What software are people using to make album covers?

Supportact · December 2022

I've previously used an app called Canva, which is ok to design a 'cover' for digital use, but doesn't really work that well if you also want to use the design for physical CD. Also it's a bit basic.

So what do people recommend? Free ones are good but i wouldn't mind paying for something if it's good. Probably only going to use it for designing album art for DIY releases 1 - 3 times per year, so not wanting to subscribe to a full on professional graphic design program.

Thanks for any suggestions. (sorry wasn't sure what category to put this post in so please move it if this is the wrong place)

thermionic · December 2022

I used Inkscape on the Mac last year. I had PDFs of the templates for the printers and started from there. It was quite a bit of work, mainly because I’m not a graphic designer, but I was very pleased with how it worked out. I can’t draw or anything, so it was mainly a case of getting a nice evocative photo, applying some filters to get a particular effect, and arranging some boxes of text as the top layer.

Riviera · December 2022

I use Sketch which is good

PolarityMan · December 2022

I use our singer....i thnk he uses photoshop

Supportact · December 2022

Thanks for the suggestions, i will look at thosr. Also i should have mentioned i have a windows Laptop not a mac.

thermionic · December 2022

Inkscape is free and will run on Windows as well. It’s better for this sort of thing than Photoshop (or GIMP).

JohnS37 · December 2022

Quark Xpress on the Mac

thecolourbox · December 2022

I find Inkscape is a bit buggy but generally gets the job done. Just keep saving what you're doing. On mine often I have to do a save as every time because there's something it doesn't like me doing which causes it to not actually save properly, so I end up with 30-40 versions of the file and just have to delete all but the latest one at the end of each session

Stratavarious · December 2022

Photoshop and InDesign.. but it is not cheap. Canva pro subscription adds more stuff to work with if after the more graphics style look.

GIMP will do the photoshop stuff for free if more photo centric.

I used inkscape for our logos but only because others collaborating were not Adobe users. .

Supportact · December 2022

Thanks all, I'm going to have a look at these. I did try Gimp before and found it a bit awkward to use, but it's possible i just didn't devote enough time to it.

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What software are people using to make album covers?

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