Making a Book Cover, Part 2

Part 2 of my process and progress of making the cover image for my friend Alena's poetry book, soon to be published through CreateSpace.

To make the custom title for the cover, I experimented with letters and shapes until Alena was happy with them.  Then I drew the title in ink, scanned it into my computer, and used Adobe Illustrator to make a vector version of the title and author text.

I took the vector image into Photoshop and painted gold beveling over the title.  This was the second-most time-consuming part of making the cover, the first-most being making the cover image itself.

Working out the lighting on the title.

Getting there, still defining the letters and polishing them.

Finished!

The digital paint-over took place on two layer groups, one for the top part of the title, one for the bottom part.  To achieve the glowing-gold look I wanted, I added a faded gold Color Overlay in Overlay mode at 75%, and a brown-to-brassy-yellow Gradient Overlay in Overlay mode at about 50% opacity.  This way the golden hue of the title and the bright yellow on the cover were roughly equal in value, so that neither overrode the other visually.  (I also put a transparent dark gradient on the top third and bottom quarter of the image, to make the title and author lettering more visible.)

And that's that!  I cleared the cover with Alena and sent her the final files.  Edit Sept. 2016: The book is now up here on CreateSpace!

Below are close-ups of the finished cover image.