Tag Archives: photomanipulation

Cover Reveal – Elmo’s Sojourn

This is a cover for Melange Books.

Initially I thought this cover was going to be a bit more difficult to reconstruct from the proof image (since I start with a proof before creating the final), but again, the align layers function came in super handy, and all I had to do was some finishing tweaks to bring everything together. Once the basic pieces were in place, I went in and tweaked the lighting further, added in shadows and played with blending, and removed some of the distracting pieces from around the edges of the cover. Blades of grass and little star specks can distract from the center image if they stand out too much. Since we wanted a wormhole effect, this is also a case where I ended up using illustrations as well as photography in order to add to the science fiction look of the piece. Sometimes its helpful to look in the illustrated sections of the stock sites, and not just the photos. You never know what you might find that could be useful. πŸ™‚

SBibb - Elmo's Sojourn - Book Cover

Stock Photos from: Dreamstime.

http://www.dreamstime.com/stock-images-tornado-green-field-image18897874
http://www.dreamstime.com/stock-photography-back-view-senior-man-white-background-image35078222
http://www.dreamstime.com/royalty-free-stock-photo-old-trees-mist-laurel-forest-madeira-portugal-image35702305
http://www.dreamstime.com/royalty-free-stock-images-banyan-trees-hilo-image18648599
http://www.dreamstime.com/stock-image-tornado-city-image21115451
http://www.dreamstime.com/stock-images-tornado-image3181364
http://www.dreamstime.com/royalty-free-stock-photos-traveling-wormhole-image21501588

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Cover Reveal and Review – The Devil’s Third

This is the third and final book cover for Rebekkah Ford’s Beyond the Eyes trilogy, as well as a few of the promo pieces I put together for it. You can see the wrap-around cover here:Β http://sbibb.deviantart.com/art/The-Devil-s-Third-Book-Cover-423981244?q=gallery%3ASBibb&qo=0

SBibb - The Devil's Third - Book Cover

Facebook Banner:

SBibb - Devil's Third Promo

Bookmarks:

SBibb - Devil's Third PromoΒ SBibb - Devil's Third Promo

A bit about the cover: All images are my own, and I used the camera’s timer to get a few shots of me posing for the main character. We had a couple different ideas to work from, and when the first didn’t work out, it turned out handy that I’d done a few standing poses as well. Side note for photography– it can help to take multiple angles and poses in case one doesn’t have the desired effect. Photoshop CS6 to blend everything and photomanipulate the hand reaching out from the text.

(See the the previous covers for the series:Β https://sbibb.wordpress.com/2013/03/05/dark-spirits-cover-reveal/ andΒ http://sbibb.deviantart.com/art/Beyond-the-Eyes-Wrap-Around-309769699 )

And now for the review. πŸ˜€

Disclaimer: Paranormal romance isn’t my preferred genre, and therefore, my opinions may be skewed compared to that of someone who regularly enjoys paranormal romance.

Overall, an enjoyable read. The characters have a realness about them that I enjoyed, and the description of setting was wonderful. (Seriously, I read one passage that made me think I could smell a rainy autumn day. Descriptions that really engage the senses like that make me a happy camper).

My favorite part of the story was where Paige goes into Carrie’s memories (so-to-speak, trying not to give away spoilers). The visuals were awesome, the pace really picked up (the beginning was just a bit slow, but served well to remind me what happened in the previous book), and the plot revealed a few nice tid-bits of information about the dark spirits.

I also enjoyed the magic system and finding out more about their world and <spoiler>the different doorways Paige can open. I actually would have been interested in seeing more of the different dimensions</spoiler> but we also got to see other new abilities, as well, which I enjoyed reading about.

That being said, there were a few downsides for me. A minor thing, but I did notice more typos in this story than in the previous ones. Also, there were several times I felt like something convenient happened or wasn’t fully explained. In all fairness, I was reading this in ten minute intervals while on break at work, so my attention wasn’t completely focused. Might have been different if I’d been able to read it in longer intervals.

I didn’t really get into the romance between Nathan and Paige, but then, I don’t typically read stories for the romance. And Brayden… I still kind of want to strangle him. I did, however, like seeing more of Ameerah’s character, and I also liked seeing the new characters, like Pip.

For me, I think my favorite book out of this trilogy was actually Dark Spirits. I really liked the interactions between Bael and Paige in that story, but I liked seeing Paige’s new powers in this one. Overall, though, I think this was a good series that paranormal romance readers are likely to enjoy. πŸ™‚

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Pony Dreams – Cover Reveal

Another cover for Melange Books.

This is one of those covers where the photoshop auto-align layer came in helpful. So did smart object, as a way to keep everything sharp. I created the proof image, and when I went to create the final, I found everything was far too blurry. Finally suspected it had to do with how I’d been tweaking the angles of the image. I ended up redoing the final, with the help of the auto-align tool I was mentioning earlier, and that simplified the process considerably. Like with other covers where I used the proof image first, rather than using full size stock to start with, I did more clean-up to the final image, and thus came out with this. πŸ™‚

SBibb - Pony Dreams - Book Cover

Stock from Dreamstime:

http://www.dreamstime.com/stock-photos-blank-vintage-photo-paper-isolated-image26934533
http://www.dreamstime.com/royalty-free-stock-photography-pony-express-rides-again-image147907
http://www.dreamstime.com/stock-photos-pony-tail-portraits-image2181833
http://www.dreamstime.com/stock-photo-young-caucasian-male-portrait-attractive-handsome-model-wearing-jeans-white-button-shirt-isolated-white-background-image31290860
http://www.dreamstime.com/stock-photography-old-farmhouse-shed-image1933102

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Second Best – Cover Reveal

Another cover for Melange Books.

SBibb - Second Best - Book Cover

 

This one was actually one of the easier covers for me, largely because we were working directly from a stock subscription, so I was able to work with the full-size images right from the get-go. For this, I played around with overall mood, trying to get a sense of the setting per the art request sheet, and I also asked about extra details regarding the character (which age to go with and so forth) from the author. We later added the faint scar on her cheek, which is more visible at larger resolutions, but wasn’t meant to be the point of focus. Overall, I’m really pleased with how this came out. πŸ™‚

Stock Photography from Dreamstime:

http://www.dreamstime.com/stock-photography-portrait-girl-image15706682
http://www.dreamstime.com/royalty-free-stock-images-old-abandoned-factory-image18763339
http://www.dreamstime.com/royalty-free-stock-images-chain-link-fence-image7247619
http://www.dreamstime.com/stock-image-abstract-chain-link-fence-image7536291

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Santa’s Special Girl – Book Cover Reveal

Another cover for Melange Books. Today I talk about how photomanipulation is like a puzzle. πŸ™‚

Santa's Special Girl - Book Cover

This was a case where character creation was useful. The author requested that we have the little girl sitting on the other character’s lap, who is dressed as Santa. In this case, I didn’t have much luck finding the perfect picture from the main stock site I used, so I wound up putting a few photos together to create the resulting image. Found a guy dressed in a Santa suit who matched the description– changed his hair color. Gave him a slight smile. Found a Santa hat. Found a little girl sitting cross-legged in pajamas– helpful. Found a sitting Santa to use for the lap… and used puppet warp on the arm. Found a background. Put everything together, and voila! Photomanipulation is a bit like putting together puzzle pieces, but it helps to have an idea of what the pieces look like before starting the search to find the right one. Kind of like finding the corner pieces first and working your way into the puzzle from there.

Stock Photos from Dreamstime:

http://www.dreamstime.com/royalty-free-stock-images-teen-punk-santa-image5438109
http://www.dreamstime.com/royalty-free-stock-image-portrait-handsome-guy-image3590996
http://www.dreamstime.com/royalty-free-stock-photo-girl-sitting-santas-lap-getting-hug-image27538055
http://www.dreamstime.com/royalty-free-stock-photos-beautiful-six-year-old-girl-sitting-pajamas-over-white-image125808
http://www.dreamstime.com/royalty-free-stock-photography-doctor-s-office-image480487#_

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Cover Reveal – Shadow Trail

This is another cover for Melange Books.

SBibb - Shadow Trail Cover

 

Photoshop CS6. Stock from Dreamstime:

http://www.dreamstime.com/stock-images-woman-red-snowmobile-image17555834
http://www.dreamstime.com/stock-photos-forested-shoreline-winter-fog-image7463413
http://www.dreamstime.com/royalty-free-stock-images-young-woman-winter-portrait-image8065139

Sometimes cover design is a process of elimination. Sometimes you hit a design everyone in the cover design process likes the first time around. When I read the cover art form for Shadow Trail, an idea formed, and searching for stock, everything was right there. I placed the elements did some tweaking, then presented it to the author. It worked, yay!

So we put the final cover together with a few more tweaks. As a side note, fonts can help a cover stand out from the rest. A while back I purchased a package of 10,000 fonts, and every once in a while I’ll check to see what I can find there, especially if none of the fonts I currently have are quite working right. (http://www.ultimatefontdownload.com/) Granted, some of the fonts are available for free, if you’re willing to look for them, but here everything is compiled into an easy to search area, for which I use Font Viewer to find what I’m looking for. πŸ™‚

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Cover Reveal: Spirits of the Pirate House

This is another cover for Melange Books.

SBibb - Spirits of the Pirate House

Stock Used:

http://www.dreamstime.com/royalty-free-stock-image-old-wooden-manison-south-image18682006
http://www.dreamstime.com/stock-photo-smoking-image10381260
http://www.dreamstime.com/stock-photos-pirate-captain-image1336783
http://www.dreamstime.com/stock-images-man-pirate-costume-pistols-image23677904
http://www.dreamstime.com/royalty-free-stock-images-pirate-image20856919

Putting this cover together was a doozy. While many of my previous covers have been 2-4 stock images, plus textures, this is an example of using digital manipulation to create an entirely different character. Take a look at the different stock images used, then look at the final product. The palm tree was shorter, the pirate consists of several different stock images, a bit of photoshop to make him look angrier, plus doing the color changes and removing the trinkets in the hair. Plus changing lighting. So if you like seeing how you can piece-part an image together, this is the one to look at.

Overall, though difficult to make sure everything was placed as desired, this was a nice review to photomanipulation for creating a new image. πŸ™‚

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Cover Reveal – Unfinished Business

This is the cover for Unfinished Business, from Melange Books.

SBibb - Unfinished Business Cover

Stock Used:

http://www.dreamstime.com/stock-images-syringe-cup-coffee-image17032004
http://www.dreamstime.com/stock-photos-close-up-gold-french-coin-napoleon-wooden-table-image29942453
http://www.dreamstime.com/stock-photo-france-map-image10577480

For this one, the cover turned out to be relatively simple to do. It’s a suspense/thriller. For this, since it is supposed to have a noir feel to it, I used a dark blue primary color, as well as a grunge tinge. Originally there was a thumbtack on Paris (in the stock photo), but at the request of the author, I placed a syringe over Marseilles, where part of the story takes place. I also looked for French coins as part of the cover texture.

The point of doing this is to give readers a sense of what the story is about, and small nuances can make a world of difference in how a cover looks, and whether or not it is picked up by readers. Not only that, but if it’s picked up by theΒ rightΒ readers. A cover can get a lot of attention, but if your cover looks like a paranormal romance, and the book is hard-sci, it’s not going to get the correct attention, and may even get negative reviews because the readers didn’t get what they expected.

Something to keep in mind when creating concepts for book covers. πŸ™‚

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Spring Cleaning and Price Updates

Hello there. You may have noticed my blog got slightly reorganized. Added a page for my short stories, removed the pages about my portrait work (can still be accessed via http://www.sbibbphoto.com), and redid the pricing page. Thought it was time to do a little organization. πŸ™‚

The good news is that the pricing page should be easier to read, and also shows examples for the different types of book covers. If you’re looking for a new book cover, be sure to take a look. Prices start at $50.00 plus the cost of stock images.

Please let me know if there’s anything you’ve found particularly helpful on this blog, or anything you’d like to see more of. πŸ™‚

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An Age of Mist – Cover Reveal

SBibb - An Age of Mist Cover

 

This is another cover I did for Melange Books. πŸ™‚

Stock from Dreamstime:

http://www.dreamstime.com/royalty-free-stock-photography-serious-preteen-boy-image21381697
http://www.dreamstime.com/royalty-free-stock-images-misty-fjords-national-monument-alaska-usa-image780119

All other images are my own. Photoshop CS6 and Lightroom 4.0.

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