Quote:
Originally Posted by Sefiriot
How do you go about creating/obtaining those ornaments by the way? I ask because I was thinking of hand-drawing some on my own (just the ornaments) and tossing them here for people to use, since Zentangle patterns would be amazing for this sort of thing. See the attached image at bottom for an example of what I mean.
Problem is I haven't the slightest idea what would be needed to get them into a format/whatever is needed for them to be useful to cover makers. No idea how I'd go about changing the colours on it either......
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You can find many free ornaments on the web. Just do a search
If you're going to make some, I'd advise to save them in SVG format, or if you're going to use jpg or png, make them at least 2500 pixels on the long side, so they can be scaled down for use on covers.
I've been fiddleing with the Bump Map option in GIMP. It can create very nice embossing (lowering and raising) effects; in combination with ornaments and some color overlay, it works very nicely. Together with the layer styles, it's what I've been looking for to set ornaments into the cover instead of just sticking them on top of it.
It actually works great for complete covers too. If you have a low-res cover in a book, you can just stretch it to fill a leather cover, and emboss it into it, and then sharpen it. I'll show something later
Man, this is so NOT like editing pictures
edit: I think Pixlr can't do bump mapping, but I have seen an "Emboss" filter. Normally it can be used to do basic bump mapping.
PS: A bump map is a greyscale image, which is then used to "print" that image into or onto a surface. Imagine a patch of leather, and a huge stamp. The stamp is the greyscale bump map. If you stamp the leather from the top, you print the image into the leather (recessed), if you stamp from the bottom, you print the image onto the leather (raised).
It's great for creating ornaments