Here is a tutorial for pixlr on how to make this cover:

You will find all of the required materials in the external link. This tutorial is for intermediate pixlr users, but anyone can give it a go. If you use the tutorial, then please do not use the covers you produce in your examples, and please do not claim it as your own if the cover you produce is extremely similar.

Link to images: http://imgur.com/a/t6vRz

Steps:

1. Open up a blank image with the dimensions 512 x 800 on Pixlr Editor.

2. Open your first stock image by going to Layer > Open Image as layer. It should be the image of the rocks. We do not need to resize this image, but move it so that it is positioned like it is in the image below:

3. Next we need to recolour the image to make it black and white. You do this by going to Adjustment > Colour Lookup. A black and white gradient bar will immediately pop up, making the image black and white. Click 'ok'.

4. Now erase the top part of the image, using a soft eraser brush. Use the 200 soft brush, or increase the diameter (refer back to the pixlr introduction chapter if you unsure of where this is) to 300 to give a greater effect. Rub the image away to about halfway, like so:

5. Add the second stock image of the mountains by going to Layer > Open image as layer. Place this layer behind your original layer by clicking on the layer on the layer panel, and dragging it below the other image's layer. We now need to recolour the image to black and white, so we repeat step 3 by going to Adjustment > Colour Lookup.

6. Now we add our model. Open the PNG of the man with his arms crossed, and place him towards the left of your cover. Yet again, we do not need to resize him, but we need to dilapidate the colour of the PNG. Go to Adjustment > Colour Vibrance. Make the vibrancy about -60.

7. You will now see that a white line has appeared around the boy since colour vibrance sadly sharpens the bad edges of the PNG. The only way to get around this is by using a hard eraser to erase the outline of the boy.

8. (I moved the background around a little bit for later on). Now we need to make the eyes of the boy yellow. Firstly, zoom in and create a new layer - Layer > New Layer - that is above all of the other layers. Select the brush tool, make sure that the paint colour is the colour you would like it to be (in this case, yellow), and make sure that the brush is small and hard. Then, colour in the boy's irises so that the yellow obscures them.

9. Make the opacity of this layer 50%. Rub away the yellow where the pupil is, and anywhere where the yellow goes outside the pupil. Then change the layer style to 'Screen' and change the layer opacity to 60%.

10. Now we add a gradient. Create a new layer by going to Layer > New Layer. Next click on the gradient tool (it's a small rectangular icon with a dark blue to light blue gradient on the left hand side of the tool bar). Just under the menu bar, you will see a gradient appear. Click on this, and then a selection of different gradients will appear. Choose the one which goes from black to transparent. Then, making sure that your new layer is above all of the other layers, draw your gradient by clicking, holding down and dragging upwards to just above halfway. Then change the opacity of this layer to 90.

11. Time to add the wolf. Open your wolf PNG. Now we need to resize the wolf PNG. You do this by going to Edit > Free transform. Make him about the same size as show below, and place the PNG so that it looks like he's standing on one of the rocks in the background. Then change the PNG to black and white as explained above. We also need to make the wolf slightly darker so it blends into the background more easily - go to Adjustments > Exposure and change the exposure to 8. Make sure that this layer is below the one of the boy PNG.

12. Now we add the moon. Open the moon and resize it similarly to the image shown below. Change the image to black and white, and the layer style to screen.

13. Now for the title! Make the main title the same colour you used for the boy's eyes. The font I used was optimus princeps, with 'The' in font size 40, 'Werewolf' in font size 74, and 'curse' in font size 130. For the author's name, I spaced each letter out with a space, and made the font slightly grey. The font size I used was 36.

14. To finish off your cover, add the image with the light streaks on top of all your layers. Rotate the image by going to Layer > Rotate 90 degrees CW. Then change the layer style to multiply and set the layer opacity to 50.

15. Save your cover (keep it up in pixlr editor, just in case), and open in a new tab. Go to Pixlr Express so that we can dilapidate the colour of the yellow and blend the colours. Add these filters, in this order:

-Default > Bob > 50%

-Subtle > Alex > 60%

And here is the final product:

Did this tutorial inspire you, or did you use this tutorial to make a cover/graphic? Post the results below because we'd love to see them!

We hope that this tutorial helped! If you have any questions, or if you would like to request a tutorial, just comment below.

-GraphicSociety

[Tutorial by LotteHolder ]