…cos when you try to do it yourself, you get stuck.
I’m actually happy with my cover (don’t judge me!). But I can’t, yet, export it in 300 dpi so I can use it at Lulu.
It’s ok–this is only day two and a half of knowing of GIMP’s existence. I’m just frustrated that something that I know my nephew could do in his sleep is taking me so long. 
It will be done. In time for the cephalopodmas shopping rush.
I hope.
(yes, there is a back cover, too, with the cuttlefish sigil in black, facing the other direction, at the top of the page–there is room for a blurb or author’s description or whatever at the bottom, along with the required barcode. Oh, and “ink” was the working title until I found a better one. So if you have a better one, speak up.)
(I love the fact that it is a visual illusion–“The Digital Cuttlefish” looks like it is in a lighter gray than “ink”, but that’s all because the background is different. Yes, I’m a bit of a geek.)
The best example of that visual illusion I’ve ever seen is this one.
Every time I look at it, I am astounded.
It’s beautiful – I love the color gradation of the gray.
When I saw “Ink”, I immediately thought “What a perfect title!” Keep it.
Ink is good. “Camoflage” perhaps? “Murky Waters”?
“Stained”? “Sepiida”?
@1 martin_z
That is amazing! I’m starting at the image and my brain is telling me something I know is not true; A and B are different colors. That really is bizarre.
@martin_z:
There’s also this, which I first saw at Phil Plait’s blog. The blue and green spirals are the same color.
I tried to figure out how to change the resolution of an image in GIMP, but alas, the open-source wonder defeated my tiny little brains, as well. Photoshop, of course, lets you change resolutions with ease. It’s expensive, but (a) Photoshop Elements (aka “Photoshop’s little brother”) is available and, if Google Shopping does not lie, can be purchased for as little as $50, and (b) if you happen to have an Adobe Membership ID, you can download Photoshop CS2 (Mac or Windows) from this URL:
https://www.adobe.com/cfusion/entitlement/index.cfm?e=cs2%5Fdownloads
Ah, Cubist! You have inspired me–I was not thinking earlier, but I suspect it will be simple–Cuttlefish University has an office especially dedicated to stuff like this, where faculty have access to image-editing software. I just have to get there. Thanks!
Can I add my vote for keeping “Ink” as the title?
Hey, keeping “Ink” is by far the easiest option, and I am nothing if not lazy.
I’d scoot the text down a little, that blank space between it and the cuttlefish is a little much. Is the cuttlefish logo a vector image or a bitmap. Cuz if it’s a bitmap, and you try to make the resolution higher for printing, it’s going to get all pixellated and crappy looking. Font is a little bland, go through some other serif fonts and see what you can get.
I’m a graphic designer, can ya tell? ;P
Ah! A professional!
I do have the vector image, courtesy of the nice people at EvolveFish. I think that GIMP was not able to recognize that image, and instead was reading a different version I have that is 200 dpi. I am hopeful that bringing the right file to the right program will do the trick.
Thanks for the cover advice! I am definitely going to try a few things out… I chose that font (Georgia) because it’s the font I use inside the book, having looked through quite a few of them with a small group of friends. I know there’s no law that says this means I need to use it on the cover, but I honestly feel a strange sort of loyalty–I used it on my previous books, and it’s been nice to me. But hey, I used other fonts on the other covers, so I’m not set in stone. What I am, though, is up against the wall in terms of time, so I may end up going with the default just… well, by default.
If you imported the image at 200dpi, you don’t want to export it at 300dpi. That will pixelate the image enough to make it look fuzzy when printed.
I think GIMP is just the wrong tool for this. There is a comparable, free vector program called Inkscape (inkscape.org) that will preserve the full quality of the vectored image and text, and easily allow you to export a bitmap or .pdf at any quality. It’s much easier to use than GIMP, and will serve you better in the long run.
@Hercules – that spiral is quite unnerving. I’ll show that to my wife, who is always complaining that I can’t tell green and blue apart.
@Cuttlefish – fwiw, I like “Ink” as a title too, and I also like the cover. Though I’ll probably buy it as an ebook when it comes out – shipping to the UK is a lot cheaper that way.