Free EBook Covers - How to create your free with GIMP - Part 1 of 2

If you want to create an eBook cover by yourself, without buying eBook creator cover software or buying Photoshop, or pay a graphic designer to do it for you, then read on. I'm not promising to make you an artist! I do not claim any artistic talent myself, just the technical know-how you need to create your ecover!

1. Download and install GIMP - a free open source image manipulation program. If you have time, you can have a lot of fun to see what can be done with it. If you do not have much time, take care not to get distracted from the task in hand - follow these steps to get your ebook cover done! So you can play ;)

Just Google GIMP and easily find the download page.

2.Get yourself a free eBook cover templates googling 'cover free ebook'. The one I use in this tutorial will probably be the first site you'll find on ebooktemplatesource.com.

There are three types of covers to choose from - for this tutorial I will use the first type, called 'cover01'

Download and save to your desktop computer. Then extract all the files to a convenient folder.
We plan to use a file called 'cover01.psd' later in the software Gimp.

3.Start up Gimp.

4.First we need to create the front of the lid. This is the part that you have to design for themselves to meet your own ebook. I'll show you how to make a simple here and then you can go and play with it when you have time.

After that we need to attack him on the cover that we have already downloaded to make your eBook cover and store in an appropriate way to use in your eBook.

5.Click on File - New

6.Set width and height to 500 pixels each and click OK.

7.You should now have the Gimp window and a new image window open. Vai to the image window, select Layer - New Layer. A New Layer dialog box will open. Give your new level, eg cover name and click OK.

8.On the main window of GIMP, you should have a list of layers up to now, the front cover and bottom. Click the level front cover to make sure that what you are working.
Now, select Tools - Selection Tools - rectangular selection

Click anywhere in the image window and drag to create a rectangle that represents the front of your eBook.

9.Now we're going to paint your cover. Once you start playing with Gimp you can do all sorts of fun things here. For now, we're going to create what is called a gradient ie the page will have a color that blends gradually from the foreground to the background color.

Choose your foreground and background colors by clicking on the small colored boxes in the main Gimp.

Go to Tools - Paint Tools - Blend Tool
Click any where in the middle of your rectangle at the top to the bottom and drag and drop. The page will be filled with the colors chosen.

Play by clicking and dragging to and from different places and with your foreground and background colors until you get something you like.

10.At this point you could insert your photo and or text. For now we keep it simple and just add text.
Click on Tools - Text.

Click on your cover that you want to start the text. A text editor will open. Type the text in this editor. To change the color, font, etc. size of your text click on Dialogs - Tool Options. A box will open the main window of GIMP, where you can click on the properties of the text and play with it.

Text 11.Add wherever you need it. Each block of text will be added as a new layer so that you can change at any time by clicking Tools - text and then clicking on the text you want to change.

12.Now you have the basics of your cover!

Now we have to connect this to our model ebook .......