Making album cover jewelcase inserts

You can look for an online printshop or visit a professional print shop in your area. Most of them require that you deliver in pdf, which is very simple to do. Tell them exactly what you want.



Work in 300dpi or a higher spec in accordance with your printer.



It will look better on paper mostly than it will on your screen, because the latter is "only" 72dpi.

I do this myself out of my own shop and it works out very well. With only a very modest investment, I have a very good looking final product. (The only comments I've ever gotten from clients were along the lines of "VERY professional looking" and "Impossible to tell the difference from a commercially released CD")



I use a Oki 5150n color laser printer (used to use a Xerox Phaser 850 - MEGA bucks wax based printer, but the newer Oki turns out phenomenal stuff for a fraction of the cost!). The paper is a special paper I bought from my local supplier which is a medium weight, medium gloss paper used for printing CD jackets and other flyers. It set me back about $100 for a full box and lasts a VERY long time.



My final investment was a stack cutter - a large paper cutter made to cut hundreds of sheets at the same time. From my supplier, this would have cost me $600 and higher. From Ebay, a generic one (which needed some tinkering to make it accurate) set me back $120 + shipping. Well worth it (compared to cutting each one individually!)



Now, 200 or more CDs can be printed, cut and stuffed in a boring afternoon of TLC reruns of Mythbusters.



Cheers!



Jeremy

If I do it myself at school we use similar equipment to Cucco. I found this company last year however and was VERY pleased with the results, turnaround and professional quality.



http://www.hotcards.com/cd-insert-tray-card-package



If you can turnaround the cost to your clients or if you're not producing large numbers on a regular basis, I'd give it a try





Phil

For short runs I use an EPSON R300 or R220 inkjet printer and HP 34lb Glossy Brochure paper. I had to experiment a lot with the driver to find the right print mode to get the best looking output. It is darn close to photo quality and the paper is two sided so it works great for liner notes and such. I use a bulk ink system to save $$$ over buying ink cartridges.

zemlin,

What bulk ink system do you use? I have the R200, and it's a great home printer for small runs. The ink I use is water based, and it will run on a printable cd surface if the cd comes in contact with moisture (as in if you lick your finger and wipe the cd). It does work well on photo paper.

My bulk ink systems came from INKJETFLY.COM - I would not recommend them. I use ink from MIS http://www.inksupply.com/. Their CIS packages are pricy, but if I need to buy a replacement that's probably the route I'd go.



You GOTTA' try the WATERSHIELD disks from TY. Beautiful print and very water resistant. I'm never going back.

How are they different than the standard printable TY's?



My biggest gripe that I can tell is that they don't offer the silver surface Watershields, only the white. To me, the white surface printables look like labels which equates to a cheap look to me. Is this improved with this new version?

Yes - you won't believe the difference. It is unfortunate that they don't offer silver, but with white this good I'm willing to deal with it.