Well, I’m not SELLING anything, so I think this is okay. I’m so proud of these! Much Photoshop was involved. In each post, I show the reboot and then the original. It’s the top two posts on:
Damn that awful porn film hat.
day eight: too much reliance on the Stroke feature. For non-Photoshoppers, that’s the contrasting outline around each letter. Around “Death Train” is fine, the rest have to go. “Sex! Obsession! Satan!” looks like it’s diecut; like those letters have been cut out of the cover and we’re seeing the paper beneath. I’ve seen it done on real paperbacks but your effect doesn’t look realistic and I don’t think that generally would be the cover element chosen for such treatment.
Otherwise, I like the idea and the whole vibe. The rusty red background that you added is especially effective. I do a similar thing by creating faux record album covers. It’s very difficult to come up with good looking and original content. They always look fake and overly simplified to me when I’m done, but that may be because I know they’re fake.
day seven: I like this one better, but you’ve done a lot less modification. I find the Outer Glow around “Sex and the Single Devil” distracting and I think the title crowds the box top and bottom.
It takes some time to get a rhythm going and I think you’ll improve as you go along. Eventually you find which tools you prefer and work best for you. I have a terrible time with fonts. I prefer sans serif and after awhile all of the text looks the same across several creations. There’s only so much that you can do with Emboss, Drop Shadow and Glow.