So, you’ve downloaded one of our free pre-made book covers and now you’re looking to customize it with your pen name and book title. Or, maybe you want to change up the color scheme just a bit.
Whatever you’re looking to do to make the cover unique to your brand, this guide will help you get started quickly, easily and Photoshop free. 🙂
While I prefer to use Photoshop to create covers, I know it carries a steep learning curve and isn’t for everyone. Thankfully, you don’t even need it! Just head on over to: https://www.photopea.com to get started.
Prefer to watch a video of how to edit one of my premade covers? I’ll have that up for you shortly!
Step 1: Open the PSD file in Photopea by clicking “File”, then “Open”. Locate the PSD file for the cover you wish to edit.
Note: Photopea often takes 2-3 minutes to open a PSD file so be patient!
Step 2: Once the cover is loaded into Photopea, simply double-click on the layers you wish to edit. For example, if you want to change your author name you’d double-click on the assigned layer.
If you aren’t sure what layer belongs to what, you can click the eye icon next to each one and tick it off. That’ll show you what layer you’re working with.
Step 3: Modify the book title and author name, along with a series name if you wish. If you want to remove certain elements of a cover (such as the magic swirls I’m apparently obsessed with adding!), you can do that by clicking on the layer and hitting delete.
Step 4: When you’re finished playing around, click FILE > Save As > and then choose the format you wish to download. I always keep an updated copy of the PSD file (which is the Photoshop source file and the only way you can modify a design), along with a JPG and PDF format.
JPG’s are what I upload to Amazon, and PDF’s are what I use to create the paperback version for KDP Print.
That’s it!
Have any questions? Post your comments below!
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