Premier Rock Forum

Windows.

Not head-spinningly complicated (I has few graphic skills).

Preferably one that outputs to a PDF or something for later printing (so I can take it to the fancy colour place).

Free or cheap.

Thanks!

Adobe InDesign would be really ideal for this. not sure what resources you have but it's a very simple program to use. you can import things directly from illustrator/photoshop, and export files into a .pdf with ease.

Photoshop is good, as is Freehand.

yes, photoshop - there's a reason why it is industry standard.

if you are going to use the program to draw though (rather than place scanned images etc) freehand is a lot better in my experience.

MS Paint.

I even went as far as doing the hard work for you:

honestly - if you don't have/already know about this stuff, there's no way you're going to not fuck it up. there are way too many things that can go wrong even on a "simple layout".

photo shop is good for photo editing, and in design is now pretty standard for layout/placement etc. but you're going to have to get pirated versions.

honestly, ask around and get a friend or friend of a friend who has a degree in this shit or knows what they're doing at least to do it. if you really can't find anyone, no joke, DO IT BY HAND. it will look better. then just have someone scan it at hi-res and place it into a template for a cd booklet that you get from the production plant/printer.

trying to use in-design + photoshop to do a cd layout with no real experience doing it before (i.e. to the point where you're asking what should i use), is kind of like if someone was like "here you should try recording your new album with protools" and you going "hmm what's that? sounds interesting" -- you're probably gonna be better off just using a 4track.

I know it's of no use to you, but this is ace for one-offs.

Also, This is NOT CRAP.

If you use Photo Shop DO NOT PRINT TEXT WITH IT!
It is Rasterized and looks like shit.
Import your img into a vector based App like Illustrator of Flash Or anything else for the Text.

+1 for MS Paint