Create CD or DVD labels easily using Photoshop and ready-to-print PDF templates
Table of Contents
Building a reusable label template
First, let’s get the template we’ll use. Worldlabel.com has a large selection of free PDF label templates for download. Visit Worldlabel.com and download the WL-OL1200.PDF 2-up CD/DVD disk template. If you don’t have a need for CD/DVD face labels at the moment, you’re certainly welcome to follow along with a different type of label template. I chose the CD/DVD for this project because of almost ubiquitous usage in so many different professional and personal projects. Save the WL-OL1200.pdf file somewhere convenient on your computer.
Now, let’s start Photoshop.
- Choose File > Open, and navigate to the WL-OL1200.pdf file. If you don’t see the PDF file type in the Open dialog box, make sure the Files Of Type pop-up menu is set to All Formats. Select WL-OL1200.pdf, and then click Open.
- The Import dialog box opens. On the right side of the Import PDF dialog box are various options crucial to the success or failure of this template for its intended use (see Figure 2).
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Figure 2: The Import PDF dialog box showing correct settings for this project.- Name: Photoshop allows you to name your document even before you’ve saved it. So let’s name ours Re-usable DVD Template.
- Crop To: In our case, we want to crop to the Trim Box, which should be 8.5” x 11”, so that we import the entire page uncropped. Depending on the label template itself, there may be no difference between the options here; but if there is a difference, it’s crucial to import the entire page, including margins, via the Trim Box choice. The digital template must align perfectly to pre-cut, self-adhesive labels; any variation and the image won’t align.
- Resolution: This is the quality of the resulting template both onscreen and in print, and it may default to 72 ppi (pixels/inch)—extremely low-resolution screen resolution. If you know in advance the resolution of your printer, enter that here (for example, 300 ppi). If you intend to print these labels solely on desktop or networked inkjet or laser printers, 600 ppi is a good setting.
- Mode: The default is RGB Color, but since you’ll be printing your labels, you’ll want to select CYMK.
- Bit Depth: This is the level of color. 16-bit color is the range of colors a film camera captures, which is actually larger than the range of color the human eye can perceive at any one time. Moreover, 16-bit images are massive in terms of both file size on disk and in RAM, and they will slow your Photoshop work unnecessarily. Let’s stick with 8-bit bit depth—16 million colors should be sufficient for a label design.
- Anti-Aliased: Leave this checked so that Photoshop smoothes the edges of bitmapped images.
- Suppress Warnings: This option suppresses any cautionary alerts Photoshop may return.
Choose the desired settings, and then click OK. When the reusable DVD Template opens, it will show the two CD/DVD labels including outer diameter and the hole to be punched out of them. The checkerboard background indicates transparency—there isn’t a white background on this page.
- The first thing we need to do is protect the template layer itself from accidental changes. On the Layers palette (Window > Layers), right-click on Layer 1, and choose Layer Properties from the top of the context sensitive pop-up menu. Name it Trim and click OK. Now lock the layer by clicking the padlock icon immediately above the layer list (see Figure 4). Locking the layer prevents accidental repositioning, as well as accidental painting on the Trim layer itself. this layer to print We’re not going to allow this layer to print; if we did, we’d get horrible black lines on our printed labels.
Figure 3: The Layers palette, with the Trim layer locked.
- At the bottom of the Layers palette click the Create New Layer button to make a new layer above Trim. Double-click on Layer 1 to rename it to Artwork. This is where we’ll put the graphics for our label.
- If we just started drawing, painting, and placing graphics on this layer as is, we’d quickly obscure the Trim layer and lose track of the edges of the label. So, click and drag the Artwork layer in the Layers palette, and drop it below Trim. Now the edges will always be visible as we work.
- With the Artwork layer selected in the Layers palette, select the Type Tool from the Tools palette. Choose where you’d like to place the disk title, then click and drag out a rectangular area to define the space available to the title and an optional subtitle (see Figure 5). When you release the mouse, an I-beam cursor will flash in the text frame, ready for typing. Enter a placeholder title of DISK TITLE, press Return, and then enter Disk Subtitle. In addition to a text frame, you also have a new layer—DISK TITLE Disk Subtitle. When entering text, Photoshop creates a new kind of layer called a Type layer. This is how your type remains editable at all times. Moreover, the layer name is a reflection of its content; change the text and the layer name will update to match.
Figure 4: Placeholder or FPO type in the title text frame (transform controls and a non-transparent background added for clarity).
- Repeat step 6 to create a second frame for other textual content that may be required for your label—things like the copyright and trademark notices, sales contact information, disk contents, and so on.
You now have the basics of your CD/DVD label template. Style the title and additional information FPO type, and, on the Artwork or additional layers, place or draw imagery like your company logo, background images, and decorative graphics. Figure 5 shows what a CD/DVD template for my REV Creative Drink brand might look like.
Although we would like to think that every print would align perfectly with the prescored paper labels, rarely is that the case. Printers vary in how they handle paper, digital images shift a little, and a hundred other things can happen that move images a fraction of an inch this way or that when it hits the paper. Prepare for this problem by accounting for possible shifts as you design. Try to keep text and crucial imagery at 1/8th of inch inside from the edge of a label, and extend any background images or colors approximately 1/8th outside the outer borders of a label.
Figure 5: The final design of my label template. Even warped, the text is still live and fully editable.
