H2G2 -V. 2

I used a stock photo posted by Stanislav Perov on www.dreamstime.com to create the effect of the screen on the guide book.  The reference link I saved is broken but if you Google his name and "paper with chemical spots," you will likely come up with the photo I used or something VERY similar. Sorry folks, I don't know what happened here.

For this version of my Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy book cover remake, I kept some of the ideas from my first attempt, left some out, and added some new ones. The biggest change would have to be the Guide (a small lap computer). Originally, I created digital book with a leather cover. This time, I brought it a little more up to date but, I wanted to keep the Hitchhiker's Guide  pretty low-tech because the story takes place in a time when "digital watches were still a pretty neat idea." I wanted it to look like the back-light was starting to deteriorate a bit because it has been around for some time. To do this, I took a selection of the photo of dirty paper (the size and shape of the screen) and pasted it on top of a the layer with screen. I then changed the layer mode of the paper to blend it in with the green screen. The style of the images on the screen was inspired by hand-held video games from the 80's and old computer monitors. I used a photo of a cell phone to create the case of the Guide. First, I "transformed" the shape of the phone to make it more square, then I removed all of the back-lit buttons as well as the logo, and added 3D arrow buttons instead. Once again, I did this to keep it low-tech. I did toy with the idea of making the buttons for the Guide just like the buttons on the phone that wasn't the look I was going for. I applied Pattern Overlay to the phone and chose the overlay blend mode and then applied and orange Outer Glow. I used adjustment layers to the phone to brighten it up a bit (the original phone was black) and to the paper to darken the oil spots. For the title of the book, I chose a heavy bold font and kept it bright green like in my original only this time, I added a thin orange-brown stroke to it because the transition from green to black was seemed to abrupt. The outline's purpose is to soften the transition. I only felt the need to apply the stroke on the text of the title though, probably due to it's size. Speaking of size, I also adjusted the font size, leading, vertical scale, and horizontal scale all three lines of the title. Well, that's it. I hope everyone likes it.

 

 

I chose to redo the cover to the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. It is one of my all-time favorite books. It happens to be that the Guide has had many different covers over the years. I will link what I can find on here.  I am also going to post my source photos. I took them but I think you should see them to appreciate the end result.

I used two photos: one of a towel and one of a “leather” bound book. I created an adjustment layer and used the curves tool and the Hue/Saturation tool which was applied to both photos. To create the digital screen, I duplicated one corner of the book several times and rotated the layers.  I then adjusted the hue and brightness. I intentionally kept the merge of layers a bit choppy. Doing this allowed me to create a dingy and old appearance to the screen. I intentionally kept the edges of the stitching rough to give the book a worn look. On the towel, I applied Outer Glow to help define the edges and keep the towel from blending into the background. On the title of the book, I Chose a heavy font, varied the font size, and adjusted the vertical scale and the leading. I then rasterized the text and painted the words hitchhiker and galaxy to make them look dirty.

 

U.S. Capitol

US Captitol - Photo Source