# How would you go about making album art?



## iRaiseTheDead (Mar 5, 2012)

When I say album art I mean most of the newer albums you'll see. I can't really describe the style of it but a few examples are:

http://www.mp3crank.com/cover-album/Elitist-Earth-EP-175x175.jpg

WALLPAPERS | Facebook

Album Artwork Designs | Facebook

I am really interested in learning this but I don't know how to approach it, any help would be great. Thank you!


----------



## Alimination (Mar 5, 2012)

Sooo kind of that cosmic wave / lights looking effects?

Do you know photoshop? I can show you a couple quick tricks?

------
This is a great free tutorial to help you out, and get the basics.

Show me the light

It comes with a lot of the cool textures that might help you achieve your goal.


----------



## Alimination (Mar 5, 2012)

^^^ you can take basic idea from it, and add... planets, nebulas, galexy, clouds, etc off google image search.

Then mash them up together and voila! 

Also! Here is an excellent free texture website!

[CG Textures] - Textures for 3D, graphic design and Photoshop!


----------



## rahul_mukerji (Mar 5, 2012)

It seems more like glass orbs with lighting, vector patterns and lights which seems very "photoshop-ish". 

I've seen a lot of free Brushes which provide most of these features.

So yeah, Photoshop / GIMP is your tool of the hour


----------



## iRaiseTheDead (Mar 5, 2012)

I've had GIMP for the longest time, but we use photoshop in school so I have a better understanding of the basic features in photoshop. I was toying around with something a few minutes ago in GIMP... I can honestly say I still have no idea what I'm doing but how does it look for my first one? xD


----------



## iRaiseTheDead (Mar 5, 2012)

Alimination said:


> Sooo kind of that cosmic wave / lights looking effects?
> 
> Do you know photoshop? I can show you a couple quick tricks?
> 
> ...



If I can get photoshop I will let you know! I would love some hands-on help!


----------



## rahul_mukerji (Mar 5, 2012)

These sites have some pretty great and free brushes that will help you a lot in PS (esp the Plasma brush sets). Look for "lights" , "plasma" and just browse around. in no time you'lll be making some impressive stuff 

Photoshop Brushes
Free Photoshop Brushes
Free Photoshop Brushes | BrushKing &#9819;
Free Photoshop Brushes - Custom Photoshop Brush for Download


----------



## rahul_mukerji (Mar 5, 2012)

Also, some of the older versions of PS are not too expensive on E-bay / CL. So you can def get a very decent version and then use these brushes.

Your first effort is not bad at all. You're heading in the right direction. The brushes will cut your work time by half or less !!


----------



## iRaiseTheDead (Mar 5, 2012)

Thanks man! I think I'm going to try and weight it out with GIMP for a while. The one thing that annoyed me was I couldn't rotate brushes -.- I hate having everything follow the same pattern haha

There is no general rule, or basic outline on making these? Its just kind of as abstract as you want it to be?


----------



## rahul_mukerji (Mar 6, 2012)

NO rules. Artists make their own rules ... and then break 'em.

whatever looks good to your eyes.


----------



## iRaiseTheDead (Mar 6, 2012)

Sound like my kinda work  haha no but I meant I sort of needed a good frame, or start point xD I had a little help last night. I also did these in class:


----------



## ThePhilosopher (Mar 6, 2012)

I would recommend never using PS Lens Flare - it's easily recognizable as such.


----------



## iRaiseTheDead (Mar 6, 2012)

Ah yes, it was a glow effect, at the time I was just trying to see what every little effect did


----------



## metal_god (Mar 7, 2012)

i just look for good tutorials on the net and follow them, learned some good tricks over the years


----------



## ThePhilosopher (Mar 7, 2012)

I haven't made any yet, but I plan on starting with one of my photos and then tweaking it.

Something like this: straight out of camera on the left, after on the right.


----------



## Prydogga (Mar 7, 2012)

Brushes are a great way to start getting into creating with photshop, for something like the Elitist artwork, it would require quite a few steps, and include some in depth manipulation to photos, but with practice, it can be achieved. 

For my work, brushes I use are only there to accent colour or to be built up on with other effects.

If you can afford to buy photoshop (or download the 30 day trial), look up some online tutorials on how to get started with understanding some of the more aesthetically pleasing things Photoshop can do with little effort, and build your understanding of it, and other adobe products, as well as any hand drawing/painting/other methods you can. It really all depends on how you want the art to look. 

For my work, textures and source images play the most important role, and I edit to achieve my goals.

If you want to see any of my album covers:

http://hiddenwordstudio.tumblr.com/
https://www.facebook.com/hiddenwordstudio?ref=ts

If you ever need a hand or want some actual links to help achieve what you're doing, just pm me here.


----------



## iRaiseTheDead (Mar 10, 2012)

I just got Photoshop and this is something I made:

I'd really like to learn to make dark-images from photo manipulation. (I'm assuming this is what you'd call it)


----------



## Alimination (Mar 12, 2012)

cool, you're getting better!


----------



## iRaiseTheDead (Mar 13, 2012)

Alimination said:


> cool, you're getting better!



Thank you  I'm trying to check out tutorials that'll help me go every every aspect and feature that'll aid me in creating different forms of art.


----------

