As you may know from other pages and posts on my website, I learned GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program) so I could design my own book covers. I wanted to show the process – the steps that I took to create my latest project, an illustration for one of my upcoming novels. I started with this photo from Pixabay.
Then I added the heroine. I found her on Pixabay as well.
And then came all the luggage she’s brought with her on her cross-country train trip to visit her cousin. I brought in her luggage one photo at a time.
And here we have the final stack luggage added.
The house, the heroine and all of the luggage were on Pixabay. It’s a free stock photo site. So, now you see the creative process of using “layers.” The house, the woman and each picture of luggage is a “layer.” If I were to add text to this image, the text would be another layer.
Once again, the photo-editing program I’m using is GNU Image Maniuplation Program and it is free. There was definitely a learning curve with this program. I put in many hours into learning it over a month’s time period. There are many tutorials on YouTube. To me, the time I spent is worth it because I now have the skill to create my own book covers. I figured I’d have to pay to have my book covers created one way or another. I could either hire a freelance cover designer and pay with money or I could pay in the time and effort it took to learn how to do it myself. I chose to learn how to do it myself.