Modifying SteelBooks

Feb 17, 2010
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Share how you modify your Steelbooks here.

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Also, I thought I should say, for those of you who don't have Photoshop, GIMP can do the job, and, more importantly, is free. You just do the exact same thing, copy your backdrop, highlight the black rectangles with the colour select(magic wand) tool and right click and choose paste into.
It's not exactly the best image editor out there but it's free and it does the job!

Edit: printing info mac
I'm using GIMP on a mac and found printing straight from GIMP a pain. What I do is to export the file as a .png, open in Preview and make sure scaling is set to 100%, then it prints out fine(at least for me).

PS Sorry if someone's already been over this but I didn't really want to read all 35 pages

There is a gimp guide, page 12 I think it is probably good that you've re posted though I didn't realise the thread had grown so much since then ;)

Still cracking away at my steels with no interior art work. Here's my Toy Story 3 modified interior. Pretty pleased with this, the first time I'v done the spine and it went pretty well

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Nice work the spines not near as scary as you think once you commit to doing it :D

I'm actually doing a completely custom steel this week. Stripped down a crap steel and doing outside and inside art. Hope it turns out..

I've done a few of these myself (link in sig) so if you want to ask anything just PM me :D
 
Nice work Neil. I thought that you had been removing the spines for some time now?

Incidentally I've got to removing the spine down to a science now. Using a hair dryer (kudos to Wreck) for about 1 minute. Then I use one of those extendable utility knives (the ones that you buy at Walmart that after so many uses you break off the tip and start with a freshly sharp blade) and I almost fully extend it and it slides nicely right up underneath the metal spine and I just slide down and presto, the spine is off.

Then I just peel the long glue glob off the plastic insert and then I spend about 15 minutes using Goo Gone removing the hardened glue on the insert off. After that its completely clean and transparent.

Then I take a long piece of double sided tape and place it on the photo that goes on the spine. The reason I place it on the photo first is because I can get it in one motion. If I put it on the plastic insert spine first and then try to line up my spine photo along the spine insert with the tape already there, if I don't get it lined up correctly I have to start all over and print out another one and everything. With the tape already attached to the photo and then placing it along the insert, if it doesn't line up correctly I can just remove it and line it up just right and place it back down and I'm golden.

Then I place another piece of double sided tape behind the photo spine and I take the metal spine that I removed and place it right down where I think it's straight and like magic, the spine now has a picture. :D
 
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Me Kelly I've been doing them for ages, still use the boiling water though as I tend to do 3 or 4 at the same time ;) That was a message to toto93 as to his first spine job :D

Happy Birthday again BTW :oohyeah:
 
Me Kelly I've been doing them for ages, still use the boiling water though as I tend to do 3 or 4 at the same time ;) That was a message to toto93 as to his first spine job :D

Happy Birthday again BTW :oohyeah:

Oh ok. I had thought so with all the custom work you do and all. :thumbs: Anyways others can use that tut on how to remove a spine if they want. :)

Thanks for the birthday greeting, would thank this and your new concept art but I ran out of Thanks in my birthday thread. EEK! I'll thank it later though. ;)
 
Hi! I'm looking for someone that would be willing to design (or use your pre-existing designs) some inside artwork for me on an ongoing basis.

I would also be asking you to print and mail them to me in bulk, but am more than happy to compensate you for your time, effort and, obviously, shipping.

I simply have no artistic skills, not to mention no printer! ;)

Anyone feel like being my go-to-ninja?
 
Hi! I'm looking for someone that would be willing to design (or use your pre-existing designs) some inside artwork for me on an ongoing basis.

I would also be asking you to print and mail them to me in bulk, but am more than happy to compensate you for your time, effort and, obviously, shipping.

I simply have no artistic skills, not to mention no printer! ;)

Anyone feel like being my go-to-ninja?


I don't mind putting your choice of artwork in the template for you but TBH it would be alot easier/cheaper for you to find a local printer to yourself to get them printed I'm sure they wouldn't charge alot :D
 
I don't mind putting your choice of artwork in the template for you but TBH it would be alot easier/cheaper for you to find a local printer to yourself to get them printed I'm sure they wouldn't charge alot :D

Cheapest here is ¥109 for a single color copy and that's just on regular paper.

I really don't see it being much of a difference at all in the end except I know I can get quality from someone that actually cares about steelbook art. :oohyeah:
 
Cheapest here is ¥109 for a single color copy and that's just on regular paper.

I really don't see it being much of a difference at all in the end except I know I can get quality from someone that actually cares about steelbook art. :oohyeah:

I wouldn't mind helping you out either, but it's really not that hard in all honesty . Just find an artwork from somewhere, I usually use themoviedb, IMDB (it can be tricky to actually get the images off imdb) or just simply google images with search tools so it only gives large images. Then put it in the template and move it around till it fits nice, you don't really need artistic vision as long as you can find a decent artwork to start. I reckon you'd be better off saving the money from getting someone else to do it and buying a decent printer to print them yourself.
Like I say, If you do want someone to do it for you, I'd be willing, but I'm pretty new to this game so you'd probably be better off with zesty.

---------- Post added at 12:28 AM ---------- Previous post was at 12:04 AM ----------

In unrelated news, here's my finished set of Toy Story steelbooks completed and final design, complete with spines!(not sure what I was so worried about)
Sorry, the image came out really big and I dont want to reupload it to resize(unless there's some way to do this in the IMG code?) so I've put it in a spoiler.

5znvax.jpg
 
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Fellowship of the Ring with custom spot gloss finish and inside art.

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More:
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Untitled19_zpse50594cc.jpg


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I'm going to have to redo the inside art. I just printed it really quick myself instead of going to office max. I plan on doing the other two of the trilogy this week. I might also try to do the title in gloss along the way:)

New inside art

Untitled28_zps23e9fcd2.jpg
 
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Fellowship of the Ring with custom spot gloss finish and inside art.

Untitled16_zpsa05bd158.jpg


More:
Untitled17_zpsb2607d41.jpg


Untitled18_zpsdd522dd5.jpg


Untitled19_zpse50594cc.jpg


Untitled20_zps65b7edf5.jpg
I'm going to have to redo the inside art. I just printed it really quick myself instead of going to office max. I plan on doing the other two of the trilogy this week. I might also try to do the title in gloss along the way:)

How do you gloss?
 
So I must be completely retarded. But when I save the template it saves as a bmp. When I open it in photoshop its just a black box. WTF am I doing wrong?
 
Can someone give me some quick tips about printing?

I found the tutorial someone posted for Gimp and the template and it was very helpful. I edited the artwork and saved it as a .png file. I opened it with Windows picture viewer (XP) and made sure I did not have it fit to frame. I printed it out and it looked okay. When I put in the steelbook there was a lot of extra space, like it wouldn't fit snugly. Is it something I'm doing or is that how it's supposed to be?

Thanks!