The Cover Project
General Category => General Discussion => Topic started by: IKWYL on July 03, 2010, 04:43:04 PM
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Alright, so this is gonna sound pretty noobish but I figured I'd ask anyways. I've been tempted at purchasing some of the universal game cases, but I'm a little worried towards the price of printing out the cover art for a lot of my games. I have around 80 N64, Genesis and NES games and I'm pretty sure I'm not gonna be able to print all of them on my home printer due to the fact that it's my father's and he's a dick. Where do you guy's print your covers? Just from your house, or do you go to a UPS store or something, and if you do that how much did it cost you?
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I don't know anyone with a home (inkjet) printer that is suitable for covers. Only a few and you're out of ink.
Staples, Office Max, Kinkos, and local stores have all been recommended for cover printing. IIRC, it was $0.50 per 8.5x11 cover I printed at Staples a few years ago.
(still need to get those cases for said covers. :-\)
You're our 4000th non-banned member! Great!
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I've also managed to mass print covers at the library, only $0.25 per color page too. Not sure if most library printers have paper big enough for UGC's though, but it could be an alternative at the least. So for you that's possibly $20-40 depending on where you go. UGC's go for around $40 IIRC, and that's for a pack of 100.
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@doom:
I always print all my covers at home on my good old inkjet. On glossy paper it looks pretty good.
I can print around 20 to 30 covers on the highest quality setting then at least one of the five tanks goes dry. I've got a Canon IP4200.
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@doom:
I always print all my covers at home on my good old inkjet. On glossy paper it looks pretty good.
I can print around 20 to 30 covers on the highest quality setting then at least one of the five tanks goes dry. I've got a Canon IP4200.
Doesn't that prove my point? More economical to print at Staples or whatever.
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My HP Inkjet is sufficient enough for me now that I only need 4-5 covers max at a time. I'd definitely prefer going somewhere else when I get a batch of 30. Plus I don't have my own paper cutter :P
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you can pic up a cutter on ebay, got mine for 5$. ;D makes life real easy
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@doom:
I always print all my covers at home on my good old inkjet. On glossy paper it looks pretty good.
I can print around 20 to 30 covers on the highest quality setting then at least one of the five tanks goes dry. I've got a Canon IP4200.
Doesn't that prove my point? More economical to print at Staples or whatever.
One tank costs around 10 Euros here in austria (when I find some NET-bargains I often get all three color tanks for 25 Euros in a package). So that means if one tank runs dry after 30 covers I paid 0,33 cent per cover and don't have to wander around and discuss copyright shit with people. ;D
I know that the other tanks run dry pretty soon after the first tank starts so around 10 covers or so later the next tank is dry.
I think after all calculations are said and done (taking into account that other tanks run dry faster) I pay around 0,60 cent per cover.
That's not too shaby in my oppinion. A yes and were talking about original Canon ink here!
If I would refill my tanks with third party ink one tank would cost 3 Euros!!!! Then the covers would cost next to nothing but I want original ink. :)
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I'm going to buy a good printer with my next paycheck so I can print out some covers. I've heard places like Staples and such sometimes refuse to print covers since they contain copyrighted images. I'd much rather be able to print them at home since I live in the middle of nowhere. The nearest Staples is a half hour drive and I work six days out of the week so I don't always have time to drive into town. Come to think of it, I don't have much time for playing video games either because of my job. I own 94 games on five consoles and two handhelds, and some of them I've never played. And yet I'm always looking to buy more.
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(...) Come to think of it, I don't have much time for playing video games either because of my job. I own 94 games on five consoles and two handhelds, and some of them I've never played. And yet I'm always looking to buy more.
Welcome to Game Collectors Anonymous :) I'm sure a lot of people here are in the exact same situation. I know I am ;)
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I have (very roughly) twice as many games as that and am also in that same situation
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Got around 1800 games on 39 platforms. How many I actually played. No plan I have. ;D
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over 1800 on around 20 platforms, and still i must buy more!!!!! ;D
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yeah make me feel inferior with my crappy ~150 on 9 consoles why don't you
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Maybe we have a few years on you AQ. I still have my woody(!) VCS and INTV from the 70's.
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I around the addiction level of tiktektak.
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I still have my woody(!) VCS from the 70's.
That's a LONG time to havew a woody!!!! ;)
My sister left 'our' fully boxed one in her loft when she moved house some years ago - along with a box of around 60 carts. I was NOT happy when i found out. I just hope whoever found it didn't just bin it all.
Phoenix, Gorf, Galaxian, Defender, how i miss you.....haha.
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I still have my woody(!) VCS from the 70's.
That's a LONG time to havew a woody!!!! ;)
My sister left 'our' fully boxed one in her loft when she moved house some years ago - along with a box of around 60 carts. I was NOT happy when i found out. I just hope whoever found it didn't just bin it all.
Phoenix, Gorf, Galaxian, Defender, how i miss you.....haha.
Do i hear a cry of 'ooh Matron' and is that Sid i can hear laughing? ;). I had my first VCS and a load of carts knicked from my brothers car at footie training. It was only a year old and i was gutted. I had to work on my dad for ages to part with the cash for a second one and then i took up a morning and evening paper round and used my school dinner money to buy carts, all of which i still have so they're pushing 31 yrs old. And i must have spent £££'s on Phoenix and latterly, Kung Fu Master at the local chippie. Showing our age now mate...
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I've actually been buying up games since I was a kid, I just used to have a nasty habit of selling/trading everything. It's only in the past year or so that I've been able to make my collection really grow.
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my parents always sold or game stuff when they were low on money.... bills or a Turbo Grafx 16.... Turbo Grafx it is!... oh wait... needed to pay that electric bill..... SELL THE TURBO!
My collection only really started a bit over 5 years ago. I think I had less then 15 then. 600+ now
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Yeah, bit of philosophy I've picked up from my girlfriend: the older you get, the more shit you collect ;) I've got around 260 games on 13 consoles.
I first came upon my PS1 and Gameboy when I was around 7 (my parents were wary of the whole video game addiction thing back then and I got 'em as hand-me-downs). Back then I sold games like crazy because all I wanted to do was play more games, but I was one of the few kids who had to earn my money, no weekly allowance here. Thankfully I kept some classics like Metal Gear Solid and Oddworld around (still in box, got 'em for 5 bucks back then). A few years ago I got on a random kick to go buy back all the good 'ol Naughty Dog Crash Bandicoot games, and at that time GameStop was done buying them back, meaning they were becoming a rarity. After having to dig through hundreds of caseless PS1 discs for at least an hour or two at multiple stores, I put a bit of a higher value on my games and became reluctant to sell them, especially if I got jack shit in store credit. These days I'm proud to own anything I come across these days, even if it's a turd like Superman 64.
I went off on a little bit of a rant there, but it's always interesting to see why people have started collecting. :D
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I'd probably own more games than I do if I wasn't living with my parents. My room is hardly big enough to fit all the things I have now. Most of my stuff is stored in boxes in my closet. I can't put it on display because I'm not allowed to nail holes in the walls to hang shelving. I wish I could just tear out all the walls in my room and replace them with shelves. In fact, that's what my boyfriend and I intend to do if we can ever afford to move out and get married. We're both nerds and proud of it. We consider trading Pokémon with each other to be a romantic gesture. ;)
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We're both nerds and proud of it. We consider trading Pokémon with each other to be a romantic gesture. ;)
Hah I see we'd get along :)
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Right now I'm around 150-200 games on 14 consoles.
I'm holding out for my house and then the shit is gonna go down people!
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My collection only really started a bit over 5 years ago. I think I had less then 15 then. 600+ now
Similar story for me too. I probably had ~30games five years ago and i just passed 600 (non-duplicates) last week on ~30 consoles (i need to actually count how many consoles i have again).
Where do you guy's print your covers? .... and if you do that how much did it cost you?
I get all my covers printed at OfficeMax. I've tried OfficeDepot, FedEx Office (Kinkos), Staples and on my own printer but I much prefer OfficeMax's service and quality to all of them.
8.5x11 paper - $0.49 per sheet
8.5X14 paper - $0.69 per sheet
8.5x11 glossy sticker/label paper - $0.89 per sheet
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I looked around the electronics stores in my area and none of them seem to have any of the printers I've seen others on the site say they use. Their sites have them available, but I'm iffy on ordering something like a printer online. I don't want it to get banged up. Instead of trying to find the exact same printer, I'm just going to go for one similar.
To the people printing their own covers at home, what are the specifications of the printers you use?
Also, what is the best kind of paper to use that looks the closest to what actual covers are printed on?
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I print all my own covers on plain paper with an EpsonStylus CX7400. Because I just print from the default Windows Photo Viewer, the image is not quite the right size and I have a lot of white border (on UGC, DVD, and DS cases). But seeing as my collection is mine, all that matters is I like it. And I do.
1169 (for some reason, my NES games have not been entered in my database, so it is really over 2000) games, across 24 systems (including handhelds), gaming since 1986, but collection since 2001.
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I too use plain paper, legal size or 8 1/2x14 and print in a Canon MP160 only probleme it use only 2 ink cartridge(black and three colors) witch is kind of an ass when you're missing one color.
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I have a question or two as well. I am new to the cover thing. I just ordered a bunch of UGC's and I just got everything into cases. I have about 400 or so games that I used the cases for nes, snes, n64, and genesis. Now I am going to start covering all of them when I can. I printed out a cover a couple days and came across a problem. I have an HP photosmart c5550 all-in-one inkjet. The paper came out fine but within a matter of seconds, the paper just started getting all wavey because of all the ink. How do I avoid that? I am not computer savy at all, I am using my fathers printer. any help would be appreciates.
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the paper just started getting all wavey because of all the ink. How do I avoid that?
Its because your computer uses inkjet cartridges. The ink is liquid and dampens the paper .... a lot of ink = really wet paper = wavy bad quality print. Unfortunately there is not a whole lot you can do with your printer. Thicker paper would help slightly absorb the ink a bit better but is not a very good solution. My suggestion would be to print them somewhere that has a laser color printer ie: officmax, staples etc.
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the paper just started getting all wavey because of all the ink. How do I avoid that?
I'm fairly sure with that line of HP's printers, you have the option to change the DPI. If you drop the DPI down to a lower figure, the printer will use less ink, and you won't have an ink sodden cover!
usually in properties -> Advanced -> print quality
or somewhere similar. You may also find it in the HP toolbox thingy, if you have that installed
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light gloss paper 8.5 x 14. I print all my covers at home on an HP color laserjet.
Don't have as many games as the rest unless I add PC games into the mix then I get close to ~120 games over 13 consoles/hand-helds.
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Hp inkjets have a section in properties where you can select the quality you want indeed.
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the paper just started getting all wavey because of all the ink. How do I avoid that?
My suggestion would be to print them somewhere that has a laser color printer ie: officmax, staples etc.
or work ;)