Book Cover Thumbnails

[jodykihara]

Hi everyone
I've been admiring how many people's book covers look GREAT even as a thumbnail, and I was wondering how you managed to get them so sharp at such a small size?
My book cover thumbnails all look really blurry, as you'll see from my Avatar.
Any tips? What software are you using?

thank you!!!
Jody

[jodykihara]

Just bumping this to see if there are any responses...

[Ripplinger]

You have to first start with a decent image, the larger the better. I'm a bit anal about how mine look so when I add books, I go back through them and check each cover out and hunt down better originals. As strictly book covers I'll resize them to a height of 500 pixels. If I'm going to use it as a screen on my Sony reader, I'll resize it to 600x800, convert to greyscale, and punch up the contrast and sharpness.

When you reduce the size, you will generally get better images if you then use the Sharpen tool that's in your graphic program of choice. Also, don't save files with a high compression. You can keep very sharp looking jpg images if you use something like 5% compression. Check how your program is savings images, at what compression.

[jodykihara]

GREAT this is just the kind of info I needed - thank you so much!

[Tony_A20]

If you're creating your own graphics for a cover (or anything else),make sure they're created using structured vector graphics, which can be scaled to any size, and then output in the format of your choice.

Tony

[jodykihara]

Unfortunately I can't, as the covers are all photographs. But thanks for the suggestion!
Jody

[Serena]

You might want to start with a different cover image. Where you have placed your text is in a busy area of the photograph. Perhaps you could use more of the "sky" area and put your text there?