Confessions of a book cover designer

The other day I was in the bookstore looking for a copy of a book I designed a cover for earlier this year. It was produced by a well-known publisher and had a rather impressive promotional budget, so I was anxious to see it "live."

From all accounts, the cover looks good. I breathed a sigh of relief. Why? Well, because you couldn't tell that the entire front cover, which features the author, was pieced together, having once been cut clean in two. How does this happen you ask? Well, easier than you might think.

The cover was approved early on, but the photo of the author required a lot of work. A bald spot needed hair added to it, smile lines and scars were erased, skin color smoothed out, pores reduced, nose hairs eradicated, cracked lips were made to look smooth and "kissable" via the magic of Photoshop (see, India, no camel caps, I'm cured) and crows feet were reduced to the fine lines one would see on a person half the author's age. He looked good, although I'll never watch him on TV with the same enthusiasm again.

At some point during all of these changes, the cover was approved. I flattened most of the touch-up layers and, in order to find the mathematical center of the template, to make sure the title was placed correctly, I used the Photoshop crop tool and cut the cover down to trim size plus bleed. I formatted it and sent it off.

Then they asked if I could make the author's image a bit smaller and drop the title a fraction of an inch, to make room for something they planned to add on their end for some printings. In order to maintain the balance and not leave a gap between image and text, I had to move the image in so far that the trimmed edge was visible on the right side of the cover for about a half-inch. Ooooops.

Panic.

I had several saved versions, but so much fine tuning had been done one crows foot at a time, I wasn't sure I had the final product with the entire right side of the celebrity. I also had altered the color slightly, so it was no longer exactly the same as the original.

As my supportive family looked on and mocked, I blew the image up as far as I could get it and pieced in the right side of the photo, matching it, literally, one pixel at a time. I was squinting and seeing spots before my eyes by the time I was finished, but after a few print proofs and having others give it a close visual, I decided you couldn't tell.

And you can't.

Whew.

Comments

[JR]

hi,
thats great! now have u got any free ideas for my book cover?
JR