Professional Printing

[Shugo Takahashi]

I'm getting rather tired of the less-than-stellar home printing jobs I do on every cover I print. I don't really have a ton of money for the correct paper, the ink, and most importantly my cutting skills are wretched. I've read around that some people are using Kinko's for this, and I was wondering what using that option is like. How does it work? How do I get the images to them? What do I tell them that I want when I go there? Do they cut them to size for you? Most importantly, how much does it cost?

Having all my covers uniform and vivid without going through straining hours and money would be really nice. I've already hand-covered all of my handheld games, but a long while back (around the time some of you might have known me as KirbyKollector) I used a printing method that made DS case covers slightly the wrong size. Now that I'm doing it right, all the smaller wrong-sized covers look terrible next to the new ones, so now I need to re-cover all of them.

...except I don't want to, so help me out here, please. Thanks for any info; I can't wait to get around to finishing off the collection (I got hundreds of games...check my Backloggery).

[Paul]

I'm getting rather tired of the less-than-stellar home printing jobs I do on every cover I print. I don't really have a ton of money for the correct paper, the ink, and most importantly my cutting skills are wretched. I've read around that some people are using Kinko's for this, and I was wondering what using that option is like. How does it work? How do I get the images to them? What do I tell them that I want when I go there? Do they cut them to size for you? Most importantly, how much does it cost?

Having all my covers uniform and vivid without going through straining hours and money would be really nice. I've already hand-covered all of my handheld games, but a long while back (around the time some of you might have known me as KirbyKollector) I used a printing method that made DS case covers slightly the wrong size. Now that I'm doing it right, all the smaller wrong-sized covers look terrible next to the new ones, so now I need to re-cover all of them.

...except I don't want to, so help me out here, please. Thanks for any info; I can't wait to get around to finishing off the collection (I got hundreds of games...check my Backloggery).

Although I'm not too sure about kinkos and such, whats wrong with your home printed covers?  I print all of my covers at home and they all come out rather great.

Take some pictures of the covers that you printed from home and post them up.

[juan0tron]

Yeah my library's printers printed all my covers out way too small, and it was a pretty decent quality printer they had too. I'm hoping my new printer can print things large enough for dvd/ds cases, otherwise it's off to the local staples (or as a last resort maybe my school :/ )

Also quite the backloggery collection you've got goin' on there. I see you're in a very nintendo-y phase right now

[Doukas]

With Kinkos you do have the nice feature of them having the paper cutters, which makes cutting out all the covers much easier and faster than doing it by hand with scissors.  However, I decided that I'd rather do everything at home, even though it's costing way more than I thought it would.  I like having the freedom of being able to do a few at a time, especially now where I have to cut up 34 universal game cases to fit NES carts.  I generally can only bring myself to do a few at a time.

[Shugo Takahashi]

Woah, I forgot I posted this. Thanks for the replies, guys.

The problem really isn't entirely with my collection's quality...it's the cost. I have to pay for life's necessities, and I can't keep buying ink and paper just to make these covers...and in the end I cut them out all wonky anyway since I can't afford a huge chopping board for straight edges. After running two sets of ink into the ground (on "normal" quality print at that) I got fed up and I want to know if getting it done at a place like Kinko's or what have you is cheaper. It sounds like it is, and I really wouldn't mind bringing over covers in big groups if it's miles cheaper and they even cut them out for me. It sounds to me like there's a big hit-or-miss problem with them refusing service over copyright, so what other places do this in the US? What can I look for?

Also, thanks for the Backloggery complement, z0mbiew0lf. I actually just recently found that site, and it's exactly the kind of place I've been looking for to organize my games. Yeah, I've recently gone back to my old Game Boy games. It started with me wanting to replay the G/S/C part of Pokemon by reviving Crystal's battery and evolved (no pun intended) into me planning on replaying the entire Pokemon series up through Platinum when it comes out and also rounding off both Stadiums. This caused me to dig up my N64 and buy an S-Video cable for it (Nintendo Store still sells these!) for maximum greatness. I finished Yellow and replaced the battery on Crystal, so I'm working on Crystal right now and simultaneously trying to finish off Stadium with the Pokemon from Yellow. All the nostalgia also caused me to remember Super Mario Bros. Deluxe, which in turn caused me to remember the Game Boy Printer...which finally ended with me getting back into the Game Boy Camera mania. So I ordered a couple Japanese cameras off of eBay and I intend on finally finishing the B Album in all three of my cameras and having glorious fun with the Game Boy Printer with the Cameras, SMBDX, and Pokemon.

Wow, I really got off topic. Sorry!

[V3rtigo]

i found a local kinkos where the manager is a gamer. he gives me a break on price. normally its around 50-60 cents for regular color 8.5x14 prints, which are good enough. cutting is $1.50 per stack although i just do it at home with a ruler and x-acto knife on glass. if you find a location that refuses services, just go to another one.

[robertstump]

Most Kinkos have a self service center where you can do them yourself. The pricing works on a per-minute basis, I think 45 cents for their pcs with Photoshop, and 20ish cents for the ones that don't. I always print from the ones with Photoshop, it seems I can never print right from anywhere else (the size is always off). Then they charge you for the prints too, about 1$ per color 11x17 the last time I went. You can cut the paper yourself for free on their long cutting boards, they're nice boards too.

Kinkos service is really hit or miss, I generally just skip them and go to their self service. My buddy worked at one for a while, she said employees take a lot of abuse from customers, probably explains why they suck 50% of the time.

I hear that Office Max is really good about printing, though I've never used them.

[Shugo Takahashi]

Thanks a lot for the info, guys. This doesn't sound like a bad idea.

[Mick Dundee]

I tried to go to staples about 2 days ago to get some covers printed....I don't like Staples.

 I asked how much it would be per picture.... $2 dollars to open the folder on the flash drive at my pictures, and $1.09 per print out.

 But they wouldn't print them for me anyhow... she pulled the "Copyright Infringement" BS, and told me I need Nintendo's permission...even though they were for PlayStation cases....dumb B*!$#

 Any place with Self Service should be a lot easier to use. Just hope they don't get nosy, they might do the same thing and tell you you can't print the cover images.

[Shugo Takahashi]

I found the nearest Kinko's and went up there. I was shot down at the mere utterance of the words "DVD case". Office Max, down the street, did the same thing.

Screw it, I'll just continue to make them at home. If somebody could tell me how to print covers to proper size on letter-size paper, that'd be great. One of the running problems with my covers is that the backs are all cut off a bit. It really doesn't matter as much because it's the back, but it would still be nice if it turns out I'm just doing something wrong...

If I need new paper, then so be it.

[Mick Dundee]

You should be fine with regular letter paper with Ds Cases.. DVD ones too for that matter.
 It's the UGCs you need legal paper for.

 You need to set your printing preferences to print border less
 
To make sure mine come out right I open them in my editing program and make the background the same size as the paper... dunno if it makes a real difference ... but I feel better doing so

[Shugo Takahashi]

You should be fine with regular letter paper with Ds Cases.. DVD ones too for that matter.
 It's the UGCs you need legal paper for.

 You need to set your printing preferences to print border less
 
To make sure mine come out right I open them in my editing program and make the background the same size as the paper... dunno if it makes a real difference ... but I feel better doing so

What program do you use to print? My DS and DVD cases always come out with the backs cut off, and I even use a program made entirely for printing DVD covers to do the DVD ones, too...

EDIT: Well nevermind, I finally bit the bullet and went out to buy the expensive ink my good old HP Deskjet 952c takes and a huge 500-sheet pack of legal paper from Staples. I snagged about 25 UGCs from dmc1974 on this very forum, and I just printed Super Mario 64's cover. It looks amazing. I'm so happy that my collection is finally going to feel completed. It feels so much better to have gotten that big expense out the way; now I can go and buy more games instead of worrying about casing the existing ones.