Markie Madden

Because if not, this might be a good one to have. I wear glass and though I know how to reduce the glare a bit before someone snaps a picture, it doesn't help candid shots. Any help appreciated.

Well, it's a work in progress and I've got plenty of time since I only have 14,000 words written, out of a goal of 80,000. I have a few months, at least. But I mainly wanted to practice to see if I really could do it, or if I needed to budget in the cost of a cover.

Thanks for the comments! I've been tweaking this all day, fixing a bit of this, changing up a bit of that. I've already brought the character of the Reaper behind the buildings, and put some of the clouds in front of him as well, to make it appear that he's in the clouds. I also thinned out his opacity a bit and decided that I didn't need the half copy of his face to put over the skull, either. My first attempt with Createspace's template was just a tad too big when I uploaded it as a test, but by then I was getting pretty quick at putting the layers together. So my second attempt fit no problem. About the moon: I was worried that if I put it too high it would look unrealistic. After all, we all know it looks bigger when it's rising or setting. Thoughts Ego? Eli, this one should be at a higher resolution than the other image, I don't know if that makes any difference at all. But you're the first person to mention having trouble with the font. Myself, I'm looking at it using either a tablet or a phone, so I may be missing something. Is this version any easier to read, or the same? Or worse? Also, I'm just uploading the front cover this time, as I've not yet decided what text I'm putting into the back cover.

Thanks for all of the wonderful answers! I actually did find that Createspace, who I use for printing my physical books, does have their own downloadable templates, as AgentGoodSpeed said. I've gotten one that's a 7 by 10 trim size (that's the same as the first book in the series, so I will stick with it for continuity with the rest of the series), and at about 200 pages (close to the # of pages in the first one). But thanks for the info on creating your own template, as I never know when I might need one. It's taken almost two days of work, but here's what I've come up with so far. Done in paint.net, using stock or creative commons photos, and the moon in this cover is actually I shot I took myself with my new camera. Whoops, I had to edit it. I used some other images to practice on, but unfortunately the skull I used is not able to be used commercially, so I had to find another. This is that one, the one I can actually use.

Does anyone know if there are any book cover templates for Paint.net? I'm going to look around but my internet connection isn't playing nice today, so I'm not sure if I'll have any luck. By templates I mean something that I can tell it will be, for example, a 7 by 9 trimmed book, with a spine of 1.5 inches, so it will outline the 7 by 9 front and back, as well as the spine edge. Thanks for any help you could give me.

I know it's generally considered better to avoid unwanted extras when framing the shot, but sometimes with animals, that's easier said than done! So here is the original:

Okay, so this isn't a spectacular image modification, but it's my first efforts at cleaning out some unwanted background in photos. So here's a picture of my horse Athena, taken just as the sun went down today. In the foreground was a dead branch laying on the ground on the bottom left hand side, and a concrete slab on the bottom right hand corner. Also, there were some extremely tall weeds sticking up above her back. So I've copied and pasted to try and get rid of these things. Be gentle, I'm just learning.

Omg TechnoRobbo, I think I love you! I've not had any decent photographs taken of me in years (cancer and chemotherapy did NOT improve my appearance), but I had my daughter shout some the other day because I needed new ones for my books. I noticed, after chemo, that my skin, especially on my face, has patches that stubbornly refuse to tan. So I have tan and white blotches all over my face! But your plugin worked wonders on the shots! So impressed!

Thanks TR! Now how do I install it? I Googled it! (I remember a time when that wasn't a word!)

Thanks Ego, that's a good explanation. I will try it different ways and compare side by side so I can see what it looks like. I finally had to put Paint.net away last night; you know you've been at it too long when you look at the tv and you can see pixels even in it

Ego, I know I can use the square or circular select tool to take a portion of an image and make it blur. I did that on a pic I took of my husband sound asleep cuddling the dog, and blurred his face like they do on Cops. Then I wrote in "And he tells me I spoil the dog..." and posted it on Facebook. It was so funny! So what you're telling me is if I select the entire image and click noise reduction, the radius then refers to the space in the selected area, e.g. the whole image. So if I take the radius all the way to the right, does that narrow the noise reduction effect or widen it? Thanks for the clarification MJW! And I know the feeling about being used to doing things a certain way. I'm an author and you should consider yourself lucky that I'm not using the "technical" .jpeg with the leading dot! I've loosened up a bit since using my phone for most of my internet!

Thanks Ego! I'm on my phone at the moment but I'll check into it as soon as I can! Also, since we're talking about blue and noise reduction via Paint.net, can you please tell me what the "radius" means? I think I can figure out what "strength" means. But I see the word radius in quite a few of the effects.

Okay, wow, lots of info so I'm going to try and get them in order. Okay, first of all, to answer MJW, I have set the (resolution?) to Superfine, assuming I'm filming in P mode rather than Auto. I've been trying different settings to see which I like better. I will definitely try saving as a png instead of jpeg. My watermark was saved as a pdn, will that add noise to the finished product? Should I save the watermark as png? Next, for Eli: what is JPGNoise reduction? Is this already in Paint.net under Effects-Nose, or is it a plugin? I don't have any plugins yet. Can you add noise to certain parts of the image or just the entire thing at once? I've not tried the blue you mentioned, but I'll take a look at it. You say it reduces grain? I'll try it. Finally, for Racer. I have a Gaussian blur setting, but by the way you talk I think you're meaning a plugin? Where can I get it? And let me see if I understand. You duplicate the layer (copy of the same image, right?), then you apply the file to only the top one? Forgive me if these seem incredibly basic. I don't have much of a budget (okay, zero budget) for this hobby, but I'd like to do the best quality work I can with what I have available.

Thanks MJW! For the JPEG compression, are you talking about the setting in the camera, or within Paint.net?

Hi Racer, thanks for replying! I think this one is one of the photos I sent to Shutterstock, but I don't remember. I've since learned how to reduce the noise by setting the ISO lower on the camera. But when using Paint.net to clean some up that are already taken, it doesn't seem to alter the photo.