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Post by ronmiller on Dec 29, 2019 14:09:15 GMT
Just to get things started, I thought I'd reprint a couple of rants I had originally posted in Scribophile regarding the use of stock art. The following is rant #1... ===================== I understand perfectly the need to resort to stock imagery for cover art. But there are two real dangers to doing that. The first, of course, is the possibility of the same image appearing on eleventy-seven other books (and I am sure we have all seen countless examples of that happening!). And then there is the related problem of having to make a generic image unique to your own book. Your cover art should not just be the nearest image that seems to have something to do with your book in some broadly general way. That is not enough. You should try to manipulate the image in some fashion---by either directly altering it or adding some additional elements to it---so that it not only conveys some particular quality, idea or theme that sets your book apart, but is also less like the forty other books that may be using the same art. While stock image can be a gold mine for potential covers, I would personally argue strongly against using any image cold, as it comes off the shelf, unaltered and unchanged. ===================== Which was followed a few days later by rant #2... ===================== As everyone probably knows by this time, I have a very dim view of stock art. Its use has become something of a crutch. I have seen too many people settle for second-best simply because they cannot find the right artwork available on line. And they stop looking right there, as if there were no other alternatives, no place else to turn to. There are a lot of problems and issues with using stock images, most of which I have already discussed elsewhere. But to sum up--- Too often the author/designer has to settle for "close enough" if they cannot find an appropriate image. There is the danger of having your cover art appearing on a hundred other books at the same time. There is also often the cost to take into consideration. And it is too easy to become dependent on stock imagery. One of the results of this is a stifling of the imagination. Far, far too many times I have seen someone give up on an idea because they can't find what they want ready-made online. This is especially frustrating to see when the author is looking for something that is not even especially unusual. And it is even more frustrating when the image someone desires is something that is, in fact, immensely simple. One solution to this dilemma is: Why not create your own "stock" art? If you have a phone you have a camera perfectly capable of taking images of high-enough quality to use for a book cover. There have been countless examples just in this group where I have seen someone have to either settle for second-best or, worse, abandon a good idea simply because they couldn't find the right image. This is especially frustrating to see in those cases where the necessary image would be something immensely simple and easy to create. Not too long ago, an author complained that they couldn't get the cover they wanted because they searched and searched online and couldn't find a photo of someone holding a pen the way they wanted. Well, for goodness' sake, how hard would it have been to have had someone hold a pen in the right position and take a photo? Here are some examples of the sort of thing I would like to encourage people to do... black-cat-studios.com/webtests/untitl2.htmThe cover for Lois Bujold's Knife Children is a good example of what I am talking about. All I needed was two hands making the right gesture. It was simplicity itself to take my own photos rather than search all over the internet looking for something that might only be just close enough. The same also goes for Ars Poetica, where all I needed was a poem printed on a sheet of paper and a glass of what I hoped might look like liquor (it was tea). Again, a few minutes' effort and I got exactly what I needed, without any need for compromise or half-measures. I have included a dozen examples of cover art in which I have employed my own photos, along with a few examples of the original photographs. The only "stock image" source I will turn to is the Library of Congress, which is a gold mine of background details. For instance, the interior of the room in the Lovecraft artwork, or the ruins in the distance in the space pirate illustration. Some of these examples may still be a little more complex to create than some people may be willing or able to accomplish, but the underlying point remains the same: don't automatically turn to stock image sources, don't develop a dependency on them and, finally, exercise your imagination! Think outside the box! I also take photos wherever I go of anything I think might be even remotely useful later: trees, landscapes, rocks, mountains, buildings, cars, animals, textures of all kinds, machinery, etc. etc. I keep these in files sorted by subject. The background for Exchange of Hostages was composed of several photos I took of machinery and construction sites, while the backgrounds for other images were found among photos I had taken during various vacations, such as the rocky sea shore that is in on of the examples, or a room in an old castle. The main trick in composing a cover from several different images is being aware of light and color. All of the elements need to looks as though they are part of the same scene. For instance, in the picture of the girl with the raised sword I made sure that yellow light from the background spilled onto the figure. In the example of the sorceress, even though my wife was photographed someplace entirely different than the castle chamber background, I made her part of the scene by making her drapery translucent so that light from the window showed through it. One useful technique that goes toward eliminating any cut-and-paste look is to run the Blur tool around the edge of a picture element. This removes the hard edge and makes the image blend ever so slightly with the background. ==================== Rant #3 will follow separately...
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Post by ronmiller on Dec 29, 2019 14:13:59 GMT
Rant #3... ============== In a recent post I referred to the "tyranny of stock images." By this I meant what I sometimes perceive as an overdependence on found imagery. I wince every time I hear someone say, "I couldn't really get the cover I wanted because I couldn't find the right images on line." This underscores one of a couple of problems with using stock photos or stock art. The first, of course, is that it is not always possible to find something that fits your book to a T. The second problem is that, being stock art and open for use by anyone, your cover art might be appearing on fifty other books at the same time. But there is a difficulty many cover designers might have with abandoning the use of stock imagery entirely. If they have little or no experience in art---in drawing or painting, either digitally or in traditional media---they would have a hard time creating a cover illustration from scratch. So they find themselves seemingly stuck with having to make do with what they can find, compromising the best they can. There is a question that I have asked several times lately in other discussion threads: Why depend on found images? Why not create your own? If you have a camera---and anyone with a new cell phone already has a camera perfectly capable of taking images of more than good enough quality for a book cover---why give up if you cannot find the right image on line? Why not take your own photos and work from them? Then you will not only get exactly what you want, you will have something unique to your book. A camera, some willing friends or relatives, a few props, an appropriate setting and you are good to go. Depending on one's skill in photo manipulation and rendering, these images can be used either more or less as is or developed into something elaborate, depending on one's needs and abilities. (Willing family members can be a gold mine. My wife and daughter appear in 14 of the samples in the link I give below!) Almost every medium to large town or city has a community theater. There is a very active one here where I live, and my town has only 4000 inhabitants. Even if you do not have a local community theater, there will almost surely be a high school or college with a dramatics department. These can be invaluable resources for costumes and props...and even willing volunteers for your models. The local community theater here has an entire floor of a building devoted to housing literally thousands of different costumes from every imaginable historical epoch, to say nothing of props of every description. Of course, a story with a contemporary setting makes matters like costuming easy. While many of the 200+ covers I have created have been drawn or painted by hand, either digitally or in traditional media---or sometimes a combination of both---a very large number have employed my own photographs directly (as opposed to using them as indirect reference). This isn't to say that I have never employed a stock image, but these are usually relegated to backgrounds or other details...and are almost always obtained from sources such as the Library of Congress and other government image archives. I also have an 8-foot-tall bookcase filled with vintage books containing hundreds of public domain images, mostly of historic interest. I have put together a representative collection of covers that have depended to a greater or lesser degree on my own photography. black-cat-studios.com/photocovers/index.htmlI have added a few notes to some images to explain what I did (though there wasn't room to go into great detail*) and in a few instances have included some of the original photos I worked with. One of the secrets to making all of this work properly is to be careful about lighting. It should be consistent throughout. In the sample of the girl with the sword in the arched chamber (first image, fifth row), I took great pains to make sure she appeared to share the same lighting as the background. You can compare the final result with the original image next to it. Light sources should be lighting objects from the same direction and cast shadows are all important. For instance, the shadow beneath the space heroine facing the multi-legged creature (middle image, ninth row) was painted in by hand. However many elements make up the final art, they should all ultimately look like they belong in the same picture. An image that looks pasted on is a death warrant for your illustration. Over the years I have accumulated a vast archive of thousands of photos that I can draw upon when needed. I won't take, for instance, just one photo of someone for a cover but will instead take a dozen or more. When I travel, or even just go on a walk, I will take photos of everything: textures, machinery, vintage cars, buildings, animals, rocks, trees and plants...anything at all that might remotely look useful someday. All of these are in files subdivided into themes and topics. For instance, the backgrounds in "The Yoke of Shen" and the "Velda" covers were taken from, in the first example, a trip to California, and in the second a back alley in town. You don't necessarily have to do an entire cover in original photography. Perhaps all you need to do is swap out a figure, or add a figure to a scene where there is none, or even change a face, gesture or other detail. Does the figure in the stock image need to be making a fist instead of holding out an open hand? Well, just ask someone to make a fist for you, take a photo of it and plug it in. A custom-made photographic cover doesn't have to be elaborate at all. "Ars Poetica" is about an alcoholic poet. The cover required nothing more elaborate than a print-out of one of the poems (in a pseudo-handwriting typeface) and a glass filled with weak tea. This was spilled (carefully!) onto the paper and the whole set-up photographed. Voila! The cover for "Dracula" took nothing more than my daughter, two band aids and a little color manipulation. "None So Blind" was even easier. I needed a nice-looking eye and my daughter had one. No need to go hunting on line when you might have just what you need right at hand. So, the next time you feel stuck not finding the right stock image for your cover, think outside the box! Grab the cell phone that is probably lying next to your computer and try your hand at creating your own custom imagery! First of all, it's a lot of fun. Secondly, you wind up with something much closer to what you really have in mind and, thirdly, you have something unique that won't be appearing on ten thousand other book covers. Oh, yeah, and there are no stock image fees to pay. *I will of course be glad to answer any questions anyone might have about these samples.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 6, 2020 6:05:27 GMT
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Post by ronmiller on Jan 6, 2020 12:59:02 GMT
Thanks! Here is a really good example of why one should avoid stock art like the plague... In the Scribophile "Cover Design Studio" forum a week or two ago, someone posted a cover for their new book. They were absolutely tickled with it. But take a look at what a few second's searching turned up. The book cover the author was so pleased with is on the left...
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Post by Deleted on Jan 6, 2020 14:32:52 GMT
Yes, those book cover are good examples of what can happen when you use stock images.. I suppose they could use a stock image and change it. They could alter the features and make other changes, like you did with your photos. Only problem is they would have to have your skill as an artist and be able to paint on a computer. Better to just employ a professional or take photos. I know your daughter was your model for your book Velda, which I bought. What a helpful model she has been for you over the years. I sometimes used to get my husband to pose for me, but mostly I used a wooden mannequin.
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Post by ronmiller on Jan 6, 2020 17:18:59 GMT
Yes, those book cover are good examples of what can happen when you use stock images.. I suppose they could use a stock image and change it. They could alter the features and make other changes, like you did with your photos. Only problem is they would have to have your skill as an artist and be able to paint on a computer. Better to just employ a professional or take photos. I know your daughter was your model for your book Velda, which I bought. What a helpful model she has been for you over the years. I sometimes used to get my husband to pose for me, but mostly I used a wooden mannequin. Thanks for the nice compliments! And yes, if the people who pass themselves off as "cover designers" had any real artistic abilities they could easily manipulate stock art into something original. Sadly, most of these people seem limited to being able to only drop type onto existing images...and that's all. Frankly, I consider them vaguely fraudulent. In the example I posted, the author was immensely pleased with the cover she got, thanking the "designer" profusely, apparently thinking the cover was original and not a clone of half a dozen other book covers.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 8, 2020 2:11:49 GMT
I was about to comment on your last statement. How if someone had any talent they'd manipulate the stock art into something original. Watching a lot of Derek Murphy videos. He uses stock photos in all of his book covers. But I've watched him make a cover online. He might take one photo of a girl, take that out and insert it into a stock photo of a castle or group of trees. Then add some effects here and there. So he ends up with the effect he wants using stock photos but they will always be different from anyone else. That is something I'm working on learning myself. Taking perhaps a person from one photo, a background from another, and perhaps a sky and mountains from another and putting it all together. And then using Photoshop to change color, tints, tones, etc. I'm still learning but have gotten great ideas from Maggie and Ron. They know their stuff.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 8, 2020 4:20:10 GMT
Ron has been very helpful to many people over the years and I for one am very grateful to him
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Post by ronmiller on Jan 8, 2020 12:29:35 GMT
I was about to comment on your last statement. How if someone had any talent they'd manipulate the stock art into something original. Watching a lot of Derek Murphy videos. He uses stock photos in all of his book covers. But I've watched him make a cover online. He might take one photo of a girl, take that out and insert it into a stock photo of a castle or group of trees. Then add some effects here and there. So he ends up with the effect he wants using stock photos but they will always be different from anyone else. That is something I'm working on learning myself. Taking perhaps a person from one photo, a background from another, and perhaps a sky and mountains from another and putting it all together. And then using Photoshop to change color, tints, tones, etc. I'm still learning but have gotten great ideas from Maggie and Ron. They know their stuff. Exactly. While I don't at all look kindly on extensive dependence on stock images, manipulating, combining and changing them is much preferable to simply downloading an image and sticking type on it. What one never, ever wants to do is wind up in a situation like this one (and you will see that one more cover has been added!), where your cover is essentially indistinguishable from a dozen others... People who set themselves up as "cover designers" who in reality do nothing more than this are being both disingenuous and dishonest. If one looks closely at the seven covers, you will see that, in fact, several of them have had backgrounds and minor details altered, but the central figure largely remains untouched. It's also interesting to see the varying skill in which the type has been applied. Two or three of the "designers" were aware of the need to not obscure the bow and arrow...while the remainder blithely covered it up, so not only is the relevant action in the image removed, there is not a clue as to what the woman is actually doing. I have seen far too many people throw up their hands and go with second or third best for a cover simply because they couldn't find the exact stock image they wanted...when four seconds of thought would have told them that they could have provided the image themselves. For instance, not too long ago (in some cover forum somewhere), an author wanted an image of a hand holding a gun at a very particular angle...but went with a second-best cover because they couldn't find the image they needed. Since it was just a tight close up of a hand holding a gun, "why not," I asked, "just take a photo of someone holding a gun?" "Golly," was the reply, "I never thought of that!" Here is a cover I did a few weeks ago. The background and right foreground figures were based on photos of friends. Most of the background surrounding the window was from my photo files (I take snapshots of everything I see that might potentially be someday useful!). The scene outside the window was an astronomical illustration I had done for a book. The spaceships are plastic models. The alien was based on a photo, but largely repainted by hand. So, except for the alien, the cover is based entirely photos I had taken.
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Post by ronmiller on Jan 8, 2020 17:23:03 GMT
Just to (probably needlessly) hammer home the point, here are three covers I did last Fall... As usual, all three used photos of friends. I might conceivably have found what I needed online, or at least something close...but this way I got exactly what I wanted with A. no danger of having the figures show up on eleventy-seven other covers and B. with no costs or fees. Just on a technical note, with the exception of the middle cover, the final figures are actually composites of two or three photos. For instance, in the right-hand cover I used one photo of my friend for the head and body and another for his fist. All of the background textures are from scans of circuitry diagrams, most of them from old books and magazines in my collection. The rest was basically just having a good time with Photoshop's layers.
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Post by ronmiller on Jan 8, 2020 18:49:35 GMT
Oh, what the heck. Here are two covers that are better examples of DIY covers that would be easier to accomplish than the examples in my previous post: The top two covers required nothing more than my model, a trench coat, a wig, a toy gun, a local alley and my digital camera. There was very minimal Photoshop work done on both. Since the books are hard-boiled detective novels set in the 1950s, the covers were designed to emulate paperback book covers of the period---or at the very least convey a retro design sensibility. The black and white cover was part of a series of short stories offered for download. Again, all I needed was a silhouette of my character, a cloudy sky from my files and a city skyline (which may have been from my files and which I may have drawn by hand...I don't recall). All of the covers for the short story series were identical, with only the title of the story itself changing.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 8, 2020 21:25:21 GMT
Startlingly beautiful, Ron. The Infoquake and Multireal covers.
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Post by ronmiller on Jan 9, 2020 13:28:58 GMT
Startlingly beautiful, Ron. The Infoquake and Multireal covers. Thanks, Maggie! If you think it might be at useful or interesting, I could post some covers along with some of the steps I used in creating them (where I still have the bits and pieces).
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Post by Retread-Retired-Cameron on Jan 9, 2020 14:07:19 GMT
Beautiful work, and for those with the innate ability to do the same I do believe the "bits and pieces" will help them learn to create covers that are truly originals.
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Stock Art
Jan 9, 2020 14:47:54 GMT
via mobile
Post by Deleted on Jan 9, 2020 14:47:54 GMT
I think it would be extremely useful, Ron. I look forward to seeing the technique.
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