Newcomer looking for Information
 

Hi. I'm very new to this whole process and somewhat computer illiterate, but this is something i'd really like to do. I've got a few questions.. and while I know you have a very large sticky.. ive looked through a lot of the posts and can't really find anything explaining any of this.

my major questions:

-How do I resize all this the way it should be? I've got Adobe Photoshop, which I hear is a great program... my printer also has a setting for borderless photos, which is the way I've read it should be.. but when I print them, everything is still cut off (in particular, the copyrights at the bottom, and half of the front of the DVD cover. I have it set for 8X11 borderless printing, am i setting something wrong?

-is it not even worth trying to do it myself if i dont have a premium printer. What I have is a HP 7660, with standard HP photo paper. i read a lot about Kinkos and other such places being the real way to do this.. while i dont think i have any kinkos around here, should i be looking for someplace similar?

i apologize in advance if these are stupid questions that are answered obviously in other threads, but im simply not finding the answers in this forum or through google.

**also, i did that taping 3 inches of paper to the end of a 8x11 trick, and still got the same results.

well... I figured out how to resize it, it was just a matter of entering the millimeter amounts into Photoshop.for whatever reason it wouldnt allow me to do the EXACT amounts i wanted (269x184), but i got something close.. think its like 289.9x180. anyway... next off is the quality. my first replacement was Dark City, which seems to be.. okay, but you really cant make out ANY of the smaller font whatsoever. I then started to print Dr. Zauis's 2001: Space Oddessy custom... and i couldnt make out any of the font whatsoever (meanin g the movie descrip, and even the larger stuff like "MGM presents STANLEY KUBRICK'S.. etc" was really blurry. I've entered the highest quality that my printer allows for DPI (i think thats what its called.. excuse me if im mistaken).

otherwise.. the settings im using are the amounts i entered above (289.9x180) as an 8x11 letter on HP matte paper.

is there anything i can do, short of buying a expensive laser printer with glossy photo paper, to improve the quality?

You don't have to resize to print, they are already the right size.

if I don't resize it gets cut off. do you mean Letter 8x11 are already the right size, or Legal is already the right size?

i see what you mean.. im able to print it without having to resize anything. Still though, using 2001:Space Oddessy custom as an example.. the "special Features" blue box on Zaius's custom cover is completely illegible, and the normal Movie Descrip is also very hard to make out, like i said before.

Is this just his downloadable version being sorta blurry, or is it the fact that, well.. i DONT have a thousand dollar printer with paper to match?

Check the resolution. If it's less than 300 ppi you can expect some fuzziness. Of course if the original cover is crap than it doesn't matter what the resolution is. I use Zaius' 2001 cover myself, so I know it is not a low resolution problem with that particular cover. You also might want to double check all your printer settings to make sure you are printing at the highest quality setting and for the correct type of paper. Also if you're resizing be sure you don't have it set to maintain a particular aspect ratio (you want to define the sizing yourself, not have it try to maintain particular dimensions). If you're still having problems try setting it by inches rather than pixels or centimeters. The appropriate size for a standard single-sized cover is 7.25 (h) x 10.80" (w), or 2175 x 3240 pixels. Btw, if you need a tutorial on how to make your own covers (like converting snappers) I have a simple-to-follow one saved that I could send to you. Welcome to the community!