# My works on restoring Original Jackets



## Granate

I had been working and procastinating on these covers for a very long time. I could easily spend 4 or 5 hours on Ps just for pleasure.

I noticed for a long time, with the fashion of original jackets, that digital libraries could not find these covers because they were not shaped right (1:1) or the quality wasn't really high. It could take a long time to find big pictures or photos of the records, but they were just pictures. In these post I will upload my best works so far and the comparisons with the originals. Note that these covers barely exist on google images and not even in this big size and updated to the new brands.

I could follow any request you have, but I cannot promise anything. For instance, I went on restoring and colouring Karajan's LP of Tristan Und Isolde for EMI/WC and I had results after 4 hours, but they were not really satisfying, so I can link an interesting file that I found.

I don't own any of the designs, typographies or pictures involved in the covers. No permission is given for printing (mind that the files are not print-ready) or reselling. I hope you like them.


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## Granate

*Verdi covers I*


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## Granate

*Verdi covers II*


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## Granate

*Verdi covers III*











































I'm really proud of these ones. I had to recreate all the letters with vectors.


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## Granate

*Verdi covers IV*



































Karajan's Otello in two versions. I am having dinner now so more uploads in an hour.


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## Granate

*Covers Warner*


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## Granate

*Mozart Covers I*


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## Granate

*Wagner Covers I*


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## Granate

*Wagner Covers II*


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## Granate

*Wagner Covers III*










































These five were great fun. I hope they are useful for those who like these recordings. These are the last uploads.


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## wkasimer

Granate said:


> I hope you like them.


These are terrific - thanks. Finding good images for digital music is always a challenge.


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## Granate

*Verdi covers V*

I forgot this one, pretty unknown and also controversial but my favourite Otello for Dieskau and Barbirolli. It was one of the toughest to restore. I had to remove all the dust digitally, smooth the shapes, clean the blacks, and erase the text to re-design the composition with the same title. A great effort that paid off.


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## Pugg

Good to see you back Granate.


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## The Wolf

Woww...great work with the covers!


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## Annied

Well done, they're amazing! As someone who's passionate about repairing/rebinding antiquarian books I can imagine that you get a similar satisfaction from bringing these covers back to life.


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## Larkenfield

Some excellent restored covers here! But as a personal preference I find art on bland white backgrounds too much a reminder of budget labels. I also have a preference for accurate skin tones, some of which seem to be a little off with too much red, though sometimes reds can suggest passion.


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## Granate

Larkenfield said:


> Some excellent restored covers here! But as a personal preference I find art on bland white backgrounds too much a reminder of budget labels. I also have a preference for accurate skin tones, some of which seem to be a little off with too much red, though sometimes reds can highlight a sense of passion.





















I find this lable to have extraordinary designs that are both legible and reminder of Early music. Naxos has nothing wrong with art and central design, but making a brand out of Times New Roman is not very stylish. The Bad thing for L'oiseau Lyre is that their boxes get easily dirty.

I didn't understand your last sentence about red. It's quite a difficult colour to print and good designers are careful with the shade they choose.

Then some news.
A long time ago, I was able to complete the restoration of original vinyl jackets for the famous stereo Philips recordings of Bayreuth Festival. With the typographies and adaptations for Decca and Philips. However, I am also aware that I need to revise all of them before sharing because I messed up with the shades of black and it does not look good in Digital.
I also got around with high quality covers of the Solti Wagner Operas and Tennstedt Mahler EMI recordings. I'll see them through when I'm less busy.


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## Merl

These are brilliant. Wow!


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## Granate

*Barenboim: Tristan Und Isolde - Redesign*


















I had this recording on my mind for weeks, but this afternoon on the beach I came up with the idea of doing a redesign of the original box. With GIMP, and in two hours, here it is! I should do more.


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## Granate

*Barenboim: Parsifal - Redesign*


















What do you think about this one? I couldn't find the typography or the painting either. This one is a first version in 1h (including the time when I have to figure out the background colour).


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## Barbebleu

These redesigns are excellent. You should be working for a record company!


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## howlingfantods

These are excellent. I do the same as much as I can every time I rip a new CD to add to my library, but it looks like your photoshop skills are better than mine. 

Although I do often aesthetically prefer the original cover designs, for me it's more about being period appropriate as much as aesthetics. Speaking of which, I'm surprised you prefer to use the warner logo for some of these instead of the original EMI or whatever. Even when I use a Warner image as the basis for my cleaned up digital album cover, I always swap out the logo for the original label logo. Especially since that Warner logo is such a contemporary design language, it always looks incongruous to me added to album art from several decades ago.

eta - where is that Aida cover from? I don't think I've seen that art before for the album, and I'm not sure what country would spell Ghiaurov that way.


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## Granate

*The Blue Aida cover is from Hungary.* I just stumbled on the internet with a HQ picture and made a square cover out of it, as I was disappointed with my revamp of the original.


































I prefer the Warner logo for the blue colour and because I find the modern EMI logo too simple. It's true that I never did a mock-up of the EMI-Angel logo like the old years. Sometimes I thought about doing versions of the digital covers with only-Angel logos, as I think they are more aesthetic.

Warner already releases their original Jackets with the changed logo, and I like it.

I still have many digital files (Photoshop or Gimp) of the designs. When I have more free time I may release some with the original logos if you request.


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## JAS

Granate said:


> What do you think about this one? I couldn't find the typography or the painting either. This one is a first version in 1h (including the time when I have to figure out the background colour).


The painting, I think, is by Hermann Hendrich (1854-1931). He appears to have painted quite a series of Wagnerian themes. The painting from the Tristan and Isolde cover is, of course, "The Kiss" by Gustav Klimt (1862-1918), but you probably already knew that.


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## Granate

This precise painting, as you indicate, is by Hendrich. But Getty images offers the commercial license for 600€. Of course, I had to use another one with a decent size. In modern covers for independent labels it can be better to buy a library of typographies.


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## Granate

*Wagner: Bayreuth Canon by Philips - Restoration & Download*

Hello. I've done many Wagner covers throughout these months, but these ones were the covers I was more eager to finish. This is the famous Philips LP Edition of the Bayreuth canon from the Festspielhaus, later belonging to Decca. I had already done these covers in late June, but I was not satisfied with the black shades and also I had to do my end-of-degree project. Today I went back to them and now it's complete.



It consists of 10 individual releases. Each one has "almost" the original pictures from the LPs, edited to improve the quality and colour. I've done three versions of each. A white Philips logo, an outline Philips logo and a final outline Decca Logo. The Tristan Cover features a different picture from Pinterest, and it's the most difficult to assemble. I hope you like it because I don't even know if it is a good job. It also has the DG logo. The pictures had a lot of dust so they were cleaned digitally and added the titles and the Festspielhaus outline (hard to draw at the first time, but then it's a matter of copy and paste).

If you click in the picture, you'll find a wetransfer page where you can download a zip file with all the versions of the covers in HQ.


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## Pugg

Granate said:


> Hello. I've done many Wagner covers throughout these months, but these ones were the covers I was more eager to finish. This is the famous Philips LP Edition of the Bayreuth canon from the Festspielhaus, later belonging to Decca. I had already done these covers in late June, but I was not satisfied with the black shades and also I had to do my end-of-degree project. Today I went back to them and now it's complete.
> 
> 
> 
> It consists of 10 individual releases. Each one has "almost" the original pictures from the LPs, edited to improve the quality and colour. I've done three versions of each. A white Philips logo, an outline Philips logo and a final outline Decca Logo. The Tristan Cover features a different picture from Pinterest, and it's the most difficult to assemble. I hope you like it because I don't even know if it is a good job. It also has the DG logo. The pictures had a lot of dust so they were cleaned digitally and added the titles and the Festspielhaus outline (hard to draw at the first time, but then it's a matter of copy and paste).
> 
> If you click in the picture, you'll find a wetransfer page where you can download a zip file with all the versions of the covers in HQ.


No job offer from Universal so far?


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## Granate

howlingfantods said:


> Although I do often aesthetically prefer the original cover designs, for me it's more about being period appropriate as much as aesthetics. Speaking of which, I'm surprised you prefer to use the warner logo for some of these instead of the original EMI or whatever. Even when I use a Warner image as the basis for my cleaned up digital album cover, I always swap out the logo for the original label logo. Especially since that Warner logo is such a contemporary design language, it always looks incongruous to me added to album art from several decades ago.


*Updated Furtwängler 53 Ring + 52 Tristan*

New download for one week. Both the Ring and Tristan feature *new EMI logos.*


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## Granate

Click the cover to download the covers of the Furtwängler Scala ring. Now with a new Box cover for all the Ring. Two typographies.

Requested by WildThing. Remember that these are fanmade covers. Pristine Classical has nothing to do. Don't sue me Axel Rose.


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## Oakey

Love these covers, well done!


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## Granate

Oakey said:


> Love these covers, well done!


Thx and Welcome to Talk Classical!


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