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What programs or software do you use?
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Photoshop, generally. :)What specific problem are you having? I'm sure there are people here who can help. Possibly even me!
I use a combination of programs, depending on what I need to do. For sizing of an image I find the Paint program that came with the computer to be the easiest. For lettering I use Paint.net ( http://download.cnet.com/Paint-NET/30... ), which is a free version of Paint with many more features. For more complicated images, I use a combination of those two, along with Gimp; it's free but I still have a lot to learn about that one. I also have Inkscape, also free, but I haven't used it.
Inkscape is quite good as a free Adobe Illustrator replacement. I've done some logo design / typography with it and it works very well!
I tried Paint at first but my computer's stripped down version wouldn't let me save the image as a jpeg. I could do that with Powerpoint so my cover, for good or ill, was done using it. The cover is nothing to brag about. I tried to learn GIMP but, for me the learning curve was beyond frustrating. I finally found someone to do a new one using Photo Shop. With luck, I should get is in a week or two.Good luck.
I painted the artwork for my covers then took regular digital photos. But of course the artwork is just the starting point.For my novels I paid a book designer to turn artwork into book covers as well as doing all the fancy interior formatting for the paperback versions.
For my one short e-book I did the cover myself. Digital photo loaded into iPhoto to manipulate the image (adjusting color and contrast) and crop it. Image and text then combined in iDraw and saved out as a JPG.
Gimp. It's Free. There is free training on Youtube and it is as powerful as Photoshop.
I've got the design portion down, but I'm having trouble with the sizing. Since Amazon requires it to be a certain size, when I try to make my cover(s) that size, it distorts the image.
Pixlr is a free Adobe web program that's very user-friendly.
You have probably already done this, but the original should have the same proportions as the Amazon size; otherwise you should crop the original to the same proportions as the Amazon size.
Preview app (default) and MS Word. Not "recommended" and pretty ghetto *smirks* but it works for me.@KR: Mr Alex beat me to the punch, but yep, just maintain your ratio and you should be good to go!
Hugs,
Ann
Mod
Illustrator for the line art, silhouettes, logo designs.
Photoshop for background, character colouring, and final flattening to a .jpg so there are no issues when it displays on screen.
InDesign for all of the layout, and non fancy text.
They, and the programs that emulate them, are all useful for different parts of cover design.
For example, Photoshop is great for photos and colouring, but there is no way to be precise when laying out text. InDesign is great for laying out text, but it doesn't do vector shapes well. Illustrator is king of logos but it has terrible graphic filters.
Individually any of them can make a cover. If you dabble in two or three of them though you can really make your cover design easier in the long term. At the very least design nice graphics in a Photoshop like program and take them into a layout program like InDesign for an easier time with text layout! (You will quickly realize why Photoshop is terrible at text layout compared to InDesign and fall in love ♥.)
Yes, that is a big commitment! It depends on what your cover needs though. Certain covers can certainly get away with only one program!
Just come and show us so we can help you tweak the result! We are good like that here!
@CB: *blinks**again**bows down to your wisdom**again*
Mod
If anyone ever needs help, just send me a message! Bring a sketch of what you want your cover to be and I can tell you what is the best way to go about making it.
Yes, a sketch. You are sketching your covers out first before jumping on the computer... right? :)
Nooo, I never sketch. I just play around with images until I like what I see, mainly because I usually never know what I really want until I see it.
@CB: *peers up from my place at your feet**blinks*Hahaha no I never ever sketch out my covers. Which is pretty ironic since I do actually sketch a ton of stuff. Mostly anime, though *grins sheepishly*
Mr Ken said "I usually never know what I really want until I see it."
*nods agreeably*
Hugs,
Ann
Mod
Well... as long as you play around. ;)
Design uses the Right side of the brain. Computers use the left. If you start full out computer program, especially when you are new with it, you will be in full out left brain mode and the creative juice needed for design will not flow as well!
This is why I recommend sketching, or fiddling about with images to find things you like, or something right brain, before starting your design! :D
So far, I have used, gimp, daz 3d, bryce, blender, publisher.There are some great tutorials on YouTube for making 3d metallic text in blender.
C.B. wrote: "Design uses the Right side of the brain. Computers use the left. If you start full out computer program, especially when you are new with it, you will be in full out left brain mode and the creative juice needed for design will not flow as well!..."
Well, that's true for normal people, but my giant monster brain is artistic on both sides.
Well, that's true for normal people, but my giant monster brain is artistic on both sides.
Mod
My giant monster brain is on a shelf in my laboratory. It is from a Green Dragon named Stephen.
Mine is from the Green Giant. It says "Ho, ho, ho" all the time. Scary.
I use both Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator. That is the most professional thing to use. I'm also self taught in it... but there are sooo many tutorials that you can learn from.
C.B. wrote: "Design uses the Right side of the brain. Computers use the left."Well... I have an almost perfectly symmetrical brain so no problems with switching back and forth or do them in parallel. This is the good part of being symmetrical :)
Re-railing:
I mostly use gimp. Occasionally Inkscape.
K.R. wrote: "Hi, I was just wondering what all software or programs do you guys use to create your eBook covers? I have mine on Amazon for my novella, but it doesn't look right. I'd love to do it correctly, bu..."
I use Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator, and occasionally Daz 3D Studio for modeling characters.
In the end, I don't think the actual tools matter as much as how you use them :)
I used Photoshop for my book cover. The program can be intimidating if you're going in cold and especially if you don't have any background in web design. GIMP basically free Photoshop, it shares a lot of the same features but doesn't have the technical prowess that PS has. Also doesn't have the insane price tag!You can download GIMP and play around with it. Youtube has tons of tutorials and while the learning curve can be kind of steep, it's not impossible to master the basics to the point where you can tweak your cover to your liking.
Good luck!
Sophia wrote: "I used Photoshop for my book cover. The program can be intimidating if you're going in cold and especially if you don't have any background in web design. GIMP basically free Photoshop, it shares a..."the biggest hurdle is understanding how to use layers.
the biggest caveat with GIMP: save often!
Mod
With different file names!
My cover was a hurdle for me, for more than one reason, which was the intent of this post in the first place. I was using an online photo editor and the original Paint that comes on every Windows computer, and my photo wasn't good quality. So, since this was posted, I decided to purchase some stock photos and look at some free ones that are still good quality, and I created my cover image perfectly using Microsoft PowerPoint.
I use Corel Photo Paint. It's like Photoshop but I like it better, probably because I used it long before Photoshop was available for PCs.
I use a variety of programs: Photoshop, Carrara, Bryce, and Daz Studio are the ones I tend to use the most. Photoshop is where everything is "put together" in the end. I have tried GIMP in the past, but being a old user of Photoshop, I went back. I am sure Gimp is a good program and I know several people that use it, but the workflow didn't make sense to me. Although I haven't tried it in a few years so perhaps it has changed since then.
Photoshop is the best tool for the job. But, it has steep learning curve. Affinity photo is an affordable version of photoshop.
I use Gimp to make the image(s) and Photoshop Elements to do "color corrections" for print. I'll try my hand at InkScape for future illustrations; I'll see how that works out. There are lots of tutorials for Gimp, and a lot of goodies from the good folks at DeviantArt.
I've used Photoshop a few times, mainly during high school though, so it's been a little while. I should probably freshen up on those skills at some point. I tried Gimp before and had a horrible time. I don't like looking at tutorials or "how-to's" a lot; I'd rather learn all the tricks myself. PowerPoint has done wonders on creating eBook covers, as well as a few other programs just for resizing to properly fit the specifications required by Amazon. I even opened a shop on Etsy to sell premade and/or custom covers to writers or authors at affordable prices because when I looked into professional services, the prices stunned me! That's why I began the journey of learning to do it myself in the first place.
I've always used Photoshop for my design work so I used that for all my covers. It's easy to use and I can achieve the look I want for them all on there.
I use Adobe Photoshop for designs, Adobe InDesign for interiors, and I'm currently learning Adobe After Effects for book trailers. I've used these for my books and other people's books.
I'm not an artist so I hire someone from Fiverr.com. For $16 she did a great job!Artist page: here. She has a 99% positive rating, there will always be curmudgeons who are never happy (I work with other artists myself in my full-time job).
Cover is here.
I was just wondering what all software or programs do you guys use to create your eBook covers? I have mine on Amazon for my novella, but it doesn't look right. I'd love to do it correctly, but since I'm new at this, I don't know how to get it to where Amazon wants it.
Thanks,
K.R. Reese