I have a companion book on my @VictoriaKaer profile with writing tips. This book will cover some basic elements of cover design as well as some dos and don'ts of design. I also have information about requesting from a designer here on Wattpad.
I ce...
I've done a lot of talking about what makes a good or bad cover. I discussed PNGs as well. Putting together a manip cover takes work and practice. Slapping things together in five minutes means you really don't care how your work appears. The follow example is something I've seen designers do a lot that should never be done. It's bad design work.
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You can find a lot of PNG images that look like this. People cut these images because they're easy to cut out, it's a lot of straight edges. But they usually make for crappy covers. I found this image online, it took me all of ten minutes to cut the PNG and slap it on the background and throw some text at it. It took almost no effort and the final product shows that.
If a customer specifies they want to use an image that looks like this you can try to do a Google search for a better version of the image or ask the customer if you can use a different image because that one isn't going to work. If they're dead set on use a particular image then you either suck it up and do your best or deny the request.
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You can get creative with images and find a way to use an image that's cut off awkwardly. I managed to find a version of this image where his head wasn't cut off, the sides were still squared off so I made the image larger so you can't tell. You also can no longer see the watermark on the bottom of his shirt like you could on the first cover.
Take your time and make something you'll be proud to show off, something your customer will also be proud to show off as well. Be picky about things like PNG quality, because it matters. The same goes for the images you choose for the background. If it starts out fuzzy there's not much you can do to fix it.
This is the PNG I used for the second cover.
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