cover tutorial
TRANSCRIPT
Hello and welcome to this session of Seamir
Shows You How She Makes Covers. Please take
a seat.
Today I’m going to be showing you how to
make a cover like this:
Ready? Okay.
Step One
Open PowerPoint and make a new slide.
Make sure the page size is the same as how big you’re wanting to make your book.
Step Two
Insert your background photo. In this case, I’m using a picture of my face, but you can use anything you like.
Step Three
Resize it.
You want it to be at least the same height as your page.
Step Four
Now you need to crop it. Try to position the photo so the part you’re wanting on the cover is the part on the page.
Step Five
Here comes the fun part. Editing.
Feel free to play around with the settings as much as you like on here.
Step Six
For this, I chose to start off with Background colour 2 light.
Step Seven
Then I changed the Brightness to -43% and the Contrast to 78%.
Once again, play around with things until you’re happy with how they look.
Step Eight
Now that you’ve sorted out your background picture, it’s time for the layering.
Insert a rectangle.
Step Nine
Cover the entire page with it.
Step Ten
Now we get to mess with these settings.
Head over to “Format Shape”.
Step Eleven
Get rid of the line around the edge first.
Step Twelve
Once you’ve done that, head over to where it says “Fill”.
Choose “Picture or Texture Fill”.
Step Thirteen
Now you go pick the picture you want to layer over the top.
In this case, I’ve used my newspaper words.
Step Fourteen
Turn up the transparency.
I’ve gone for 65% here.
Step Fifteen
Now because of how things are when you layer them on here, you’re going to have to stretch your top image out a little so that the edges cover everything.
Make sure everything’s adjusted and positioned how you want it to be.
Step Sixteen
Now we start on the words.
Insert a text box and type out your title.
Step Seventeen
Now pick out a font that you like/fits with the theme of the novel.
I’ve chosen Carbon Type for this one.
Step Eighteen
Resize the text.
I’ve gone for 47 on here.
Step Nineteen
Move it around and position the title where you want it.
Step Twenty
Now it’s time for your name.
Insert another text box and type that in.
Step Twenty-one
Head back over and pick out the font you want for your name. I’ve gone for the same font I used earlier.
Step Twenty-two
Resize and position.
Step Twenty-three
Now drag your mouse and select everything.
Step Twenty-four
Right click and group them together.
Step Twenty-five
Right click again and save the whole thing as a picture.
And that’s pretty much it. You might need to do a little cropping
or adjusting around the edges, but essentially you’re finished.
So there you have it. A brand new, shiny cover. This tutorial was
for making one like mine, but you can totally use the same skills
to make one for whatever story you’re writing (as long as you
want to use layering or whatever).
Let me know if you guys have any questions or anything and I’d
be more than happy to give you the answer if I know it.
Remember, all of this is just stuff I’ve picked up from messing
around on PowerPoint.
Most of the time I have no idea what I’m doing.