliefs, and good luck on your projects! Hopefully the other people on this thread will get something out of it as well. The old country folk used to say: "There's more than one way to skin a cat"!