The ideal cover size

grasstust · Post 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...

danio · Post 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!

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!

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.

Post 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.

grasstust · Post 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.

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

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

MrVengeance81 · Post 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)

danio · Post 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?