Tag Archives: shutterstock

This is a wrap around cover I did for Barking Rain Press.

(You can find the book here: http://www.barkingrainpress.org/dd-product/slip-sliding-away/ ).

(See a larger version on my Deviant Art Account: http://sbibb.deviantart.com/art/Slip-Sliding-Away-Cover-394872911 )

For this particular cover, I actually did a photoshoot (three, to get the angle and items right) of my own. The publisher wanted a desk with the drink on it and the photos, and when I first started trying to put it together with stock, I realized I’d have a much easier time if I just set the shoot up myself (especially since we’d just finished that dresser…. which worked well for a desk setting). I set up the glass, notepad, and alarm clock, as well as used an empty picture frame and two gift cards to hold the place for the photos. (Note to self: Next time someone has the stock photos they want used already picked out, just print them off and put directly in the image… it’ll save editing time later). I also changed the card reflections to that of the stock photos (from Shutterstock). For the alarm clock, I quickly discovered the numbers weren’t going to appear on their own (same reason you can’t have your shutter speed faster than 1/200 or you get a black line through your image). We had considered using a digital font for the numbers on the clock, but I found the LEDs just faintly showed in the image, had so I used the overlay tools to bring out the parts I needed.

I also changed the color of the overall image so it’d look more like night (I played with in-camera color settings, but found Photoshop was a bit more versatile for me). I did try to angle the lights (Alien Bees) so they’d look more like a lamp or low window.