Help designing Book cover

Returning to this topic because after emailing the gal from Amazon- she gave me permission to post her many hours of research to my blog to help other authors create the most fabulous covers ever! Below you will find the links she offers for both software to design and free and purchase pictures to use for the design. She also offers bits and pieces of advice-which can be most helpful! A Kindle ebook cover should be in a JPEG or TIFF (think of it as a photograph) format. The size requirement of the JPEG has changed over the last few months, I use 1800 x 2400 pixels. The resolution (term used to describe the number of dots, or pixels, used to display an image) should be between 72 - 300. I always create my covers at 300 resolution. Simply because higher resolutions mean that more pixels were used to make the image. This results in the image being crisper and sharper. Here is a list of links for FREE sites to research FREE images to use for your covers. Did I mention they were FREE!< http://www.publicdomainpictures.net/top-images.phphttp://www.arspublik.com/http://picdrome.com/http://www.freephotogaleries.com/http://www.freestockphotos.biz/http://www.photoshopsupport.com/resources/stock-photos/nasa-planets.htmlhttp://publicphoto.org/http://totallyfreeimages.com/ (Great for Real historical images) http://www.dotgovwatch.com/?/archives/8-The-Best-Copyright-Free-Photo-Libraries.htmlhttp://freerangestock.comhttp://www.everystockphoto.com/http://www.morguefile.com/ (Don’t freak out about the name, it’s not a bunch of dead people images.) http://www.cgtextures.com/index.phphttp://www.stockvault.net/ Here is a list of links for images you will need to pay for. An image can be purchased for $2 - $30, it all depends on the site, the size and the license. For your ebook cover a standard license is good enough. Unless you sell over 500,000 copies, then you need to go back and buy the extended license. But, if you’re selling that many books, I’m sure you won’t mind ; http://www.bigstockphoto.comhttp://www.dreamstime.comhttp://www.istockphoto.com/http://www.123rf.com/http://www.shutterstock.com/http://www.corbisimages.com/http://www.gettyimages.com/http://www.thinkstockphotos.com/http://www.veer.com/products/images/?s_kwcid=veer&gclid=CK_u_fbZ2rACFUFo4AodYydl2Qhttp://us.fotolia.com/http://www.canstockphoto.com/http://www.jupiterimages.com/http://www.fotosearch.com/ So what do you do when you find the perfect picture? Doesn’t everybody have Photoshop? Before you jump on me, I am kidding. We all can’t take from our children’s college fund or remortgage our homes to buy PhotoShop. HOWEVER, let me tell you how I did buy it. If you are a TEACHER or STUDENT or ANYONE WORKING IN AN EDUCATIONAL faculty (Yes, I am screaming) you can purchase Photoshop for a lower price. I bought it for less than $300. You do need to prove that you are in school, or your child is in school, or you work in a school. Fortunately there are other ways to edit your images. Here’s a list of links to FREE (yep, I’m yelling again) editing sites: http://www.gimp.org/ http://inkscape.org/http://pixlr.com/editor/http://www.photoscape.org/ps/main/index.phphttp://picasa.google.com/http://fotoflexer.com/http://www.getpaint.net/