Creating a book cover

[dragonangel517]

Not sure if this is the right forum for this question. I want to make a book cover. Does anyone have any suggestions on which program is the best for this? I have a photo editing program, but I am having trouble getting the size right. Is there a specific program just for doing this that anyone knows of? One that has templates? Hopefuly not too expensive, free would be better.

[ether]

Couple questions first.

1. Are you selling this book with this cover on it? Like, self-publishing or anything?

2. Are you creating the cover completely from scratch, doing the art and everything yourself? Or are you using images found online?

[dragonangel517]

My WIP is serial fiction, posted online only, so the cover will be used as an avatar. I would love to create my own images but I cannot afford the software, so it is online images for me. I may go stricly abstract and lettering only if I can't find a suitable picture.

[ether]

If you can't get ahold of Photoshop and need something free, I believe Google's Picassa might be a good substitute.

I'd advise making sure the images you use aren't ones the creator will be angry about being used. Requesting permission to use them never hurts.

[M.R.J. Le Blanc]

Be careful with images you use from online.

[dragonangel517]

I don't intend to plagarise. Thinking of asking someone on Renderosity.com for permission to use their pic.

[Summonere]

GIMP is free and will do loads of stuff.


Windows (XP SP2 or newer) version can be downloaded here:


http://gimp-win.sourceforge.net/stable.html

[Freelancer]

Personally I would forget GIMP and I would advise to use Photoshop. The primary rule is, check the resolution standard for each book layouts (5,5x8,5, 6x9, etc, etc...), plus include the bleeding if you want to print it. Also use large DPI, such as 300 or 600 if you want a better quality (300 is used to be enough, but sometimes higher DPI is better.). And one of the most important thing, the fonts. You may buy or license fonts, you may use free fonts for your commercial project (Some of the free fonts are for non-commercial projects only. Always check their readme.txt) or last option, you may create your own fonts with font creator. Same goes for pictures as you can't use most of the pictures what you can find on the net. In this case, ask permission to use AND modify it (This last is important and some artist is not going to let you to modify his / her art.). Other option, license the picture (Again, check the license that you have the right to modify it) or ask an artist to create one.

Thinking of asking someone on Renderosity.com for permission to use their pic.And one last thing... especially in this case when you want to use someone's property. Always match your ideas with the artist. Artists are used to be very sensitive when a non-artist is trying to manipulate his / her art, even if (s)he is giving you the permission to use it (Which is used to be very rare, especially if you want this presumably for free.).

[dragonangel517]

Thanks everyone.

[ave]

yeah I would definitely use photoshop- although it is quite expensive! as mentioned above, another alternative is gimp- Its is great software, and free.
if you take a look at the link in my sig- I created that image using photoshop. The church was taken from www.sxc.hu- a free stock photo website- as in free of charge and royalty free. The original image was shot in daylight, so I had to soften the shadows and turn it into a night shot. - all done in photoshop

as for the images, there are plenty of stock photo websites that provide high resolution images at very reasonable prices. And you wont have to worry about copyright infringement. I used to use www.stockxpert.com but they were recently bought out, and the company that bought them out increased the prices a little too much for my liking.