General Category > General Discussion
Has anyone had a crack at printing their own boxes?
JakeHC:
Hey everyone
I recently bought some repros from eBay and they're great, but I find that the box quality is a little lacking, whether it be from typos or whatever. I was wondering if anyone has had a go at printing their own? And how they turned out?
I'm considering it only for my snes games just for something different for my collection but I only have the two. Or I could just use the covers on here and put them in vhs cases as I have done with my n64 games. But wanting to try something new :D
Sammickk:
I AM REALLY WANTING TO DO THIS!! So Far what I've gathered on this topic is,
* A good Media is 12pt Glossy Card stock, 14pt would be better but you would have to move to commercial printers for this.
* you can grab a template of the the NES and other boxes with the correct folds already marked made for both A3(smaller size) and A4(larger Size) size paper sizes A4 being the better one for NES so you only have one glue seam like real NES boxes. SO this means a Wide format Printer will be Needed such as a canon Pixima pro-100 (Excellent SALE on this month!! 378 with 200 dollar rebate!!)
* PRINT! ok this is where i'm stuck, I have yet to buy any printer because we tried this with a kodak photo printer, and the ink just seemed to lay on the paper without absorbing into it!! wtf??? someone said we need to go to printing preferences and change the media type, but now we are out of out sample pieces of cardstock to try. Please if anyone has had any experience or success runs with this please shed some light!
I would Really like to not waste the money on a printer if it just simply can't be done with that printer. Also there is literally NO information out there on this, but i know it can be done cause i see brazillians selling them on ebay.
Ozzy_98:
I'm sure my comments will be misunderstood and may offend some people who think I'm an arrogant bastard, but in the words of the great Ron Jeremy, "Fuck 'em", I like being helpful, and this is something I've had experience with in the past.
There's two main types of printer inks, dyes and pigments, generally only black is dye or pigments, the colors are almost always dye based. Pigment pings do not stick well to glossy and are good for use on matte paper. It's not just the ink though, but also the paper itself. Some will pretty much only accept dye inks. So what I'm betting happened to you, most of the colors looked ok, but the black was all bubbled and washed out?
To make it worse, the pigment blacks come in two types, an MK and PK. It's mostly Epson printers that use these, the PK is for photos, the MK is for matte. The PK has extra to make it stick to photo better, but that means less ink for the page.
Now for the trick: depending on the printer, some printers use a pigment black for text\matte, and a dye black for photos, OR, mixes the other inks into a black. This is sometimes controlled by the paper type options, so selecting photo\glossy MAY cause it to print using the colored dyes, depends on the printer.
monjici:
what about using a laser printer ? :)
Sammickk:
JakeHC not misunderstood at all ma boy thank you for the valuable input. YES that is exactly what happened to the black, the box we tried to print was the super Mario brothers game box which is black surrounded by mario shooting the fireball with blue blocks, the familiar shot we all know. while some of the colors did come out ok the black really was a mess, BUT we did not select glossy paper though and now i know we should have. whether this will totally fix it or not i dont know. Jake if u will please, look at this printer and tell me if you think this will do the trick. http://www.amazon.com/Canon-PRO-100-Professional-Inkjet-Printer/dp/B0095F5BCS/ref=cm_cd_al_qh_dp_t