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Gimp for mac os review free#
Fortunately, Smoking Gun Graphics has a free RGB to CMYK converter here. The only drawback is that GIMP doesn’t do CMYK, which is exactly what my printer requires. It was free and it did almost everything I needed to build my cover. I loved it but didn’t own a recent version. In turn, I would acknowledge them in the front matter of my book. Then I stumbled across flickr and found some kind people willing to grant me the right to use some of their photos to do my cover. Some of it was amazing, but I didn’t draw and couldn’t afford to pay a high-end artist. Large eyes relative to small nose and mouth. Although I could edit a photo to simulate the disorder, the fine print in the stock photo licensing pretty much prohibited portraying any of their models as my protagonist. The protagonist in my novel has a genetic disorder that alters facial shape.
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I browsed through various sites for stock photos, looking for ideas. I read as many posts as I could, trying to hold my impatience in check. Some of the best pointers on cover design were right here. Something that would have helped, had I known it upfront: There are some colors you can get in that pretty little icon that won’t print so well on paper. So, my goal was to come up with a cover that looked great in person and as an icon. People weren’t likely to make their decision to buy based on the back cover. So, where would people see the cover? Online. I suppose the artwork was the same as what was displayed in that little icon online, but the feeling it conveyed, at least to me, was entirely different.īut, realistically, was my book going to be on shelves in stores? Not likely. Not surprising, really, since they were probably designed with the book in mind and not the icon.īrowsing book covers in stores, I came away with a different sense of vision. One of the first things that struck me, while browsing book covers online, was how many were unreadable when displayed as icons. Having more time than cash, I wanted to see how much I could accomplish without spending any money.
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Doing my interior and cover design would allow me artistic control, for better or worse, of the product. Although I signed with a great publisher for my e-book, I opted out of print, deciding to self-publish a paperback edition of my novel.
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