Sunday, 9 March 2014

DVD Inlay - Adding a Back Cover Image & Other Details


The first thing I needed to do was to decide what I wanted to do with the back cover and the spine. Looking back at other covers I decided that what might work pretty well is going with something a bit similar to the Duke Nukem Forever design.


Ignoring the Games For Windows Header the image stops from the front cover at the spine, like mine does and then a new but separate image is then added to the rear cover with the bottom part of the cover and the spine being black.

This seemed like it could work well for me as well and I suppose that a black spine means that it is easy to make out the title on the shelf so that could be a good design decision anyway.

With this in mind I started by selecting my background layer and filling in the rest of it with a black fill.


This also melded in quite nicely with the top of front cover so there does seem to be some crossover from the front to the spine.  It's faint but it is noticeable when looked at spread out like this. 

Then I had to try and find a suitable picture of something to put onto the back cover. I liked the idea of keeping with the demonic theme and chose a picture of a demon wreathed in flames to keep the "hellish" theme going.

The picture can be found here: http://wallpapertube.com/digital-art/1-miscellaneous-digital-art-demon-monster-fire-demon-wallpaper


I opened the picture in Photoshop and then renamed the layer to remove the lock on it. Then I pressed Ctrl + A to select the entirety of it and then using the Move Tool I dragged it onto my template. Once there I resized it using the transform tools and positioned it on the back up to the bleed edge.

 
 Given the colours of it being quite bright and then fairly dark it might well be very difficult to read any lettering which will need to be superimposed on top. Therefore I may end up changing it but for now I think it looks good. 

After this I wanted to add both an ISBN barcode segment (which incidentally I forgot to allocate space to on my initial design) and the BBFC logo's. The barcode always seems to be on the lower right of all the games I own so putting it there with the BBFC certificate above it made sense to me. This will mean I have to find somewhere else for the Gearbox and ID's studios logos to go.

I again located suitable examples on the internet. The ISBN code I used can be found here: 

 http://imsbarcodes.com/assets/bc_samples/ISBN%2017x31.jpg

The BBFC can be located here:

https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTBFOCDJmZwc1dUe0DFQzcXSkmS9zyBx1Ju3b9d7wdAk2_dMV_RUA98swHJsOxTCMsnHB9DYa5epg8kvXlwn5TXIcY7aCaXn-eiCXntaFb5sZqvRKb-OV5U-BcqBBpL5lZoK0a87jfp40/s1600/18.png

Similarly to the main back cover image I opened these up in Photoshop and then dragged and dropped them onto my template. Photoshop added them as new layers which I renamed to BBFC Logo back and ISBN back. After positioning them I had the template looking like this.


It's starting to look a lot more like a proper case now!

Next up was starting to get some of the lettering for the spine and the BBFC certificate added to it. 

I selected the Doom logo layer and then by pressing Alt and holding it whilst dragging the Doom logo I duplicated it. I could then rotate this 90% and resize it before placing it on the spine. After some small changes again to the size I could do the same procedure with the Duke Nukem logo. 

So now I had the template looking like this. 


Next up was also adding the BBFC certificate to the spine at the bottom.

I went back to my copy of it in Photoshop and then tried using the elliptical lasso tool to just go round the actual 18 certificate bit. After a few unsuccessful attempts I went back to zooming in very closely and using the magnetic lasso tool again which worked well very quickly. I could then drag and drop this onto the spine of my DVD inlay.

I am now at the point where it looks like this and is really starting to come together.



What is left to do:

I still have quite a lot to do.

The main things are the three screenshots which if I continue to use the current back image will be in a line at the bottom of the image. I will then put all the writing above these. Again, it just depends if I can make it legible or not. 

I need to also do the Power Armour and Kittens clipping masks and add them to the front of the case. I might add another BBFC certificate if one fits anywhere. 

On the back I need the system requirements, legal disclaimer and Company Logo's squeezed in underneath the main image and to the left of the ISBN and BBFC images. 

I still need to finalise the writing to go on the back of the case. 

I need to come up with a nice "Vs" I can put between the main Doom and Duke Nukem logos's. 

I also want to put PC Game and possibly the DVD logo on the spine at the top so will probably have to reposition the Doom logo a bit lower to allow for the space for this.

Hopefully then it will be minor tweaks to things but that should pretty much be it.

 
 

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