Book cover - Back cover

The need for a jaw dropping front cover drove the hiring of a photographer, make-up artist and model. Part of the plan was to also create imagery for the back cover at the same time. Unfortunately it was only after the shoot I realised the back cover images didn't work when contrasted against the front cover, and that was here to stay. The back would need to be uniquely stylised in a different way - if the front was of Sarah at an advanced stage in the story, the back would now show her in a moment from the beginning. Somehow.

A result of the photographer's planning and schedule for the photo-shoot was a good number of 'before' pictures, although many were unusable as they were taken while we were still figuring the 'Sarah look'. The bonus though of hiring a professional model was we got so many different looks and one image in particular stood out.

Except of course you can't just throw a very sharp image of a model in a jacket stood in front of a white screen onto the back of a book. In my mind it needed to be stylised with a blurred background that told a little of the early story. So I packed my digital camera and went into town. I got pictures of park benches, the pond, the canal, lots of the high street and every alley I could find.

The next stage was a problem. While I'd always known I would create the book cover, I'd never imagined THIS journey! At this stage I needed to create concept art, something I could give to the book's designers. The trouble was I had no idea how I was going to do this. I knew I would use Photoshop but hadn't spent any time getting to grips with its complex and broad features. With two weeks to create stylish concepts for both the back and front cover I needed to learn fast. Thankfully the internet took me to Amazon where I found Scott Kelby on Kindle and Google kept pulling me to a website called lynda.com - a site full of Photoshop video tutorials for free. I studied Scott on the train and Lynda at nights and soon I'd almost mastered Selections and Masks in Photoshop. Now I could try and create my image.

A lesson I learned while writing the book is that you probably don't know if something's going to work unless you try it. And that you should try everything because the idea you settle on will probably only come from trying everything else. This happens so often, at least in my creative realm and it's admittedly exhausting. As I tested the different images it became clear those of the high street/canal/park bench weren't going to cut it. A wistful Sarah with these backdrops rekindled the nemesis of non-fiction. Fortunately I had quite a few shots of alleys and one in particular stood out for its perspective and the texture of the bricks that looked quite foreboding.

I cut out the left section of the alley and moved it over to create a narrower sense of perspective. Then to make the image darker I used a cut out from a different shot of the alley to block the light at the end. All I needed now was Sarah and to stylise! Fortunately cutting Sarah from her existing image wasn't too difficult once I almost understood Channels and Layer Masks and how to Refine Edges. Photoshop also has some incredible features for blending two images together although my lack of knowledge meant I didn't quite get this right. Once Sarah was placed in the alley she needed resizing and then it was all about stylising. I needed to take away the sharpness from Sarah and have the perspective pull you into the image - playing with and eventually using an assortment of blur effects.Then I blended colour tones across the whole image. I wanted the shadows to contrast but I needed a light tone as Sarah starts the book in the best place in her life she has ever been.

And then once everything was blended and styled I cropped the image down to fit the back of the book and still have room enough on the space across the wall for the back of the book blurb. The book design people may take one look at the image and giggle hysterically at my Photoshop kudos and blow out their cheeks at the 500 technical aspects for a back cover I got wrong, or never thought of. But I'm pretty sure the back cover will look something like this.