Question To Travis - and also to all the other artists!

[Effigy]

This question(s) goes out especially to Travis - but also to all of the other Artists involved in designing/illustrating album covers.

How big are the scales when you finish an album cover?

And how do you deliver the final product to the artist/label?
On a CD or mail or...?

What format is the album cover? Cause I've seen Artists using tiff or Bitmap formats.......But, I'm wondering what for ?...why not just JPEG?

Cheers

 

[SamRonin]

Scales you mean the sizes?

Anyway, I usually deliver to the printer a 300dpi Tiff file, in RBG, and they get to do the color calibration in CYMK.

How you deliver depends solely on the client, some have an FTP account where I can upload the files, while others want a CD snail mailed to them.

The JPG format compress the image, and due to the interpolation, washes out the colors and screws the definition (just download an image from the internet, and zoom in, youll see its divided in big squares), whilst the Tiff format compress the image keeping most of the original quality.

 

[Seems like Trav]

I usually do the original art at double or triple size and include actual size and large size versions on cd-r by mail because the cd is something i feel safer doing, and i like to inlcude matchprints. i do the cmyk conversion myself as it leaves less room for errors and surprises in the end. everytime you save a file in jpeg it throws out some of the image data to make the file smaller so its tiff all the way for me. you can decide to compress the tiff or not, but either way, there is zero image datat loss witha tiff save.

NP: Opeth: BWP SE Disc 2

 

[Novembers Paul]

I design in larger format as well. Usually 8x8 inches. 300 to 350 DPI, and in RGB, converted later to CMYK. Most bands want to use the art on a t-shirt, so making them larger from the start makes for better enlargements. Tiff is also the way to go.

 

[B-lial]

and what about the EPS format??

 

[ColdDarkNord]

Actual size, tiff, 300 dpi, ftp, 2 color models (CMYK, RGB)

 

[Effigy]

Yeah...how about EPS formats? What do they do/contain??

 

[SamRonin]

Eps is vector based, programs like Illustrator or Freehand and (YUCK) Corel Draw...

The easier way to explain it, take a bmp image and resize it to twice its size, see how the pixels interpolate? most of the "data" on that image its false, if you zoom in you notice the blurr (false data).

If you take a vector based image (eps) and resize it to the infinite it wouldnt lose quality, thats because vectors are matemathical coordinates (dunno if Im making sense...), aditionally EPS files tend to be VERY small compared to their Bitmap counterparts, of course EPS has its limitations as well, you cant take a Photograph and make it an EPS cause this format does not support certain qualities.

I usually use EPS for the Logos, clean line work (such as comic book or conceptual art for my "day" job), and certain Silkscreen printings, such as T-shirts and some other stuff.

Hope that helps, and dont forget to correct me if Im wrong!!

 

[Seems like Trav]

you can also have eps raster images as well, which are different from tiff because they are completely uneditable in your ayout programs as eps.

 

[Effigy]

Ok - thanx!
.....hehe all the things you can learn here.
Thanx to everybody who posted !

 

[Rex]

to add or expand on what Travis said, an eps will hold more overall information on color and color profiles than a Tif will, usually making it a larger file size. EPS's are the way to go when importing an image into another layout program such as Quark Xpress. EPS often times will give you options to embed fonts and such where a tiff wont.

photos are usually raster or pixel oriented. Vector based files are different. they use anchor points instead of pixels. Think of it like this. you take a board and hammer in 4 nails in the shape of a square. then put a rubber band around those nails in order to "draw" the square. Thats basically what vector files are. the anchor points act as the nails and the lines connecting the anchor points is the rubber band. this is what makes loss of quality not an issue in vector based programs.

 

[Seems like Trav]

yeah. what he said.