Tag Archives: photographic illustration

August 27, 2014 · 7:00 am

Behind the Scenes – Seven Days to Goodbye

A cover for Barking Rain Press.

For this one, the main character is training an Australian Shepherd, and since the main stock image we wanted to use had a different breed of dog, I ended up swapping out dogs. We tried a couple different versions, but this is the one we finally settled on. We also changed the girl’s hairstyle. In order to get everything to look natural, I used Photoshop CS6’s overlay blend mode in layers and used the black and white paint brushes to change the lighting of her hair so that it would match the lay of the hoodie underneath. I also applied lighting techniques to the dog, and covered part of the dog’s paws to look more natural.

This is the result:

Stock images from Shutterstock:

http://www.shutterstock.com/pic.mhtml?id=91979300
http://www.shutterstock.com/pic.mhtml?id=3724855
http://www.shutterstock.com/pic.mhtml?id=86808145

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Filed under Book Covers, Client Work, Photo Illustration

Tagged as Barking Rain Press, book cover art, book cover design, contemporary fiction, photographic illustration, photoshop CS6, SBibb, Seven Days to Goodbye, Sheri S. Levy, shutterstock, Stephanie Flint, stock images

August 20, 2014 · 7:00 am

Behind the Scenes – SirenSong

Another cover for Melange Books.

For this one, I wanted to convey the idea that the man is the siren, and so I used the fish scale texture and a sort of rippling texture (a slightly Gaussian blurred image of quartz) to hint at the idea of the ocean. The author requested the gold and red tones, and mentioned that the siren works at a theatre, so I played with those colors and the background to give the cover a richer, classy feel. While I usually peruse Dreamstime for stock images, for this one, I looked through the images that Melange Books had purchased earlier during their stock subscription to see if anything matched.

This is the end result:

Stock images from Dreamstime:

http://www.dreamstime.com/royalty-free-stock-photos-young-guy-long-hair-naked-image23337038
http://www.dreamstime.com/royalty-free-stock-photos-gothic-castle-interior-image9182498
http://www.dreamstime.com/royalty-free-stock-image-rose-quartz-vertical-image858416
http://www.dreamstime.com/royalty-free-stock-photos-skin-blue-siamese-fighting-fish-image7645918

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Filed under Book Covers, Client Work, Photo Illustration

Tagged as book cover art, book cover design, Dreamstime, Gaussian blur, Megan Hussey, Melange Books, photographic illustration, romance, romance cover design, SBibb, siren, SirenSong, Stephanie Bibb, Stephanie Flint, textures

August 13, 2014 · 7:00 am

Behind the Scenes – Fallenwood

Another cover for Melange Books.

This is actually for the book prior to Forgetting Fallenwood, but the book is being re-released by Melange Books, and so it’s getting a new cover. For this one, I tried capturing the feel of the other covers I’ve done for this series, including text placement, colors, blur effects, and the fonts I used. I quite enjoyed playing with the concept of the unicorn, as well. The author had mentioned on the art form that it might be neat to have the unicorn somewhere on the cover. I took the idea and ran. 🙂

This is the end result:

Stock images from Dreamstime:

http://www.dreamstime.com/stock-photo-black-horse-runs-image14200120
http://www.dreamstime.com/royalty-free-stock-photography-woodland-glade-image22617867
http://www.dreamstime.com/royalty-free-stock-images-wild-eland-image5106959

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Tagged as black unicorn, book cover art, book cover design, book covers, Fallenwood, fantasy, fantasy novel, Leslie D. Soule, novel, photographic illustration, SBibb, Stephanie Bibb, Stephanie Flint, unicorn

May 28, 2014 · 7:00 am

Behind the Scenes – Lead Poisoning

This is a book cover for Barking Rain Press. In this case, the publisher had a couple images they knew they already knew they wanted to use (the family picture and the prescription bottle with the bullets), but they wanted the image itself put together. They mentioned wanting a picture frame on a mantel or nightstand, and we added in the cracked glass effect later. I added in some of my own textures to add the gritty feel, and tinkered with the coloring to add to the “Lead Poisoning” title effect.

This was the end result. 🙂

Stock images from Shutterstock:
http://www.shutterstock.com/pic.mhtml?id=166887041
http://www.shutterstock.com/pic.mhtml?id=71932054
http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-134077130/stock-photo–mm-bullet-isolated-on-white-background.html
http://www.shutterstock.com/pic.mhtml?id=97680992
http://www.shutterstock.com/pic.mhtml?id=49243009

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Filed under Book Covers, Client Work, Photo Illustration

Tagged as Barking Rain Press, book cover art, cover design, crime novel, J.E. Seymour, Lead Poisoning, photographic illustration, SBibb, Stephanie Bibb, Stephanie Flint, stock photography, using stock images

May 7, 2014 · 6:00 am

Behind the Scenes – The Horse Rescuers Anthology

This is a cover for Melange Books.

We played with a few ideas for this cover, and ultimately, we decided to keep to the cover theme of three books going into this anthology. Like the others, only one photograph was used in the main picture, but I did do quite a bit of color changing to match up the characters and horses. Both the horses had their colors changed, the brown horse got a mane, and the two girls had their hair darkened to a brown. I even tweaked the ears on the brown horse a bit, and thus had to play with the background sky. If you do photomanipulation, don’t forget that you can use digital illustration techniques to edit a single image without changing a whole lot else. 🙂

Stock photography from: Dreamstime.

http://www.dreamstime.com/stock-images-buckskin-horse-closeup-image203204
http://www.dreamstime.com/royalty-free-stock-images-horse-riding-image26824429

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Tagged as anthology cover, book cover art, book cover design, changing colors, Pat Gilkerson, photographic illustration, photomanipulation, photoshop CS6, SBibb, Stephanie Bibb, Stephanie Flint, The Horse Rescuer's Anthology, thematic design

April 30, 2014 · 6:00 am

Behind the Scenes – Turn on a Dime

This is a cover for Melange Books.

This was a pretty simple design. Mostly we just tinkered with the coloring for the border and the text outline, with the intent of making it stand out better without looking exactly like the previous covers. We did keep to theme of Penny Pony and Nickel-Bred, but this time we included a girl on the cover. As per the other covers, I included a faint horse image over the border itself. 🙂

Stock photos from: Dreamstime.

http://www.dreamstime.com/stock-image-young-girl-bay-horse-outdoor-standing-image34809821
http://www.dreamstime.com/stock-photography-two-brown-baby-foals-image6955592

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Tagged as book cover art, book covers, contemporary YA novel, cover design, Horse Rescuers, Pat Gilkerson, photographic illustration, SBibb, Stephanie Bibb, Stephanie Flint, Turn on a Dime

April 16, 2014 · 9:00 am

Behind the Scenes – Kragan

This is a cover for Melange Books.

Sometimes the trick in creating images isn’t creating your own image completely from scratch, but combining images and making them look like they’re all part of one logo. For example, the lion crest was its own stock image, but I added the swords in separate. However, I wanted them to look like part of the image, so I erased parts of the swords where they met up with the crest. The result was that it looks like its all part of one piece.

Meanwhile, it’s been a while since I’ve added a logo to fabric material, and I remembered there are a few tricks in Photoshop to do it. Though I didn’t use any one tutorial specifically, these are a few I glanced over before creating the flag image:

This one has some neat tips and reminders (though I only skimmed the video with the sound off). http://www.photoshoproadmap.com/links/go/8308/

This is more of what I was trying to find initially, using displacement maps. http://www.photoshopessentials.com/photo-effects/texture-map/

Stock images from Dreamstime.

http://www.dreamstime.com/stock-photos-ancient-castle-edinburgh-image19198663
http://www.dreamstime.com/stock-images-horse-knight-armour-helmet-sword-hand-image30467774
http://www.dreamstime.com/stock-images-warm-autumn-sunbeams-image16518554
http://www.dreamstime.com/royalty-free-stock-photos-medieval-sword-image3628148
http://www.dreamstime.com/royalty-free-stock-photo-lion-crest-2-image24850145
http://www.dreamstime.com/royalty-free-stock-photography-templar-flag-medieval-combat-society-white-red-cross-waving-wind-against-blue-sky-clouds-image33995287

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Filed under Book Covers, Client Work, Photo Illustration

Tagged as book cover, book cover design, cover art, Dennis K. Hausker, displacement map, Kragan, Melange Books, photographic illustration, photoshop CS6, SBibb, Stephanie Bibb, Stephanie Flint, tutorials

April 9, 2014 · 9:00 am

Behind the Scenes – Roberto’s Return

This is a cover for Melange Books, the next in the T.J. Jackson Mysteries.

For this cover, the author already had a pretty good idea of what he wanted, and he even had images of the park he wanted used for the background. However, since it was a recognizable building, I did have the author check on the need for a property release. (Just like models, many buildings and areas require property releases. It’s a good idea to check before shooting in an area to see if you’ll need one). The author was able to get permission, and so we were able to proceed with that image.

I also ended up doing a bit of digital illustration (Photoshop CS6) to piece everything together. Since we wanted a very specific pose, and the author had the outfit necessary, he had a friend model for him and shoot the image, and then I picked out the stock images of the man’s head to best fit the character. I added in a different sky, since we wanted sunset, and we tried to mimic the baseball text for the title itself.

Side note: Since most of these covers have been revealed by the time I post them, and since I usually try to post behind the scenes information when I reveal the covers on my blog, I’m going to start calling these posts “Behind the Scenes” instead of “Cover Reveal.” Sorry for any confusion. 🙂

Stock Photos from Dreamstime:

http://www.dreamstime.com/stock-photo-afroammerican-businessman-points-finger-up-image29241340
http://www.dreamstime.com/stock-photo-sunset-sky-image24432770

All other images provided by author. Photograph of Doubleday Field used with permission.

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Filed under Book Covers, Client Work, Photo Illustration

Tagged as A T.J. Jackson Mystery, baseball player, book cover design, cover art, Paul Ferrante, photographic illustration, photoshop CS6, Roberto's Return, SBibb, Stephanie Bibb, Stephanie Flint

April 2, 2014 · 8:00 am

Cover Reveal – The Last Conception

This is a cover for Melange Books.

In this case, the author had a stock image in mind, and it worked out quite well for the cover. I had my own textures that I used to create the overall, papery text. Otherwise, I just played with color tonality, blending modes, and text placement. I gave the bottom of the cover a darker brown color to represent dirt, and the author asked that the main image be green to symbolize life. This was the end result. Simple, but elegant. 🙂

Stock photo from: Dreamstime.

http://www.dreamstime.com/royalty-free-stock-image-woman-tree-image18317296

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Filed under Book Covers, Client Work, Photo Illustration

Tagged as book cover art, book cover design, ebook covers, Gabriel Constans, Melange Books, photographic illustration, SBibb, SBibb's Photographic Illustration, Stephanie Bibb, Stephanie Flint, The Last Conception

March 26, 2014 · 8:00 am

Dangerous Denial – Cover Reveal

This is a cover I edited for Barking Rain Press. In this case, they already had the main image they wanted, and they had the cool text placement in the cross hairs. However, they wanted me to do the final touches and adjust the sizing and such. So, after a bit of playing around with effects, I ended up playing the the motion blur and radial blur filters to add a sense of movement and disorientation. I also played with blurring and retouching the background so our main focus would be on the woman, and I played with the overall lighting. This is the end result. 🙂