The Cover Project
General Category => FAQs, Guides, Templates and Vector Logos => Topic started by: Doom on August 22, 2008, 10:59:05 AM
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A little smaller than other guides. Maybe this will get combined with other guides at some point in the future.
Have you ever wondered why a cover you made wasn't uploaded, and instead was deleted? Many things can go wrong when creating a cover and to be uploaded to TCP a cover has to be very high quality. To understand exactly what admins look at when quality checking uploads, I asked them. tiktektak was the first to respond, and he really explained it well.
Quality requirements from my side:
=> Right Resolution(e.g. 3366x2100 for UGC, etc...)
=> Right dpi(300)
=> Cleaned up to "near perfection"(no blemishes, scratches, dust, etc....) = I often clean other peoples covers further myself before uploading
=> No borders(often covers have grey or other borders)
=> All the text should be perfectly readable(except for really really really really tiny text with is often not resolved by a normal consumer scanner enough)
=> Around logos and pictures edges there should be no pixelated spots(if there are it is likely that the artwork has been upscaled from low res stuff)
=> finally everything should be really sharp looking
That's all I check.... ;D
How I do it?
I just zoom in in the cover pretty close and check every inch of it for everything mentioned above.... Now I know why this takes long....
Here's one of my earlier covers that did not pass quality control. Can you see why? Pretend you're an admin and look though the things admins need to check.
http://www.mediafire.com/?sharekey=60286916786d99b2d2db6fb9a8902bda (http://www.mediafire.com/?sharekey=60286916786d99b2d2db6fb9a8902bda)
Since quality checking covers takes an awfully long time, you could help out by quality checking your own work before uploading it. It saves admins a lot of time, and I'm sure they'd appreciate it!
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Hmmm.... My response was a kind of a private admin only message but go ahead doom post it in the open forums.... ::)
I really really doubt this will change peoples attitude toward quality by the way... ;)
You know people are people.... ;)
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I say... go for it.
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Hey I posted a cover maybe 2 days ago and I am wondering if it's because it's been rejected or still in check.
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Hey I posted a cover maybe 2 days ago and I am wondering if it's because it's been rejected or still in check.
It takes A LOT longer than 2 days. We usually go through every few weeks and upload them in bulk
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would it be uploaded faster if you post it because if yes I'll most probably send theme to you and give you the rights at the same time
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No, don't worry about it. We care about quality at The Cover Project. The flipside is that every cover is checked for quality. We have a miles long backlog of covers waiting to be checked. Our admins are very busy.
"And then one day you find ten years have got behind you"
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It has to be said that even though the cover admins have busy lives once every few months the complete backlog of covers gets cleared!
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I have some games across several platforms that aren't on the site. But when I go to upload them, there's no option to create a new game. How do you do this?
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I have some games across several platforms that aren't on the site. But when I go to upload them, there's no option to create a new game. How do you do this?
Upload as next game in alphabetical order.
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No, don't worry about it. We care about quality at The Cover Project. The flipside is that every cover is checked for quality. We have a miles long backlog of covers waiting to be checked. Our admins are very busy.
Do we get a message (email ?) when our covers are accepted or refused ?
Yesterday I uploaded 4 covers, and I still have a hundred to upload, but first, I want to make sure that the quality is accepted ..
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No, don't worry about it. We care about quality at The Cover Project. The flipside is that every cover is checked for quality. We have a miles long backlog of covers waiting to be checked. Our admins are very busy.
Do we get a message (email ?) when our covers are accepted or refused ?
Yesterday I uploaded 4 covers, and I still have a hundred to upload, but first, I want to make sure that the quality is accepted ..
Nope, we stay quiet.
But I'll check the 4 you did today evening after work and let you know.
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Thx to you
Today, I also begin to upload some Super Famicom games ..
Firstable, many of them aren't in the list (Caravan Shooting Collection, Dragon Ball Z Cho Butoden 1 2 and 3), so I named them with the next on the list (I read that on the forum); and after 12 uploads complete, it became impossible to upload more covers .. Is there a maximum upload per day?
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so I named them with the next on the list (I read that on the forum)
Perfect, once a noobie nows what to do. ;)
As a reward I do extra good check.
Is there a maximum upload per day?
Not to my knowledge, but that would not surprise me as that would be decent spam block method.
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I quick checked all 16 covers you had uploaded and non will make it unfortunately.
Main reason on almost all covers was that you used too low quality artwork.
There are way higher quality art work available on the Mediafire and box accounts of various members.
Just ask in a topic...
Closest to be approved was Tecmo Basketball, and with some additional work it should pass:
Artwork was good enough, but the fitting was bit off (the title on the front touches the spine logo. There should be small gap).
SNS code is typed with too big fontsize.
All back text must be retyped by hand as it looks bad because of the varying line widths caused be editing the text as image.
Basketball logos could also use replacing.
Screenshots could use replacing.
ONE major thing that is bugging me are the missing gray bars on the back.
I prefer the standartized back with gray bars and correctly placed screenshots.
But if you fix the other things perfectly I quess this would pass as alternate, and I can then create the version with "correct" back using your finished cover.
I can see that on this cover you made real effort as the legal texts have been edited (might be on others aswell but as those were beyond hope I did not check them that closely).
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Thanks for your answer, but no one ?! :o
I understand what you mean about the quality of the artworks (but nobody seems to have them ..), but for exemple, my Bill Lambeer's Combat Basketball cover, what's wrong with it ?
The artwork is the original one, so who can find a better image ?
I check the "Raw Cover Scan" section and also the french website "Nintandbox" and even japanese websites, but for all these games, it's seems that nobody has them ..
For the SFC covers, my artistic choise was to be closer than the originals covers (specialy for the back cover). Sometimes, because the game is rare (like Dunk and Hoop), it's impossible to do it, so, I agree that's not enough. But what about my Axelay, my F1 GP 2, my From TV Animation Slam Dunk, my Gradius 3 etc .. ?
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I'll recheck them when I get home and give more detailed description of the flaws, but our site has super strickt quality requirements.
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ok, thanks to you ..
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Would both of these covers meet the site standards?
Dissidea Final Fantasy
(https://www.mediafire.com/convkey/1ac7/e4hg5q8x1py7ez24g.jpg) (http://www.mediafire.com/view/e4hg5q8x1py7ez2/Dissidea_Final_Fantasy.jpg)
Black Dissidea Final Fantasy alternative cover
(https://www.mediafire.com/convkey/a75f/9c82cpd7lyibm614g.jpg) (http://www.mediafire.com/view/9c82cpd7lyibm61/Dissidea_Final_Fantasy_alternative.jpg)
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Would both of these covers meet the site standards?
Close.
White has the top back image bit too soft focus.
Black has that and the front characters bit too dark, top most dude especially.
There might be some other minor things but those are the main ones.
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I was trying to reduce the moire effect that was noticeable on the screenshot of the scan. Do you have any tips with regards to that issue?
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I was trying to reduce the moire effect that was noticeable on the screenshot of the scan. Do you have any tips with regards to that issue?
I think only higher quality raws can help, but you can try with lesser moire removal level.
I know almost all Playstation 2, Playstation 3 and Playstation Portable covers are near impossible to scan moire free, so might be that better is impossible to produce.
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Would you be able to look your this cover again? Thanks
(https://www.mediafire.com/convkey/49c8/hswbcc6p1au8ird4g.jpg) (http://www.mediafire.com/view/hswbcc6p1au8ird/Dissidea_Final_Fantasy_v1.jpg)
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Virtually no difference (slight chance in color tone).
Try no moire removal at all.
I'll have to print the cover to make final judgement, but first I must buy more ink and don't have to do it until my vacation on the week that starts on the 16th.
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Okay, Here's the cover with no moire removal at all. I did change the colour of the cover a bit from the first one that posted. I am sure if it looks better or not.
(https://www.mediafire.com/convkey/dd85/ccsrgza73z0fb0e4g.jpg) (http://www.mediafire.com/view/ccsrgza73z0fb0e/Dissidea_Final_Fantasy_v2.jpg)
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Despite the slight moire this might be the best version.
I'll let you know as soon I've printed the covers to see.
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Where some uploaded covers in the past like the final fantasy x pal covers just raw scans of the cover because I think the colour in some these covers doesn't quite look right.
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Where some uploaded covers in the past like the final fantasy x pal covers just raw scans of the cover because I think the colour in some these covers doesn't quite look right.
Quite possible.
In the past the standarts were not so good and many covers that are sometimes even crap quality were posted.
We can't remove them but we can replace them if better ones are made.
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May not be the appropriate place to put this, but here's a basic write-up I had and followed was scanning Anime covers to a site similar to TCP (ultimately stopped when the site shifted more and more towards the dark areas of what can be done with accurate covers); but at the time I never had any issues with my scans.
Removing the moire/halftone dots that crop out when your scanner doesn't have an option to remove them itself:
1. Scan cover @ 600 DPI
2. Go to Filters --> Blur --> Gaussian Blur. Set the radius from 0.8 - 1.0 but no higher or lower. Try not to blur the image too much...just enough to be able to rescue it later on.
3. Then go to Filters --> Noise --> Despeckle. Make sure your scan is still 600 DPI (6480x4350) then apply the Despeckle filter 2 times (because the image is larger, we need to apply this filter more, but DO NOT apply it more than 3 times, otherwise you will lose too much image quality, I personally never needed to go more than 2)
4. Then resize your cover down to 3240x2175, with 300 DPI (obviously, adjust the cover size to whatever dimensions your working with)
5. Then go to Filters --> Sharpen --> Unsharpen Mask. Set Amount to 60%, Threshold to 1, and the Radius to anywhere from 1.2-1.6 (I typically used 1.4 but occasionally would go 1.2 or 1.6)
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May not be the appropriate place to put this, but here's a basic write-up I had and followed was scanning Anime covers to a site similar to TCP (ultimately stopped when the site shifted more and more towards the dark areas of what can be done with accurate covers); but at the time I never had any issues with my scans.
Removing the moire/halftone dots that crop out when your scanner doesn't have an option to remove them itself:
1. Scan cover @ 600 DPI
2. Go to Filters --> Blur --> Gaussian Blur. Set the radius from 0.8 - 1.0 but no higher or lower. Try not to blur the image too much...just enough to be able to rescue it later on.
3. Then go to Filters --> Noise --> Despeckle. Make sure your scan is still 600 DPI (6480x4350) then apply the Despeckle filter 2 times (because the image is larger, we need to apply this filter more, but DO NOT apply it more than 3 times, otherwise you will lose too much image quality, I personally never needed to go more than 2)
4. Then resize your cover down to 3240x2175, with 300 DPI (obviously, adjust the cover size to whatever dimensions your working with)
5. Then go to Filters --> Sharpen --> Unsharpen Mask. Set Amount to 60%, Threshold to 1, and the Radius to anywhere from 1.2-1.6 (I typically used 1.4 but occasionally would go 1.2 or 1.6)
Velmeran, Do you have any cover that show that end result using this method?
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I find surface blur much better than Gaussian blur myself.
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May not be the appropriate place to put this, but here's a basic write-up I had and followed was scanning Anime covers to a site similar to TCP (ultimately stopped when the site shifted more and more towards the dark areas of what can be done with accurate covers); but at the time I never had any issues with my scans.
Removing the moire/halftone dots that crop out when your scanner doesn't have an option to remove them itself:
1. Scan cover @ 600 DPI
2. Go to Filters --> Blur --> Gaussian Blur. Set the radius from 0.8 - 1.0 but no higher or lower. Try not to blur the image too much...just enough to be able to rescue it later on.
3. Then go to Filters --> Noise --> Despeckle. Make sure your scan is still 600 DPI (6480x4350) then apply the Despeckle filter 2 times (because the image is larger, we need to apply this filter more, but DO NOT apply it more than 3 times, otherwise you will lose too much image quality, I personally never needed to go more than 2)
4. Then resize your cover down to 3240x2175, with 300 DPI (obviously, adjust the cover size to whatever dimensions your working with)
5. Then go to Filters --> Sharpen --> Unsharpen Mask. Set Amount to 60%, Threshold to 1, and the Radius to anywhere from 1.2-1.6 (I typically used 1.4 but occasionally would go 1.2 or 1.6)
Velmeran, Do you have any cover that show that end result using this method?
Not at the moment, was a few HDD's back when I was doing those scans (and had a decent scanner).
I'll see about making a scan on the crappy all-in-one we've got right now sometime this weekend (probably won't be until Sunday, have family in town Fri/Sat, and helping good friends move on Sat) and running through that way.
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I find surface blur much better than Gaussian blur myself.
What setting would you recommend for Surface blur?
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Depends on the source. Quite low number for the first value (9 or less - usually 5 to 7 max) play around with the second. Better to get it right in one go than to keep applying blur over and over.
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Depends on the source. Quite low number for the first value (9 or less - usually 5 to 7 max) play around with the second. Better to get it right in one go than to keep applying blur over and over.
What do you consider too much surface blur as I notice that the higher number for surface blur the more small details that you lose from your scan?
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Exactly. Depends entirely on the source, how bad it is, and how much detail there is.
Sometimes I use multiple layers, so I can use a higher blur on backgrounds, such as a sky, and lower or even no blur on details such as faces or text.
For example. Make a copy of the original layer, put it on top of original. Apply blur. Use eraser tool on top most layer to reveal original untouched art below.
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I'll recheck them when I get home and give more detailed description of the flaws, but our site has super strickt quality requirements.
Have you had time to do it? ;)
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Depends on the source. Quite low number for the first value (9 or less - usually 5 to 7 max) play around with the second. Better to get it right in one go than to keep applying blur over and over.
What do you do regarding text/logo on the cover? I was looking at the cover that was uploaded for Call of Duty advanced Warfare for PS4 and I thought that the text on the cover had to be easier to read like a bit sharper.
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So, to be sure that I understand :
Why my cover of Bill Lambeer (http://imageshack.com/a/img442/9726/billlambeer.jpg) cannot be on the site ?
And what's better in this one for exemple ? http://www.thecoverproject.net/view.php?cover_id=11227
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So, to be sure that I understand :
Why my cover of Bill Lambeer (http://imageshack.com/a/img442/9726/billlambeer.jpg) cannot be on the site ?
And what's better in this one for exemple ? http://www.thecoverproject.net/view.php?cover_id=11227
Bill Lambeer: Way too low quality artwork.
Mega Man X3: Old upload from times before we had qualiy standarts. NO WAY would make site now.
I haven't forgotten you, just bitching buzy time at work.
I'll get back to you next week when I have whole week off. 8)
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low quality artwork ? :o
But it's the original one ..
To be as close as possible to the original box, I have to use this artwork.
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low quality artwork ? :o
But it's the original one ..
To be as close as possible to the original box, I have to use this artwork.
That artwork is scanned at 96DPI or so resolution.
Artwork used should be scanned at minimum of 300DPI.
600DPI preferred so it does not go under the required 300DPI of ready cover.
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Ok.
Too bad that your new policy also applies to rare titles that are still not on your site, especially because, in fact, no one has done good scans ..
Of the hundreds of creations that I made, 70% were not referenced on the site and had no scan on the web. I thought I could share them here, but if this is not the case, too bad!
Moreover, during almost 2 years, your site was inaxecible for many French IP (We never understood why ?), so I created a topic on a French forum where these creations are still available .. And I will continue there.
Cordially
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Ok.
Too bad that your new policy also applies to rare titles that are still not on your site, especially because, in fact, no one has done good scans ..
Of the hundreds of creations that I made, 70% were not referenced on the site and had no scan on the web. I thought I could share them here, but if this is not the case, too bad!
Moreover, during almost 2 years, your site was inaxecible for many French IP (We never understood why ?), so I created a topic on a French forum where these creations are still available .. And I will continue there.
Cordially
Your covers can still be shared on the forums. I've only made a small handfull of covers myself, but since mine will never be hosted on the site, i just share them in the forums. I've even noticed a surprising number of downloads from my mediafire account. We all strive for the best quality covers, but most are willing to accept a lower quality cover over nothing at all, at least until better quality art is found.
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Ok.
Too bad that your new policy also applies to rare titles that are still not on your site, especially because, in fact, no one has done good scans ..
Of the hundreds of creations that I made, 70% were not referenced on the site and had no scan on the web. I thought I could share them here, but if this is not the case, too bad!
Moreover, during almost 2 years, your site was inaxecible for many French IP (We never understood why ?), so I created a topic on a French forum where these creations are still available .. And I will continue there.
Cordially
This is why Admins don't bother commenting covers.
You can try nudging people towards making high quality covers as politely as you can, but this is most common result... ;)
Yes I know getting good scans are hard but you can always ask.
For example I have all SNES/SFC Dragonball Z cases scanned at 600DPI and moire free, so only minimal cleaning needed.
And we have rare ones aswell.
I own CIB copy of Stadium Events and Mr. Gimmick (both NES Scandic versions).
I know one of us used to own German version of Stadium Events.
And you are more than welcome to share covers on the boards.
I and many others share their non-site worthy covers there.
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Exactly. Depends entirely on the source, how bad it is, and how much detail there is.
Sometimes I use multiple layers, so I can use a higher blur on backgrounds, such as a sky, and lower or even no blur on details such as faces or text.
For example. Make a copy of the original layer, put it on top of original. Apply blur. Use eraser tool on top most layer to reveal original untouched art below.
What would you do if the cover is Japanese region cover in regarding to the text as retyping would not be option.
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Would this Final Fantasy X/X-2 remaster cover meet the site standards?
Final Fantasy X/X-2 Remaster JPN
(http://www.mediafire.com/convkey/db49/olkkucdk4hv525d4g.jpg) (http://www.mediafire.com/view/olkkucdk4hv525d/Final%20Fantasy%20X%20X2%20HD%20remaster%20JPN%20v2.png)
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I uploaded a cover for Croc 2. Is the a queue to look at to see progress in your submission? Also, I see it's been a year since a PS1 cover has been uploaded. Does it really take that long to approve something? Or is it that there were no approved submissions for a year?
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Hi I have uploaded a PAL 32x cover of kolibri and there hasn't been an upload for 32x since 2012. If my cover is no good can I please get some feedback. it might not be the best cover but at least its the only PAL Kolibri cover available.
Kind regards Shane.
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Hi I have uploaded a PAL 32x cover of kolibri and there hasn't been an upload for 32x since 2012. If my cover is no good can I please get some feedback. it might not be the best cover but at least its the only PAL Kolibri cover available.
Kind regards Shane.
Upload to mediafire and link here, and we'll see.
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I want to upload this cover: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B_YLPsP7GX0ZWjRneWFFWkVYVUU/view?usp=sharing is there anything that needs to be changed before i do so? Thanks in advance. =D
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I want to upload this cover: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B_YLPsP7GX0ZWjRneWFFWkVYVUU/view?usp=sharing is there anything that needs to be changed before i do so? Thanks in advance. =D
Right off the bat, The black section on the back's levels are off. I can pretty clearly see the color difference between the paintbrush repairs and the original color in that area. I've had monitors in the past that didn't calibrate well which made it super difficult to see shades of black, it can be deceptive. I upped the levels on a section so maybe you'll see what I mean. Hope this helps!
(http://i.imgur.com/EFBLYnE.png)