cover progress

so. just since I'm already piecemeal answering questions about it, I thought I'd just send the sequence out and save myself some time.


For the new book, I wanted a cover that was generally yellow, and, since so many people liked the ferrari on the other book cover, I figured that was a good place to start.

This is a sequence of image refinements starting from a different angle of that same ferrari, same day. Basically the same process as the other cover. notes with each step below.



First, there was a stereo pair of pictures. Lot's of bright sun and a really shiny and yet matte painted car. (notice the engine intakes there in the back window... cool)

btw, this is the 'cheap' ferrari, the F430... only 186,000 dollars.. you know, if you're looking for an xmas gift idea..

(left eye angle)




(right eye angle)


Then, combine those two using an exposure bracket HDR merge, even though they aren't different exposures, and then use the High to Low tone mapping to get back to a regular image. This produces the cool localized contrast. and some neat/weird side effects (i.e. the sparkly effect)


Next, an intermediate crop and some color tweaking.. zeroing in on the bit that looked promising.


more color tweaks


more cropping and tweaking


finally, stretch the image to the shape needed for the cover.



I may end up placing something on this (in addition to the title etc..) but I'm not sure about that yet.