Jannie Lund | Stephanie Flint - Author and Artist

Tag Archives: Jannie Lund

March 25, 2015 · 7:00 am

Behind the Scenes – Finding Clara

This is a cover for Melange Books. In this case, the author wanted to show the main character looking into a mirror and seeing a different aspect of their life, other than what they felt. In order to portray both scenes, I looked for stock images where there were multiple images of the model to choose from, both from the back, and from the front. Though the clothing is different, I tried to choose a less obvious difference, as well as placement which would draw less attention to the outfit, and instead focus on the concept of the two different “lives.”

On a technical note, when I usually complete a near-final cover, I use auto-align to get the rough size and position for full-sized stock images based on the proof cover. Lots of layers are typically involved. Every once in a while, however, something doesn’t want to work quite right. In this case, I had a smart object (very useful for maintaining the original size of images and grouping clusters together) decide it didn’t want to be edited. No idea why the layer locked, but with a little bit of searching, I found this link: https://forums.adobe.com/message/1870944

The post of use for this situation suggested to right click the smart object layer that refuses to be edited, open up the resulting menu, then export contents. Save that as a separately named file, and when you reopen the file, it opens as the smart object you were trying to open. Quite handy, I thought.

This is the final result, including the back cover I created for it:

Stock images from Dreamstime:

http://www.dreamstime.com/stock-images-beautiful-woman-smiling-image15889714
http://www.dreamstime.com/royalty-free-stock-photography-victorian-mirror-image12415487
http://www.dreamstime.com/royalty-free-stock-photography-man-leaning-country-gate-image21409557
http://www.dreamstime.com/royalty-free-stock-photo-beautiful-woman-necklace-looking-image17998425
http://www.dreamstime.com/stock-photo-drive-autumn-woods-thanksgiving-day-image46328634

Cover Reveal – A Thousand Sunsets

A cover for Melange Books.

This is another example where I changed the hairstyle of the person in the stock photo. The image I used had long hair, but we needed short, curly hair to better fit the main character. In this case, I started by using the Patch tool and Clone brush tool in Photoshop CS6 to fill in the background where the hair had been previously, then tweaked it using layers to smooth out where her shoulders where. Then, on a new layer, I used the smudge tool. First a softer, but larger size for the over all shape of the hair, and then a smaller, harder brush to give it the little details in the hair. Then I created another layer to sharpen it and lowered the opacity to make it look a little more natural. Viola. New hairstyle.

This is also a case where I ended up using a discarded cover proof from another project. A while back I’d tested this image and text placement (different font, though) for a different romance cover, but the author and I ultimately chose something different. However, when I read the art form for A Thousand Sunsets, this proof came back to mind. So I asked the publisher if they’d mind me recycling the proof (since we hadn’t used it), and I did check with the author, but it turned out to be what they were looking for. So… without further ado, the cover for A Thousand Sunsets: