I thought I would take a moment and share a little background about one of my book covers. First of all I took most of the pictures associated with the cover. The picture of Big Ben was taken during my 2009 Anniversary trip to London with my husband. We stayed a few nights at a Marriott directly across from the Thames near Big Ben. We both love photography and took thousands of pictures on the trip.The model on the right is my biggest fan, and she really wanted to be on the cover. I was happy to oblige.
The model on the left is a friend of hers. He was good enough to help a new and struggling author with her cover especially because the stock photo I had originally wanted was $500. Fateful is doing very well, but I still wouldn't be able to afford that price. And since I've worked many years as a professional photographer, I really didn't see the point in paying someone else that much for a photo I could take.
I used Adobe Photoshop to create the final product. If you are unfamiliar with Photoshop imagine those old over-head projectors when a teacher would lay one transparency over the top of another to teach a lesson. Photoshop works in very much the same way. This image has about 30 layers or more. The picture of Big Ben is the bottom layer. Built on top of that are the models, the moon, the glow on the moon, the text, a couple of texture layers and the graphic embellishment. Even a bit of stubble was added to the male model's face. There is some overall shading and smoothing done to blend it all together and this is the result.
Some of the graphic designs are Photoshop brushes from http://www.brusheezy.com/ and/or 123freebrushes If you use brushes like this, I would recommend checking the copy right on each one to make certain they can be used for commercial purposes.
It takes a few hows to get it the way I want it...and it takes a bit of trial and error, even so, I immensely enjoy the process. Of course I hope you like the design as well.
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