Create Your Own Professional eCovers With Photoshop!

Create Your Own Professional eCovers

With Photoshop!
COPYRIGHT © 2005-2006

No part of this publication may be republished, modified or altered in any way without
the express written permission of the Publisher

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 Create Your Own Professional eCovers With Photoshop!

The Publisher has strived to be as accurate and complete as possible in the creation of this
manual, notwithstanding the fact that he does not warrant or represent at any time that
the contents within are accurate due to the rapidly changing nature of the Internet.

The Publisher will not be responsible for any losses or damages of any kind incurred by the
reader whether directly or indirectly arising from the use of the information found in this
book.

This manual is not intended for use as a source of legal, business, accounting or financial
advice. All readers are advised to seek services of competent professionals in legal,
business, accounting, and finance field.

Examples in this manual are demonstrated in Adobe Photoshop 7.0 environment. However,
methods covered in this manual can be used in Adobe Photoshop versions 5.0 and newer.
But do note that Adobe Photoshop functions and features may vary depending the version of
your Adobe Photoshop program.

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 Create Your Own Professional eCovers With Photoshop!

Table Of Contents
How To Use This Manual To Create Your Own eCovers In Photoshop 3

Chapter 1 : The Secrets Of Creating A Realistic eCover 5

Chapter 2 : Printing On The Cardboard 7

Chapter 3 : Folding The Cardboard Box 12

Chapter 4 : Lighting And Shadow 17

Chapter 5 : Adding Reflection 21

How To Use This Manual To Create Your Own

eCovers In Photoshop
without any external plug-ins or third party software!

Dear Photoshop User,

Thank you for investing in this manual. Now, you have your E-book done but what next? You
are now looking to get a professional eCover designed to give your E-book a professional
look and an edge over other E-books out there in the Internet marketplace.

But what really concerns you now is that you just DON’T have the big bucks to hire a
graphic designer to get the job done for you. Now, if you have more than one E-book, that
can also mean an average “$99 times the number of eCovers you need for each E-book you
have written” that you have to fork out of your wallet!

Forget software that create eCovers for you, too. They cost nearly as much and still require
a degree of designing skills on your part. In addition, you may not like the end results!

That is why this manual is for you; to learn how to make your own professional eCovers with
Photoshop without having to spend a bomb on hiring your own graphic designer or even buy

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a software that can’t give you your desired results!

By giving a “tangible” appearance to your E-book, your E-book’s credibility and perceived
value will be so much higher. Now, fire up Adobe Photoshop program and hop on to the first
chapter. This will be quick and easy and in less than an hour from now, you will have all of
what it takes to design unlimited eCovers for yourself – professionally!

[Your Name Here]

Create Your Own

Professional eCovers
With Photoshop!

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 Create Your Own Professional eCovers With Photoshop!

Chapter 1
The Secrets of a Realistic eCover
Many have attempted to create 3D eCovers in Photoshop environment
alone… without much success, unfortunately. Speaking from an
expert’s point of view, this is because they often start with cutting out
the “3D” shape of an E-book and add elements to it by using the
Distort function in the Free Transform gizmo. And the end result? A
jumbled up mixture of text, shapes and graphics that are completely
out of perspective.

An E-book cover I One of the secrets to creating a realistic eCover is the perspective.
By having every element in your E-book matching in perspective, you have already achieved
have created
the first step in making your own eCover look real!

The only way of making sure that every element in your eCover is in perspective is to first
create them on a flat perspective, then flattening all of the elements into one single layer and
finally distorting it into perspective.

This concept is rather similar to making a cardboard box. First, the cardboard is printed with
whatever design that is required, and then folded into the shape of a box. By following this
workflow, we can ensure that everything is in place and in perspective – no guesswork
involved.

The other secret to a realistic eCover is lighting. When you cast a light upon your eCover
image, correctly formed light/dark shades and shadows will really boost the realism of it. The
basic theory here is this: shadows form on the opposite side of the light source, but we’ll
discuss more than that in the the fourth chapter.

Now, for the good news: I’ve also included other techniques in this manual that will put you
years ahead of the other so-called professional graphic designers! Now, aren’t you glad? That
should put a smile on your face. ☺

When all of these methods are combined, you will be able to create a high-quality 3D eCover
that is realistic and attractive.

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Chapter 2
Printing on the Cardboard
Since we are going to use the concept of a cardboard box, let’s
get accustomed to using the “cardboard terminology”. First, we
are going to create the flat version of the eCover. If you are not
sure of what I am talking about, grab a cardboard box and pull
it apart so that it makes a flat cardboard. OK, back to
Photoshop.

We are going to create two sides of the box, the front and the
side since only the two sides are viewable in our eCover shot,
like the one shown to the left.

First, create a new document in Photoshop. Go to File > New

and type in 500 pixels for both width and height. Normally,
you’d want to create your “flat cardboard” design at a much greater size than your final 3D
cover

Now, press Control + R to bring out the Ruler if you don’t have
them on by default. Right click the ruler and choose Pixels as
units.

What we want to do is to allocate the 100 pixels wide area from

the left to be the “side” of the cover, and the remaining 400 pixels
wide area to the right the “front”.

First, put your mouse on the vertical Ruler as shown in the

screenshot and click it. Then, without releasing the mouse button,
drag it towards the right while holding the Shift key.

Once the ruler snaps to the 100 pixel mark on the horizontal
Ruler, release the mouse button and the Shift key. Now that we
have a clear boundary as to where each region belongs to, let’s
start creating the cover!

First, create a new layer above your Background layer. Then, grab
the Rectangular Marquee Tool and drag a horizontal bar across the entire canvas, covering
both the “side” and “front” regions. Choose a dark grey colour as your Foreground Colour and
fill the selection by pressing ALT + Backspace.

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Your canvas should like something like the image here.

Next, add in the title of your E-book in the grey bar and set its
colour to white to contrast against
it. I have also added in a few
extra lines using the Horizontal Type Tool; these may
serve as taglines if you are creating an actual eCover.

Notice how I added a smaller version of the book title in

the “side” region too – this is done to imitate real book
covers that often repeat the book title in smaller printing at the
side. You can also add details like the author’s name,
issue date (for ezines) and so on.

Now, we might say we have a basic cover design done here. A very simple and elegant
design with a utalitarian charm to it, but we are not stopping here. Or else you’ll probably sue
me for a refund or something.

But seriously, if you are creating special reports or mini E-books to be given away, why not
create a simple cover, just like this one, to push your conversion? An image like this takes just
about five minutes to create and it gives your special report more “tangibility”, and hence a
potentially greater response from visitors.

Anyway, let’s continue with the design…

At this stage, it would be useful to grab a stock photo of something related to your E-book.
Let’s say yours is a recipe E-book – get a photograph of cooking utensils or steaming
delicious food. If your E-book is about Internet marketing, get images of bank notes or
computers.

Let’s say we are going to create a cover for a recipe E-book. First, I hopped on to my
favourite stock photo site and found this photo which would be perfect for the eCover.

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Now, load your photograph in Photoshop. The following are the steps that I have chosen to
use the photograph to design the cover, it’s not compulsory
to follow it verbatim as you may have your own ideas for
the design.

Anyway, I first aligned the photograph of the edibles to the

100 pixels margin and the top of the document. Note that I
have painted the background a similar brown shade.

Then, I added a Layer Mask and used a big, soft brush to

paint in some black shades in the layer mask of the
photograph.

Basically, in a layer mask, painting in black shades will

make your layer transparent, and white shades opaque. Any grey in between is a variation of
opacities – the darker the grey, the more transparent. For softer transitions between the
picture and the background, you might want to use bigger brush diameters and lower
hardness.

Now that we have the basic graphic designed, it is time to

add typography. The first step is to add in the title of the
book. For this recipe book, I chose a stylish script font the
evokes a feeling of class.

For some variation, I used a serif font for the second half

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of the title.

Note: Script fonts are similar to calligraphy, often with long curly strokes. Serif fonts are fonts
with curlies at the end; fonts like Times New Roman are serif fonts.

Keep in mind that your typography has to be large enough

because you will have to distort the whole cover later on. If
your text is too small, the text will be pixelated when you
distort the cover.

Then, I added the same title to the side portion of the

cover. Just copy the two title text layers and rotate them 90
degrees clockwise.

At this point, it is advisable to save the cover image as a

.psd file so that you can always come back and correct any
mistakes or make any changes. Please heed my advice as
I have been there before. It is really terrible to have to redo
everything from scratch just to change a single sentence on your eCover.

Alright, now we are moving on to the exciting part, distorting it into a box-shaped 3D cover.

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Chapter 3
Folding the Cardboard Box
In this chapter, we are going to take our finalized cover design and fold it up into a 3D box-
shaped image. The first step is to flatten your cover design. Go to Layer > Flatten image. You
should have only one layer in your layer palette now.

Now, go to File > New and open a new 1024 X 768 document. Go back to your eCover
document and right-click the single remaining layer in your layer palette, and go to Duplicate
Layer… Under the Destination fieldset, you will be able to choose the target document to
duplicate the layer in. Choose the document untitled-1 in the drop down menu (assuming
untitled-1 is the document name of your 1024 X 768 blank document).

After this step, you should now have a copy of your eCover image on a single layer on your
1024 X 768 document. We’re going to need the extra
workspace in this large document.

First, press the eye icon next to the eCover layer to hide it
temporarily. We can bring it back later on, when we need to
work on it, by clicking on the same spot.

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Next, we are going to define the shape of our 3D

box. You may use the Pen Tool to create your own
outline of the box, something in a 3D perspective
like the image to the left.

Alternatively, you may load the image file outline-

ref.jpg which is included with this E-book to use as
a reference. Just select the
Pen Tool, set the mode to
“Paths” (as shown in the
screenshot) and click on
the vertices to trace the
shape of the box.

After you’re done, we’ll need to turn that into an

actual outline. This can easily be done by right-
clicking the canvas (with the Pen Tool still
selected) and choosing Make Selection. Press OK
in the dialogue box that appears without changing any options.

Now, make a new layer for the outline. Then, go to Edit > Stroke. Enter 1 px for Width and
choose black for the colour. Then press OK. Now, press Enter to cancel the path and
CTRL+D to deselect the selection.

What you should end up with on the screen is an outline of a 3D box.

Now, reveal the eCover design layer by pressing the

eye icon beside that layer in the Layer Palette.

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The design should appear below the box outline. What you should do now is position the
cover design so that the line where the cover side and the cover front meets lines up with the
corners of the corresponding side-front line on the 3D outline. These are circled in red in the
picture for your ease of reference.

If your eCover design is smaller than the outline such that it

does not line up perfectly, just resize the outline until it roughly
fits the height of the design. To do this, just select the outline
layer, press CTRL + D and drag the transform points to resize
it. Remember to press Shift while doing so to retain the aspect
ratio.

Now, switch to the eCover design layer. Select the

Rectangular Marquee Tool and drag a selection from the top
left corner of the design.

You’ll want the selection to cover the whole side-cover design,

hence automatically lining up with the side-front line.

You may want to zoom in to adjust your selection for

accuracy. To do this, press Ctrl + Plus. To zoom out, press Ctrl + Minus.

After making your selection, you’ll want to make it fit perfectly with the side cover design. To
do this, press and hold Ctrl + Shift + Alt while clicking on your cover design layer in the Layer
Palette. The selection will automatically fit the size of the left (side) portion of your cover
design.

Now, we are coming to the most exciting part, distorting the cover!

Press Ctrl + T to activate the transform gizmo. Then, hold Ctrl and
drag the top left vertex from its original position to the top left
corner of the box outline, like the screenshot.

After you’re done, do the same for the bottom left vertex. While
holding Ctrl, drag it to the bottom left corner of the 3D box outline.

This process is repeated as well for the right (front) portion of the
cover. First, make a selection that fits the right portion of the design,
then Ctrl + T to distort the cover. Lastly, you may delete the outline layer when you’re satisfied
with your image.

If you have done everything right, you will be able to achieve something similar to this image:

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Obviously, this is what the majority of the so-called “eCover designers” are making you pay for
– a simple distortion routine. Now that we have uncovered their “little” secret, we are going
to go a step further and make the design even more realistic by applying some simple lighting
and shadowing techniques that I have derived myself!

This extra edge I’m going to share with you will make your eCovers tonnes more realistic than
what most people have out there!

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Chapter 4
Lighting and Shadow
Alright, in this chapter, you will learn a very simple technique to cast light onto your eCover,
making it more realistic. You may think that by “lighting”, I’m going to teach you how to make
the image lighter in certain parts to emulate a real light.

Well, quite the opposite. We are going to make the side of the cover darker, so that the front
of the cover appears lighter.

First, use the Rectangular Marquee Tool to select the side of the cover:

Then, go to Image > Adjustments > Brightness/Contrast. Drag the Brightness slider to the left
until you get a noticeable contrast between the brightness of the side and the front. However,
you still want the side to be bright enough for the details (text) to be viewable.

As a reference, I have included my version of the cover image with the darkened side.

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Now, we’re going to add in the shadow for the box. Since the light source is from the right (it
falls on the front part of the box), the shadow will be cast behind the box, towards the left side
of the image.

First, create a new layer and position it underneath the cover image but above the
Background layer. We will refer to this layer as the shadow layer from now on. Select the Pen
Tool and draw a region that roughly covers the base of the box but also extending a little to
the back. You’ll need a little imagination to do this, but you can copy the following if you are
not an artist:

Then, turn it into a marquee selection by right-clicking

anywhere on the canvas and choosing Make
Selection… After that, fill the selection with pure black.
You should get an image like this:

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Now, go to Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur and enter a small radius for the blur. For example, a
value of 2px will be sufficient.

Next, choose the Eraser Tool and choose a large soft tip. Erase along the extended part of the
shadow so that you end up with a blurred end.

This image should give you a clear picture of what I mean:

This is the complete image:

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Chapter 5
Adding Reflection
In this chapter, we’re going to add a reflection of the eCover on the ground to make it appear
more attractive. I just can’t figure out why, but people like reflections. Anyway, here goes:

First, create another layer, for

the reflections, below the
“shadow” layer and the
background layer.

On this layer, use the

Rectangular Marquee Tool to
make a selection which is the
same width of the side portion
of the cover, extending
downwards.

Then, use the Eyedropper

Tool to sample the image of
the side cover. Then, fill the selection with the colour you have sampled. On the same layer,
do the same for the right part too. You will end up with something like this:

Now, use the Eraser Tool with a soft,

big tip to erase along the line as shown.
The key is to erase along the reflected

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part, keeping your strokes parallel to the side of the box.

However, remember to keep a considerable amount of the “reflection” intact. Then, apply a
2px Gaussian Blur to the reflection and you’re done!

This is how the final result should look like:

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 Create Your Own Professional eCovers With Photoshop!

You have just successfully created your own professional eCover and saved at least $99 from
hiring your own graphic designer – and that’s just one eCover!

You can now create unlimited eCovers professionally for yourself in a very short time without
having to engage a graphic designer or use software in the process!

To Your Graphic Designing Success,

[Your Name Here]

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