The cover for this next book I’m writing is giving me a headache. The third in the Verrick and Ky Dynasty of Moirae series.

The original tone of the image is a blue-ish, purple-ish, cold tone and they eyes are solid toned so there is no dynamic to them. I want a different tone and highlighting for it, but I’m being beyond picky. What’s this mean? So far I’ve saved and printed nearly a hundred versions of it, attempting to find the best tone for the theme I want. I’m sure someone somewhere will chastise me for the end result, but in this case I am trying to find the special coloring that fits what I want.

I keep printing it, saving it and uploading on here, then I save and upload it on my cell phone, all while adjusting the smallest temperatures, tones, levels, brightness, and more, haha. This cover was finished yesterday and just as I went to save? Yes, you guessed it. Photoshop Elements 10 crashed. I’d been working on the eyes. The negative? I had to start over from scratch. The positive? I had to start over from scratch. Because of that, I discovered a way to really make the eyes pop. Granted, only if you zoom in will you see just how interesting the eyes look, but I like the effect and from zooming in, people will see a whole new image. Which is just the look I wanted.

So when you see the cover premier in my newsletter you’ll enjoy that it’s not one of a few I’ve done. It’s about one out of a hundred versions with minor tweaks. So minor that if you were to see them? Wouldn’t notice. Not unless you were a cover designer, or someone who works with color. I do increments of 5. That’s like a millisecond compared to a second. Or a hair width compared to an inch, haha.

To say I’m picky it putting it mildly. At some point, I’ll call it good, but right now I’m tweaking until I get the effect I like. Not too dark, not too light. Not too much face, not too little. Not too red, not too orange. Not too pale, not too colorful. Trust me, I laugh at myself. Not too horror story-ish, not too gentle-ish.