"Madden Rap 2012" by Mega64
Released September 11th, 2011

Oh god, what am I doing?  Well, this wasn't very hard to complete, but I did make sure the screencap was exactly the same as the original "album cover" type of thing they have on their website here: http://mega64.com/2011/09/11/madden-rap-2012-unites-mega64-and-brandon-dicamillo/

You can also download the mp3 there.  Anyway, this is the highest resolution I could possibly get.  The version on their website was 150x150, this album cover is taken from a screencap of the 1080 version of the Youtube video found here: http://youtu.be/WHZWVMM0PR0

The part where I took the screencap was at about 1:05
Anyway, enough talk, have at you!  Or... something like that.

"I Am No Hero (Luna's Theme)" by MandoPony
Released July 7th, 2012 / July 9th, 2012

So, continuing my custom album covers, I'm releasing this one based on the art shown in the youtube video, which you can see here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3qAhEwRKpuY&feature=plcp

I'm including a few different versions here.  The first one is for the original version, the second one is similar to the image he used for when he uploaded the remastered version 2 days later.  Also, since I know I didn't get the fonts 100% correct, and because I'm sure some people will ask for it anyway, I'm including a textless version of the album cover.  It's cropped & re-sized from the same source MandoPony got it, a vector image on LazyPixel's Deviantart, which you can find here: http://lazypixel.deviantart.com/gallery/?offset=24#/d52o5lc

So, now that all that's out of the way, here's the covers, all three of them are 2000x2000 in size...

Original Version

Remastered Version

Textless Version

The Hamster Alliance - Dick Kicker
Released November 25, 2011

Today I present to you my first attempt at a fan album cover.  As a fan of Hamster and his remixes, and as a fan of Giant Bomb, Here's the album cover for his "Dick Kicker" remix.  I got my source image from Hamster's youtube video, which you can find here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qHL2Cpb1618


I paused it at the right moment so that looked similar enough to the original thumbnail.  I only did it in 1000x1000, because the source image I had was only 1080x720, and after cropping it, it ended up being 1000x720.  I extended it upwards a little and it became 1000x1000.  I then copied the background color (which is a slightly bluish off-white color), filled in the empty area, then I added in the red gradients, making sure they were similar enough to the original thumbnail, shown here: http://i.ytimg.com/vi/qHL2Cpb1618/0.jpg

I then added in text, and while I didn't have the original font used (which I beleive is "Strada OT Condensed Semibold")  I used Myriad Pro (which I feel is similar enough).  However, I understand the need of some people for accuracy, so I've also included a textless version.  Hey, some people may even prefer the textless version! Enjoy!

Full Version

Textless Version

The Stranglers - Walk on By EP
Released August 11, 1978

This one is actually kind of awesome, I couldn't find any good quality images of this album cover online at all. and the highest resolution I could find was about 500x500.  So, I remembered I had a fairly alright quality copy of it on vinyl.  The original scans were done by me, as well as the touchups in photoshop.  I'm pretty satisfied with how good these came out.  For the back of this one, I decided to intentionally keep the creases on the sides, to preserve the original feel of looking at the back of the cover.

Fixed Version (Front)

Fixed Version (Back)

Original Source (Front)

Original Source (Back)

The Stranglers - Rattus Norvegicus
Released April 15, 1977

Wow, now this one was quite a project!
I couldn't find any high-res images of the original LP cover, all I could find was the CD re-issue, which cropped the original photo, and also had a larger font, and a different aspect ratio, since CD cases are slightly wider, and not perfectly square like a vinyl sleeve.  The only hi-resolution image I could find was this one, and I kept looking for something that might have been better, but found nothing.

After many color balance & contrast adjustments, I found a good level.  Now, the border had a lot of crappy glare around it, and I couldn't find a proper color for it, so I simply re-created it by getting rid of the old one using the magic wand tool (which I normally hate, but it proved useful here).  The magic wand created some shitty looking pixel deformation on the photo's red border, so, using the eyedropper tool I selected the border's color, and re-made it using the line tool with lines that were 5 pixels wide.  I had to erase around the edges of the text to get something smooth enough that would look good.  Luckily, there was enough blue tone from the glare around the text on the top of the image that I was able to save the original text, and I didn't have to trace it in illustrator or find the proper font, and figure out what size the font was at (that would have been a headache)

All-in-all, I was able to keep most of the original image, while only replacing a few bits, and I did my best to stay true to the original with the bits I replaced.  This is probably the biggest project I've done so far, and I hope it's satisfactory.  Let me know what you guys think of the finished product in the comments.

Original Source:

Fixed Version:

The Clash - The Clash (self-titled UK Release)
Released April 8, 1977

not a huge edit on this one, and I'm really not sure if I like how it turned out.
I cleaned up the edges, and adjusted the saturation of the colors a bit, making it a bit more vibrant.
I think the front turned out okay, but some of the colors on the back seem a bit un-even.
Still, I suppose it's good enough for a release on here.

Original Sources:

Fixed Versions:

The Clash - Bankrobber (single)
Released August 8, 1980

Lots of nicks & scratches on this one, but I ended up getting through it, and a contrast adjust on the black section also helped smooth it out.

Original Source:

Fixed Version:

The Clash - Know Your Rights (single)
Released April 23, 1982

Not a big fix on this one, just a few nicks & smudges, and a slight contrast adjustment.

Original Source:

Fixed Version:

The Clash - Black Market Clash
Released October 1980.

Got another Clash cover here, I basically cleaned up some speckles & smudging on this one using the clone stamp.  I then adjusted the hue & saturation a bit, along with the brightness & the contrast until I got it to match the lower resolution image on Wikipedia.  Even though the Wikipedia article didn't have a white border on that image, I gave it one, in order to match the various vinyl covers I saw many photos of.

Original Source:

Fixed Version:

The Clash - White Riot (Single)
Released March 18,1977

I couldn't find a back cover for this one, but I found a really good scan of the front... the only problem were the colors.  Thankfully, most of the cover is in black & white.  I started out by selecting a color range on the red title (that was originally more of a magenta) and I made sure the fuzziness was all the way down, this way it would select the entire thing.  (since the rest of the album was black & white, it would make a nice clear line this way)  I adjusted the hue to make it red with a bit of orange tint, since that's what I saw in a smaller image of the cover on Wikipedia.  I selected the inverse of the text and de-saturated it, and from there I just had to play with the brightness & contrast in order to get the correct tone.

Original Source:

Fixed Version:

2Pac - California Love (Single)
Released December 28,1995

For this re-construction, a lot of it was fairly simple.  The original had a lot of little while speckles all over it, so I used the clone brush to pull color from directly next to each white speckle until I had a full black background, yet was still the same slightly off-black color that came through on the original scan.  I also made sure the hard line where the red meets the black was perfectly horizontal by rotating the entire image, this way it's for sure not on an angle or something weird.

Original Sources:

Fixed Versions:

Hey Everybody!  Welcome to my album cover blog.  Sometimes I'll find an album cover online and the only good looking version is in a low resolution.  I can sometimes find a high resolution version, but it usually will have noticeable wear to it, or the colors will be off.  So, that's when I bring it into Photoshop, with my skills as a graphic designer, I'm able to restore the album covers to what they looked like originally.  This is what this blog is for, as a resource to other people.  To save other people the trouble of doing this themselves, i'll be sharing all of these restored album covers on my blog here, in the hopes that when other people look for them, Google Images might show them my high quality version.  I won't be writing much about the covers themselves, but I might make a comment or two about the methods I used to restore them.

Anyway, enjoy, and have fun making your music libraries look slick & sleek.