Highlighting some amazing customer design.
This single card wallet and cd onbody printing are so seamless its hard to see where each start and finish.
Go to our free online artwork creation tool and the templates that are easy to download to help you with you with your design.
Every now and then we have art submitted for orders that really catches our eye!
Take a look at these card wallets:
Use our free artwork creator tool and the card wallet template in our artwork section to create your card wallet.
Back Pain Instructional DVD
Whilst posting on Social Media I reflected on the huge diverstity of customers we have at Duplication Centre.
Its fantastic that we can work with so many interesting customers:
Instructional DVD’s for a whole host of topics: Fishing,Pilates, Back Pain Cure, Painting, Guitar tuition…. to name but a few.
CDs for School, CDs for both Solo Artists and Bands, Gospel Music, Prayer Casts, Self Help CDs, Mediation CD’s, Blank DVD’s for Photographers & Videographers,Theatre Prodcutions,University Graduation Ceremonies, Buskers, Fund raising/charity CDs.
Each project has its own special interest and purpose and makes our work both interesting and fulfilling.
Call us if you need help or advice with your project or get an instant quotation online:
This article is the second in our series to help you understand some of the terminology used in the duplication process
Beware, we are now moving into the area of artwork and the word image no linger relates to a disc image! When talking about artwork, and image is simply a picture, a graphic or photograph
PDF stands for “portable document format.” Adobe Systems designed this format, which has become the standard for exchanging electronic documents. Its a very complex and powerful format used extensively in artwork design and printing, perfect for supplying your artwork supporting the other artwork formats below, as well as special print formats, colours and vector graphics.
These image formats are ideal for photos and similar images containing many colours offering good quality and acceptable sizes are possible. The quality / file size of a jpeg can be altered through the use of compression.
The three formats all vary slightly in the way they apply compression to the images, each with its own advantages. For printing its best to keep the compression at a minimum so the files are larger and better quality.
This format is only used by the graphics programs Photoshop. The files are generally large and contain lots of additional information and layers which are not needed for print. The complexity of the files make them perfect for editing and designing, BUT not ideal for printing. You should save your artwork to PDF or JPEG when ready to submit for printing.
To learn more about artwork formats this article is a good place to start, offering beginner guides to the various types: Further information on artwork formats.
As in most Industries there are many terms and abbreviations which are used in duplication, that have become part of our ordinary language. For the uninitiated these terms can sometimes appear complicated and a bit daunting. This is especially true of file formats as some terms are used to define different entity’s even when working in the same markets!
Our Director of Technology Mark Smith has written a series for articles that we will publish over the next 3 weeks explaining some of the most used terms,in relation the the optical media (CD, DVD and Blu-Ray) market. With links for more detailed explanations:
This simply means a hard copy CD or DVD which we can use to duplicate from.
The type of images here are not photographic images. The term relates to a ‘snapshot’ of the contents of a disc, the format and the exact layout.
The most important thing when working with disc images is you are sure you have formatted them correctly. Failing to do this will result in any discs made from them to be faulty. If there is any doubt, or you are new to this area, ask for help and advice. We have a team here who are always available for email, phone or online chat and will be very happy to help and advise you.
An .iso image is a computer file that is an exact copy of an existing file system. ISO files are typically created through a software application that will extract the contents of a CD or DVD, and then write then as an exact electronic copy of the original disc to a file (a .iso file). This allows us to burn to burn an exact copy of the original onto CD or DVD.
Iso files are perfectly acceptable for CD-Rom and DVD-Video, but should not be used for CD-Audio due to technical restrictions
This format is very similar to a .ISO image with a few subtle changes and features which are beyond the scope of this article. For our purpose they can be used the same as an ISO, but more in depth information can be found in this article should you wish to learn more.
Like ISO files, .img should not be used for CD-Audio discs.
These files are a relatively new proprietary optical disc image file format. NRG files are used in the same way as other image formats, but are a more advanced and very versatile.
NRG files can be used for any type and format of disc, CD-ROM, CD-Audio, DVD-Video, Blu-Ray, etc.
This stands for Disc Description Protocol and is commonly used for delivery of disc pre-masters for commercial Glass Master Replication. The DDP format is compatible with all CD and DVD discs and is the industry professional format used in mass manufacture of discs. Although becoming more common, its a relatively unknown format used mainly within the optical media industry for transporting discs electronically between production facility’s and mastering houses.
DDP files can be accepted the same as all other listed image formats for duplication, but are not a specific requirement in any way. Further more detailed information on this format is available here.
This is a versatile image file format particularly useful for CD-Audio. The consist of two files,
Each of the Bin & Cue files are meaningless on their own, and must be provided together with their specific and matching partner, never mixed or edited. Further information of this file type can be found here.
We have started to share Amazing Artwork and Important News on Instagram.
Dont miss out on seeing some inspiring and cool art from customers along with Important News and Offers.
Follow us on Instagram..and keep in touch …
.https://www.instagram.com/duplicationcentreltd/
Playing our small part and being responsible for our own footprint, is our starting point with environmental issues.
CD, DVD & BluRay has traditionally been a very plastic orientated industry, with the CD Jewell Case and the Standard Plastic DVD box being for many years, the norm for packing and presenting your discs.
Over the last few years, and in conjunction with current responsible thinking we have been keen to promote our Eco-Friendly casing options.
We have developed our own templates and sourced FSC certified Sustainable card stock to provide our customers with a high quality, low price, ecofriendly range for CD, DVD & BluRay packaging.
These include:
CD Lancing Pack with 4 page booklet
Cd single card wallets
As a result of this we have noticed a huge shift in the choice our customers make when deciding on their cases.
Our card wallets by far exceed the popularity of all our plastic options.
At the same time we are very respectful of peoples right to choose and still stock all the traditional case choices. Where possible and where the quality is good enough, we use eco plastic versions like the ecolite Amaray cases for our traditional dvd packaging.These are both fully recycled and recycleable.
All of the templates for designing any of our card products can be found here:
https://www.duplicationcentre.co.uk/artwork-pdf-guidelines.html
It’s easy to buy a Barcode from us, just email una@duplicationcentre.co.uk requesting a Barcode and she will send you a PayPal payment link for £25 plus vat.
You can then add the Barcode to the artwork you prepare for us when we run your CD, DVD or Blu Ray job for you.
If you are selling in shops and online you will need a barcode. Remember too that if you sell via Amazon you also will need to have us Cellowrap your job, as it’s an Amazon requirement.
The Barcode is the unique number that when scanned will identify your product. You need a barcode for each of the individual products you have. Remember that the pricing information related to the barcode is set by each individual retailer. The Barcode simply identifies the product itself.
BARCODE
*Unique 12/13-digit code assigned to your product – guaranteed if you buy from us.
*Scanned in shop or online checkout by your retailer for stock management and sales data information.
*World Wide use
Barcodes are easy to insert into your artwork, (we provide them to you in a variety of different formats) and come with a certificate of authentication.
Alternatively, we can easily add the Barcode you have purchased from us to your artwork for you, just let us know when you order.
Don’t be fooled and get a Free Barcode…there are lots of fake ones out there!
There is a great deal of information and research published about the health benefits of listening to and also of performing music.
Here at duplication centre we love to work with customers who are publishing as a solo artist or group/band and creating a hard copy CD,DVD or Blu-Ray to share with family, friends and fans.
Commit your work to CD for others to hear or just for your own enjoyment and pleasure.
Don’t forget to copyright your original music to ensure you receive any credits for use of your work.
You can find out about doing this on the PRS For Music website.
It’s satisfying and raises self esteem….and may even raise some cash!!
Why is it that your printed colours look different to what you see on your monitor? Everything looks great on the screen but the prints come out subtly different.
The truth is you will never see a perfect match between images on the screen and images on paper, they are simply put, two very different entity’s.
You monitor image is made us from pixels, these are thousands of tiny lights, and each of these lights can produce around 16 million colours, which is more than our eyes can recognise! These lights are know as the RGB (Red, Green, Blue) colour space.
A printed image is made up from dots of ink splashed on a piece of paper. We use 4 ink colours for this, Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Key black. These 4 make up the CMYK colour space. The first three colours are used to reproduce colour, in a similar way to your monitor, the final ‘Key black’ is needed for practical reasons, but its not so important to this topic.
When light hits an colour ink splash on the paper, only the same colour light is reflected, which is a small part of the light which hits is. In contrast the same dot of colour on screen it a light source itself and much stronger than a reflection. So it should already make sense why printed paper would not be as bright on screen, they exist in a smaller range of brightness!
There’s also another restriction on printed images which is because the reflected light is relatively small they only produce a relatively small range of colours, perhaps a few thousand at the most. This is a big reduction from the 16 million available on your monitor! Now you don’t need to worry about this too much, our computers and printers are very good an handling these difficulties, but you should try to keep in mind the subtle details in images can be lost, for example, dark grey text on a black background that is only just visible on screen, will probably as solid black.
The next experiment, take a printed image and hold it next to the computer monitor. Now turn the lights off, which one can you see!
The fact is you cannot print light to a piece of paper. So the bright and florescent Reds, Pinks, Yellows, etc which which have so much energy can only be produced with a light behind them. The moment you convert them to print they will be much duller. There are techniques which might help a little when converting them, but really is no fix for this one. If you are designing artwork for print the ideal solution is to use the CMYK colour space from the beginning. This way there are no surprises at the end.
The reflection of an ink splash on paper is only a close approximation of the intended colour. Even the type of light bulb in the room your in can affect the colours you see! The same is true for the type or paper you are printing on. So imagine if the the papers are different, or one of them is not paper at all, perhaps a plastic CD. Or maybe the printers are made by different companies, or use different printing technology. Variation is the prints will be expected.
Again, this is not something you need to look at fixing yourself, printers and the things they print on are carefully ‘tuned’ so they produce images as accurately as possible.
So you’ve carefully designed some art, keeping in mind all the possible variations, but have you done it right?
You could ask us to check, we’re the experts right? Well yes, but even experts can make mistakes but more importantly this is the first time we have seen you art. We have no way of knowing what effect you are trying to achieve, we don’t know if you have a golden Sun tan or an orange glow, we don’t know if the car in the background should be Green or Blue, or if there way supposed to be the outline of a cat in the shadows.
So who is best placed to check this then? Easy, the same person who knows exactly what the artwork should look like…. You!
I know, we’ve gone full circle, but the solution to this problem is a proof print. Proofs are very common in the print industry and will show you exactly how the print comes out. They are not always necessary, especially if your experienced enough to know what you might receive but if this is you first venture into print, and the details for this one need to be perfect then a proof is definitely the way to go.