From Cocoon to Butterfly

...the kids were home for Christmas holidays. The house was bustling. The nights were full of laughter and good humor and the mornings were late and lazy. As I got up to make coffee and start the bacon sizzling on the stove, I realized the night had created an unusual event in West Texas. Snow covered the ground. When I opened the front door, I saw the picture as clear in my mind as if I had just clicked the camera - the perfect book cover for Mist in the Valley. The book is about a pregnant woman. (I had a six-month pregnant woman in my house). The book is about a winter storm. (Snow covered the ground just outside my front door). The book is about mist lying heavily in the trees. (In Photoshop, I can create both mist and trees).

"Crockett, I need you," I called.

I waited for my daughter to dress and then took a succession of pictures with my Ipad because it creates high-resolution images that can be used for printing book covers. For paperback books, 300 dpi (dots per inch) resolution is required. For an online image, 72 dpi is used. It makes sense to start with a high-resolution image to create a paperback cover and reduce it for the ebook cover image. Traveling the other direction does not work where pixels are concerned.

Creating the cover took several steps. I removed the background but left the porch section. I added trees and then created a cloudy effect that settled over the image like mist. Voila! Mist in the Valley cover was born. And three months later, Everett Ruth joined us. Writing a book is substantial. Creating a cover is icing. Having willing participating family members is the chocolate part of the chocolate-covered strawberry that tops the entire process.