Hello awesome people. I come to you very humbly from other parts of this site for guidance in a thing that is not my usual forte. I've put together a cover for an ebook of my short stories and want to know how to make it look... not amateurish, at least. Any comments are extremely appreciated.
I am using Gimp and have basic familiarity with it. Like, uh, layers! And kerning! So I can probably fix whatever you suggest but I may respond with "duuuh what?" And then you can make fun of me while I frantically google whatever you said. Like anti-aliasing... I know what that is now! Oh god I'm so sorry, please help.
I zoomed in close on the image and saw some yellow spots/things that were really too light to be put against a white(ish) background? Maybe make those more visible if you want to include whatever it is they are.
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Quoththe RavenMiami, FL FOR REALRegistered Userregular
It is a collection of my short short fiction. Various genres, but slanted towards speculative fiction. The title is one of the stories.
Go ahead and post the image in your OP, I think, Quoth.
Speaking of anti-aliasing.... those circles could use some smoothing. They're sort of jagged right now.
This is looking way better. :^: I think the texture should extend to the bee, though, if in a toned-down form. He's kind of conspicuous in his flat-filliness relative to the circles.
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Quoththe RavenMiami, FL FOR REALRegistered Userregular
Okay, I'll fix that bee texture. Is the background too light/subtle? It was originally just white but that was too, uh, white. I can darken it and make the texture more visible if that would be better?
Yeah, Mayday's right. And now that I've been staring at it super long give a little more breathing room between "r-i" in "apiarium" to match the airy spacing of all those rounded letters.
(Sorry to nitpick kerning so hard but this cover design is totally reliant on typography so it's virtually all we can see, I think)
squidbunny on
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Quoththe RavenMiami, FL FOR REALRegistered Userregular
That is the actual title, yes. Is it that bad?
Do I need it to be 1200 dpi for an ebook? I don't anticipate this ever going to print. If it were, I'd probably beg my sister in law to make me something with InDesign... And is there a way for text not to be rasterized in Gimp?
Please, nitpick away! I know I'm not likely to impress real designers but like I said, I don't want this to be embarrassing. If I CAN fix something, I WANT to fix it.
Though if it's referencing the latin sentence, I believe the order was reversed in that one (per aspera ad astra).
For an ebook you certainly do not need 1200dpi. Even 600 sounds like overkill (since that's the print resolution AFAIK).
Quoth – You'll probably need to do some e-book research and find out what out what the final resolution for the cover needs to be, i.e. 900px x 1200px (those aren't the actual numbers you need, I just made them up).
The dpi doesn't technically matter for screens, it's the pixel dimension. For example, a 12.5" x 16.667" document at 72 dpi has the same amount of pixels as a 3" x 4" document at 300 dpi. They both have a pixel dimensions of 900px x 1200px.
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Speaking of anti-aliasing.... those circles could use some smoothing. They're sort of jagged right now.
This is looking way better. :^: I think the texture should extend to the bee, though, if in a toned-down form. He's kind of conspicuous in his flat-filliness relative to the circles.
MT or Kronus or some of the other design types are better at critting this kind of thing, though.
I would resize that image for posting, it doesn't need to be so large. Also, if you're going to use rasterized text, I would aim for 1200 dpi.
I'm absolutely no expert, but "a-d" and "p-e" need to be narrower IMHO.
(Sorry to nitpick kerning so hard but this cover design is totally reliant on typography so it's virtually all we can see, I think)
Do I need it to be 1200 dpi for an ebook? I don't anticipate this ever going to print. If it were, I'd probably beg my sister in law to make me something with InDesign... And is there a way for text not to be rasterized in Gimp?
Please, nitpick away! I know I'm not likely to impress real designers but like I said, I don't want this to be embarrassing. If I CAN fix something, I WANT to fix it.
Thanks so much you guys!
I think people are just confused because anything resembling latin makes them think of lorem ipsum etc. The title's fine.
For an ebook you certainly do not need 1200dpi. Even 600 sounds like overkill (since that's the print resolution AFAIK).
EDIT @nib: nuh-uh, mine is 90!
Quoth – You'll probably need to do some e-book research and find out what out what the final resolution for the cover needs to be, i.e. 900px x 1200px (those aren't the actual numbers you need, I just made them up).
The dpi doesn't technically matter for screens, it's the pixel dimension. For example, a 12.5" x 16.667" document at 72 dpi has the same amount of pixels as a 3" x 4" document at 300 dpi. They both have a pixel dimensions of 900px x 1200px.