The ideal cover size

by **grasstust** » Tue Jul 03, 2007 3:53 pm

This question is in two parts:

First: What is the ideal cover size x-y-ratio in the actual DVDPedia program so that DVDPedia won't stretch it wider or higher?

Second: What is the ideal pixelsize a DVD-cover should be? I guess it doesn't make much sense to keep pictures bigger than what is displayed in the biggest zoom mode...

by **danio** » Wed Jul 04, 2007 1:14 am

I can't really answer your question, though I do think it's something of personal choice.

I prefer to scan my covers and reduce to a height of 850 pixels with the width being kept in aspect. As I don't really have 'that' good a scanner right now I scan at 300dpi and reduce accordingly.

I also like to scan my front covers to include the spines, which I think looks nice - it's something that some find very ugly! :shock:

Scanning and storing the images at this size I find I can view them without needing to scroll and that I also seem to notice much more detail in the artwork than looking at the actual box! :wink:

At the moment (and as I'm not capeable of web coding) the templates available for dvdPedia don't offer the option to have thumbnails from which you can access a full size cover item on a web export; therefore covers are only really postage stamp size, which is a shame.

by **Conor** » Wed Jul 04, 2007 3:59 am

The cover sizes vary a bit from each source, the height tend to be around 1.38 - 1.42 times the width. DVDpedia's cover view is adjustable and will only stretch the cover by a max of 10% to fit that view. The one place where the covers are fixed to a specific ratio of 1.4 is in the full screen mode so that all the covers will line up.

The pixel size of the images coming from Amazon tend to have a height of 500 pixels. This is fine for DVDpedia's uses, but it's also a question of what you plan to do with the covers; for example printing and or high resolution exports for the web. Some users keep covers with a high DPI and pixel sizes for these reason.

by **grasstust** » Sun Jul 08, 2007 7:36 am

OK, thanx both of you.

Conor: So to be crystal clear:
A Cover in the size of 400 x 560 will NEVER stretch? (400 x 1.4 = 560).

I don't care about printing the covers so I guess this size will suffice for me.

by **Conor** » Sun Jul 08, 2007 10:03 am

Crystal clear, 1.4 is the number for the cover view and full screen.

by **MrVengeance81** » Thu Jul 19, 2007 3:24 pm

For those who scan their covers.....what do you do when the cover you are scanning are printed on metallic foil paper (most Buena Vista Blu-Ray covers), or have metallic areas (The Others, Matrix Ultimate Set)

by **danio** » Sat Jul 21, 2007 4:26 am

MrVengeance81 wrote:For those who scan their covers.....what do you do when the cover you are scanning are printed on metallic foil paper (most Buena Vista Blu-Ray covers), or have metallic areas (The Others, Matrix Ultimate Set)

I've never managed to scan these titles and achieve a decent scan, I've tried all the settings I have on the scanner, none of them seem to help - maybe my scanner is just too 'basic' - I just need an excuse for an upgrade; if anyone does have a solution?