Support for Indie Authors discussion

Hello, Everyone

I would like to make my own E-covers. For those of you who design and create your own, what do you use? Thank-you

Hi Groovy,
Mainly, I use Gimp, which is a free, open source photo editor similar to Photoshop. Additionally, I've used a couple of apps to add filters to images before I import them. The main one is Pixlr, but lately I've been having fun with text effects in pixel lab.

Most of my covers are made up of either my own photographs and art, but I've used some images found on pixabay.com as well. For fonts I typically go to fontsquirrel.com They are pretty good at providing licensing info that is clear as far as font use goes.

As for putting it all together, I use a 2:3 ratio since I'm typically going to use the same image for my 6X9 paperbacks, but I do a lower res version so my eBook file stays small.

Hi Groovy,

When I make my own covers, Teasers and banners, I use the free online graphic designer Canva, but I hear the free designer Gimp has more features similar to Photoshop. I have yet to try it, so you'd have to check it out for yourself.

Good luck with your projects!
- A.C.

Photoshop for me.

I have tried Gimp, but I can't seem to get it to do much. I mess with it now and then. Maybe some day the light bulb will come on and I'll get it. Meanwhile, I use MS Paint. Some of my covers are my own drawings, some are my photos, some are photos I've found on free public domain sites.

I believe Amazon has a 'cover creator' button when you upload your ebook. I've never looked at it or heard anyone comment, but it is likely to be fairly easy and may be a good start.

Photoshop. I suck when it comes to finding and using the right fonts though.

This guy (http://diybookcovers.com/) created a site that has turned out to be a pretty great resource for DIY cover creators. He also created a tool (http://diybookcovers.com/covercreator/) that makes cover design techniques, like blending, quite easy.

I tried this approach (Canva as well), and while I did end up with a finished product, it paled in comparison to what an actual designer could do.

I'm all for DIY, but if you recognize that you are not artistically inclined, it is probably worth it to poke around fiverr or other such sites to see if you can find a designer that specializes in your genre.

I understand how to import a photo into cover creating software, since it's a file on your computer. What is the best method of getting actual artwork on a piece of paper into your computer? Take a photo of it? Scan it? Whenever I scan it always seems to come out crooked. Any ideas?

I've had the same problem, Sue. Gimp has a great feature to rotate a graphic. http://www.gimp.org

Amazon's cover creator is easy and the results aren't too bad at all.

I use it because I'm s*** at any other means of cover creation. I did my first in photoshop and it took forever. The next four are all Amazon CC.

Sue (Rescue Dog Mom) wrote: "I understand how to import a photo into cover creating software, since it's a file on your computer. What is the best method of getting actual artwork on a piece of paper into your computer? Take a..."

I've always taken a picture, but I always end up manipulating the end results anyway, so things like crooked images arent an issue. Your best option is to have good lighting and a tripod (or very steady hand).

Sue (Rescue Dog Mom) wrote: "I understand how to import a photo into cover creating software, since it's a file on your computer. What is the best method of getting actual artwork on a piece of paper into your computer? Take a..."

Draw a line under it before you scan it. Then it is easy to make level with rotate features... if that is an issue! :)
Scanning is the way to go for a physical image on paper/other stuff.

I'm not too good with the technical side of images. When I have to do something myself I often use https://pixlr.com/ which is very easy to use and you can achieve some pretty good results.

That depends on the cover. I use various programs for various reasons.

Illustrator I use for:
- Vectors, mostly silhouettes.
- Outlines for physical characters because the Blob Brush with a stylus is amazing.
- Logo designs.

Photoshop I use for:
- Colouring in characters drawn with blob brush.
- Backgrounds.
- Photo am image manipulation
- Fully 'painted' work.

InDesign I used for:
- Layout of covers.
- Font work

They are great. They take time to learn. They are expensive.

There are free versions of all of them out there.
- Gimp is the Photoshop one I hear about with much love
- Inkscape is Illustrator. People that know a bit of Gimp should check it out and see the difference.
- I don't know what the InDesign one is called. I haven't looked. I'll look into it.

I can help with questions on the Adobe Suite if asked, but I have no idea how to use the others as I have never tried them! :)

Wow. What a lot of good advice. I made the list of all the suggestions here and will look them all up and see which I can work with.

Thank you all for this. I really appreciate it. If I can do it, I'll show the cover and see what all of you think.

I looked at all of your covers. And it has inspired me to do my own. It seems daunting right now, but I know I just need to take a deep breath and start.

All of your covers are really good!

Most of the time, I use Gimp and occasionally Inkscape.
My tips:

- Whatever tool you choose that knows more than the 'templates', you will have some learning curve. Decide whether you want to invest the time/energy or not. Going half the way is a waste of time.

- If your goal is not to make your best-seller cover on your first try, then you should be able to make quite decent covers yourself with the tools mentioned in the thread.

- Don't forget to check the licensing of your source materials. Pictures, fonts. If you are unsure, better look for something else. Let's try to keep this clean :)

- You will find a lot of good tutorials (and some bad of course) about how to use the graphical tools. If you watch a couple and experiment with pictures other than your cover-to-be, you can gather enough practice in a couple of hours to start working on what you want to do. Think about what you want it to look like and what you have at hand, and if you don't know the specific trick or tool, google it.

- Don't use a specific filter, tool, technique just because you like it. Used it because you need it! ;)

Clint, Christina, and C.B. - Thank you for your helpful advice. Makes sense. Truly appreciated!

Zoltan - Fonts? Do you mean some of the fonts in MS Word may not be used on a cover?

Depending where you get your fonts, some of them may have different licensing rights for private or commercial use; you may need to buy a commercial license to use a specific font on a book cover, so it's always a good idea to check.

And just to chime in along with everybody else, I also make my own covers, but I just use digital paintings I make in Photoshop, rather than photo compsite.
Something I'm not crazy about is Amazon's really weird recommended ratio that asks you to make the book covers really tall and narrow, which is a different aspect from a printed book. (Something like 8:5)

Personally I prefer to make the covers using a wider aspect ratio, but fit the main part of the image and the title within the narrower center, and then just crop it to use on Amazon, but keep the wider cover for ads. It's not really necessary, especially if you're only making ebooks, but I figured it'd be something to keep in mind.

Groovy,

If you've got an image that you like, then Amazon Cover Creator does a pretty good job. Trouble is, it can look a little "off the rack." To stand out, without looking hokey, you need to a) spend a lot of time, or b) spend some money. Always get extra eyes on on your cover. Remember, it's not what you like, it's what your potential readers are going to see/like/react to.

If you DIY, be careful of PhotoShopping a person-pic onto a landscape background. If not perfect, the results can look dreadful (imho). Actually, just don't...

However, PS and even PS-Elements can work great for cleaning up a drawing/pic/pdf for use on your cover. If you're comfortable with PowerPoint, it has some very good vector graphic and text tools for composing your final cover image. It also has a gentle learning curve for those of us with fat fingers and short patience.

Thank-you! This is all very, very helpful:) Wish me the best! ;)

Best of luck, Groovy!! Please keep us posted. I'm too timid to try this myself. I know YouTube has tutorials on everything, and I've watched a few and tried Gimp and Pixlr, but wasn't able to get it right.

Oh! Groovy, Amanda Siegrist used Paint.net for her book covers, and they look nice. It's a free download.

I use GIMP for everything. It's free, the features are amazing, and it handles layers, PDF files, and anything else you could possibly need. It also uses any font you have on your computer, and there are a million free for commercial use fonts out there.

I also use Pixabay any time I need stock photography and have gotten some pretty decent results from that. I paint my own covers if they need to be painted. Personally, I don't have a scanner so I use my digital camera and then prepare the image in, you guessed it, GIMP.

Thank-you, Sue, I will if I don't mess it up:) And I remember Amanda saying she uses that. Putting it on my list!

Rohvannyn, it seems GIMP is the most popular. Thanks! Your covers are nice, too.

A good friend just told me about picmonkey.com and how super easy that one is. Putting it on my list!

I'll second Inkscape (forgot to mention it above). I'm not terribly artistic, but I was able to easily draw a design idea I had for an earlier book cover edition as well as some decorative elements.

Regardless of what you use, don't get discouraged. If a program isn't doing what you want there is probably an app for that. ;)

LOL Christina!!
I saw a TV commercial showing a man drawing on a screen with a stylus. I don't know if it was a small laptop and software program or if it was a small electronic unit for drawing and coloring pictures only. Does anyone have any idea what that could be? Thanks.

I do, Sue!
There are various levels of that technology. I have a stylus with a little board I use, but they have ones you can draw right on screens now.
wacom makes some of the best, and getting the pressure sensitive ones are 100% more much better.

Hi C.B. Thanks!! Looks like fun! I'll check out wacom.

I just saw the tutorials for GIMP and Canva. They seem very easy to do. The programs work very much like my website software Sitespinner where I design my own website and publish it online without having to pay someone else to do it, especially when website updates are needed.

So, I was a bit overwhelmed at first, but it seems I've been doing this kind of software programming for years now. I can do this! And Christina, you're right--"don't get discouraged"...if one doesn't work, I'll try another one.

I used to design covers using Adobe Illustrator and PhotoShop, which is like a $1000 suite of software. Then we retired our old Windows XP computer and decided not to pay that much for the new version. It turns out the newer editions of MS Word are just as good, though, so my cover designer hasn't missed any of her old desktop publication software very much. We've been able to pull in royalty-free images from certain websites (and a few photos of our own) and they look just as good as the rendered stuff we used to do.

And of course, since I already use Word for the writing part of making books, it doesn't cost anything extra to use it for the cover art.

Wonderful Groovy!! I'm so happy for you!!
I tried following the tutorials for Gimp, but just couldn't do it. That doesn't mean I'm giving up. Ugh!

Groovy wrote: "Hello, Everyone

I would like to make my own E-covers. For those of you who design and create your own, what do you use? Thank-you"

I use Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator, but I'm probably in the minority (I use them routinely in my "day job"). As others have said, though, there are very good free alternatives that have many of the same functions.

In the end, though, the tools are less important than the artist using them :)

I tried to find paint.net that Amanda uses, but it takes me to a paint company's website.

Good point, Ken.

It was mentioned here that this process takes a lot of time. Boy were you right! Trying to find the perfect pictures and colors and fonts--no wonder professional designers charge a lot!

Groovy wrote: "I tried to find paint.net that Amanda uses, but it takes me to a paint company's website.

Good point, Ken."

It's Getpaint.net

Another good low-cost paint program is Paint Tool Sai. I've heard some good things about it and I know there are some basic youtube tutorials out there if you need them. My teenage daughter has been able to make some beautiful, cover-worthy illustrations using their free-download version.

Thanks for the correction, Alexis:)

Adding that to my list, Alfred. Thanks.

First book I licensed an image I liked and sourced a gig on Fiverr. It was exactly what I asked for, cheap and easy. The next six shorts in a series I used the Amazon cover creator tool, as an experiment. I used stock wallpapers to background the entire cover and just added graphics. The actual cover images look lovely, reminds me of old scifi paperbacks back in the day, but the icon images are too low rez.

Kevin, your covers are colorful and nice, and without reading the genre, I can tell what type they are. Good job.

This is new to me, and it's not easy. But I'm getting there. Thanks.