Resizing Covers for VHS boxes

[Milky13]

Hi, I'm in europe so can't get game cases so I'm using VHS cases. I'm resizing covers by spliting the cover into a front back and spine then resizing them and throwing them all back together.
Is there a quicker way to resize in photoshop? Thanks
Also I'll upload covers I resize if anyone would like to use them - I'll post a list/images when they're done.

[stefanpausch]

I think it is a good time to resurrect this old topic

I came across "The cover Project" a few days ago, while i was looking for SNES Covers. Since the "Universal Game Cases" are not available in Germany/Europe and some websites claimed that PAL modules wouldn't fit "perfect" i looked into using VHS cases. This headed me into the same situation as the topic starter.

First i played around with the different templates available and figured out that was a high time sink. I tried to cut the "Universal Game Case" Cover files with Photoshop in 3 pieces (front, side, back), resized each to the equal VHS sides and but everything back together. Since each Cover has the same size i wrote a script to automate the process.

This code uses imagemagick and i use it under Mac OSX (installed imagemagick via homebrew). The same script should run under linux, too, since it uses the same syntax. There is a imagemagick port for windows available, but the code needs to be changed. If you need a windows version of this script (or an alternate version which uses irfanview), just let me know and i will create it.

This script resizes SNES covers, but can be adopted to other covers easily. Since the "Universal Game Case" are a bit different in size as a VHS case a slight image, not proportional, resize is necessary to fit the cover.

Code: [Select]

#!/bin/sh
IMAGE=`ls -1 snes_*.jpg`
IMAGE_FINAL=`basename $IMAGE .jpg`'_VHS.jpg'

convert -crop 1534x+0+0 $IMAGE back.jpg
convert -crop 298x+1534+0 $IMAGE middle.jpg
convert -crop 1534x+1833+0 $IMAGE front.jpg

convert back.jpg -resize "1512x2457!" back.jpg
convert middle.jpg -resize "366x2457!" middle.jpg
convert front.jpg -resize "1512x2457!" front.jpg

convert -size 3390x2457 xc:black back.jpg -geometry 1512x2457+0+0 -composite middle.jpg -geometry 366x2457+1512+0 -composite front.jpg -geometry 1512x2457+1878+0 -composite $IMAGE_FINAL

This code goes into a file named "snes_convert.sh" and needs to be changed to chmod 755 (under OSX). Create a new directory, download the cover into it and execute the script.

If you need any more help with it, just let me know.

[Arseen]

Use 27mm DVD cases, no need for modification of UGC covers.

[stefanpausch]

Use 27mm DVD cases, no need for modification of UGC covers.

That is not correct. There is some not proportional resizing done by converting from UGC to DVD. But the effect is not as visible as resizing from UGC to VHS.

Anyhow, i want to use VHS boxes over DVD 27mm boxes ...

[Arseen]

Use 27mm DVD cases, no need for modification of UGC covers.

That is not correct. There is some not proportional resizing done by converting from UGC to DVD. But the effect is not as visible as resizing from UGC to VHS.

Anyhow, i want to use VHS boxes over DVD 27mm boxes ...

What I meant was that because the height difference is 4-5 mm, REALLY NO RESIZING IS ACTUALLY NEEDED, altough to get perfect fit you can add that 4-5 mm to the height, but it's not absolutely needed. 

I prefer the DVD cases because I think NES games won't fit in to VHS cases, nor do N64 and SNES manuals without bending.

[scarmullet]

Use 27mm DVD cases, no need for modification of UGC covers.

That is not correct. There is some not proportional resizing done by converting from UGC to DVD. But the effect is not as visible as resizing from UGC to VHS.

Anyhow, i want to use VHS boxes over DVD 27mm boxes ...

What I meant was that because the height difference is 4-5 mm, REALLY NO RESIZING IS ACTUALLY NEEDED, altough to get perfect fit you can add that 4-5 mm to the height, but it's not absolutely needed. 

I prefer the DVD cases because I think NES games won't fit in to VHS cases, nor do N64 and SNES manuals without bending.

I just print the UGC covers as "6 DVD box" in UndercoverXP and they come out fine...

and yes, NES games wont fit in an VHS box, even with modification.

[BardoInsano]

stefanpausch any chance you could make that windows code? I'm not very good with these things...

Thanks a lot in advance

And sorry for my poor english.