Hi, and welcome to yet another tutorial from GraphicSociety (long time, right? We'd really like to apologise, and we're hoping to post some more cover tutorials soon).

Anyway, today's tutorial is about fake topaz and how to apply it in Photoshop. Sadly, this only works for Photoshop, so I'm really sorry to all of you who do not own it.

For all of you who don't know, Topaz is a program that perfects the appearance of a model and cover by smoothing some of the rough edges and making the cover appear smoother. There are ways to get Topaz for free, but if you do not want to illegally download it, this is a cheat as to how you can apply fake topaz to your covers.

Step 1

Finish the cover you have created and save it as a JPEG or PNG image like you normally would. Then open up your saved image, do CTRL + A and then CTRL + C and finally CTRL + Z so that you have a layer with the same cover above your original one (you can also right click and duplicate layer)

OR

Finish your cover and click onto the top layer. Then do CTRL + ALT + SHIFT + E and this will flatten your image into a new layer.

Step 2

Next go to Filter > Stylize > Diffuse

Step 3

A screen will pop up, and make sure that the diffuse option is selected as 'Anisotropic.' Once this is selected, click 'ok.'

Step 4

As you see, your cover has been smoothened, however the faces and text may look distorted. This can be fixed by rubbing out areas of the diffused layer with a large, soft brush, and by lowering the opacity.

For example, without fake topaz:

With fake topaz:

And if we rub parts away and lower the opacity, we get this:

Sometimes this method will work really well with a cover automatically, for example, without fake topaz:

With fake topaz:

Step 5

Save image, and you're done!

Do not feel pressured to add fake topaz to your covers, this is just a tutorial on how to do it if you're interested in smoothening your covers. Also, be careful not to over-topaz, because it can make a cover distorted and hard to read/look at.

We hope this helped!

[ Tutorial by Lotteholder and inspired by onederstruck- and eosophobic ]