Tutorial: Printing a Box Art

[Spiderpig24]

There have been quite a few threads in the past few months with users confused about how exactly to print a box successfully. Hopefully this short tutorial will help out! There are currently tutorials for Photoshop and Paint.NET. In other image manipulation programs that do not use the Window's utility for printing, they should print like Photoshop. For programs that do use the Window's utility, follow the Paint.NET tutorial located in the second post.

Photoshop Tutorial: First Post
Paint.NET Tutorial: Second Post
GIMP Tutorial: Second Post

[Spiderpig24]

[StarMario22]

Nice tutorial. It helped me alot.

[beardedwalrus]

Very nice

[Spiderpig24]

Thanks guys. A day after I made this I got a Photoshop error saying that my printer settings weren't compatible lol. It doesn't have anything to do with the tutorial though, the driver was screwed up.

[ElMoro]

Thanks for the guide.

I have a few questions:
1) How would I go about printing it double sided? Like how most games have a design on the inside.
2) What sort of paper should I use? Glossy paper seems a quite a bit more glossy than normal game covers.
3) Do you know if there any printing shops (in the UK) that can print it for me? I don't want to spend a ton of money on paper and ink.


Many thanks.

[TrevOwnz]

Just a suggestion. Don't print by pixels print by measurement. Another thing is we are told not to print from Photoshop but to save as a EPS and bring it into Illustrator which has better printing instructions. Add crop marks and bleed for a good cut. Use a x-acto blade with a metal ruler with a cork back. Just somethings we were told in my College graphic classes.

I used brochure paper which came out just like a game covers paper stock with a 11x17 legal size so you can make sure it will fit. If you need to print front and back give yourself a margin so you don't have to worry about the design bleeding off or not aligning correctly. Then depending on the printing and program you put the paper back into the printing for the second print.

The best way is to print in Illustrator because there is a center alignment button so you don't have to worry about it being to left right top or bottom. Giving yourself a bleed and margin will allow it to print both in the center but if you hold it up to the light you will see they will be off by a cm or so. So when you cut on the crop mark it will cut off the misaligned border.

[Crotale]

One thing to keep in mind is that when you print from a standard RGB profile, you are at the mercy of your system printer driver and internal printer settings. To keep the closest print profile to the original, you want to change your color profile to CMYK. Yopu may need to modify colrs at this poiont, but highly unlikely. Generally speaking, your colors will not change unless you go from CMYK to RGB.

My suggestion would also to be to print proof a small portion of the image to see if it going to turn out the way you want. Make any necessary adjustments in levels, colors, etc, then test again. Once you have that magical setting, print away!

[ACM_Labels]

I'm so confused with this Paper issue.
I'm using 8.5"x11" US Standard paper and I'm guessing A4 is UK standard?

So if I set my paper options to 8.5"x11" in PS what should I just make the Height & Width for 8.5"x11" (I'm guessing type in 7.5" or 7.6" x 11").

Thanks.