Software Practice: Photoshop

 Today we are practicing Photoshop and I will be creating  a mock up Book cover for my project.

I began by opening Photoshop and clicking on 'New File' and then a dialog box opens.  In this box I go to the top menu and clicked on 'Print' and then 'view all presets'  I then chose A4 size as I will be creating a book cover and I checked that the resolution was 300ppi so that the work would be of printable quality.  I then chose the background colour as white and then I clicked on 'create' and now have a white canvas to work on.

My next step was to go to unsplash to find a suitable image to mock up my front cover.  I found the right black and white image and downloaded this onto my desktop at a high resolution.  I then went to 'File' on the top menu and then 'open'.  I then again went to the top menu and then clicked on 'Select' and in the drop down box 'Select All' and then I went 'Edit' in the top menu and then in the drop down box 'Copy'.  Then went back to my canvas tab and clicked on 'Edit' and then 'Paste.  I then used the transform control to drag the image over the edges of the canvas to cover the page. I then clicked on the top tool (Move tool) in the left hand menu to ensure that the transform of the image stayed in position. 

I then went to the text tool in the left hand side menu and clicked on this and then clicked on the canvas for where I wanted to place the text.  I changed the title to my own and then used the text tool in the top menu to change the size to 60pts and then i changed the font to Constantia.  I then used the move tool to move the text into position on the page ensuring I left a good margin on the left hand side for publishing. 

I then went Adobe Express and created a logo.  I then downloaded this and used the transparent background file and I opened this in Photoshop.  I then cropped this using the crop tool in the left hand menu and then I adjusted the colour saturation and hue by going to Image in the top meu and then Hue/saturation.  I then used the dialog box and gently adjusted the sliders to create the correct colour that I was looking for the match my book cover. 

I then completed the cover by adding my name by clicking on Text and creating another text layer.  I then changed the font to Constantia at 36 pts.  I then used the move tool to place this using the gridlines underneath the title as I thought this balanced the page well. 

My last job is to download and save the final cover.  So I went to File in the top menu and then save as a psd file and also as a jpeg.