Book Cover Tips

2. || superimpose

Okay so I'll try my best to teach you guys the basics of Superimpose, but I'm not 100% positive how I'm going to go at this. I think I'll just start with the very basics and then work my way up, so please bare with me, this might be a rough ride.

Okay so when you first open Superimpose, you get a black screen with a whole lota buttons. Don't worry though; after some practice and getting familiar with it, it won't be as scary, I promise. So first, to upload a "background", you select the tab in the top left corner, which then gives you three options. You can either:

A.) Select the first tab, which will go to your photos

B.) Select your clipboard, but don't worry about this tab

C.) Select a color. (with this, you can also do gradients and just solid colors)

You may select whichever you'd like, but I bet most of you will just choose photo. But when you start to get more familiar with the app and with editing, what I usually do first is upload a solid color and then my photo so I have more space to work in, but you may do it however you'd like.

After selecting your photo and crop size, you probably think you can just go ahead and start editing, but this isn't the case. You have to upload a foreground image first, which is done the same way you uploaded your background image.

Now that you have both photos, you can start editing. I'll move to the Transform tab at the bottom now, and I'll explain what this tab is able to do. The first tab at the top (looks like an arrow pointing towards two layers) is what's called "Merging". Merging is where you combine the two photos you have, which is usually done after you are done editing the photo. So, don't worry about this until the very end.

The next button at the top is one that you can use to switch your foreground and background around. I don't use this one very much, but it's helpful if you ever accidentally upload your images in the wrong order. The tab beside this one and the one next to it are the flip tabs. It just flips your image however you'd like. The tab next to these two (looks like arrows pointing towards a box) is how you can center your photo. This is incredibly helpful when you're resizing your image, so you don't transform it to look all ugly and such. The tab next to this one is another resizing tab, but this one resizes it so that it fits the background. Helpful as well, but it might transform your photo in an odd way.

The last tab at the top looks like two gears, and they're crucial to using this app. If you select this button, you can use different types of blends and the opacity of your top image. I don't know what I'd do without this button, because it is literally a life savor. This is more of a thing you have to play around with until you get what you want, so I'll leave that up to you guys (:

Moving on the Mask tab at the bottom. This button is also very helpful for masking out your image to make things like PNG's or to blend your top and bottom photo better. The two buttons on the top left corner are just undo and redo buttons, and the X button next to those clears your mask. The button next to the X inverts your mask, and the button next to this blurs it. I don't really use those middle three, but I'm sure they're helpful for a certain type of edit.

The gears in this corner are very useful as well. If you select this, you get a bunch of different brush settings. There's an eraser, a magic brush, a normal brush, gradient brushes, and so many more that you'll have to try out on your own. You can also adjust things like the smoothness and the threshold, but don't worry too much about those. Only change them if you think you need to.

Moving on to the filter tab. At the top, you'll see four buttons; two of those being Foreground and Background. Those two you select when you want to edit that certain layer. The button next to these two is just an undo button, and then there's those handy dandy gears. Gotta love those, right?

So select those gears again and you get a bunch of more options. The first tab under this one adjusts lighting, brightness, and contrast. Another thing you'll have to play around with to get what you want. The next tab adjusts colors, which is really fun to do. Then the next is Hue and Saturation, along with invert. The tab beside this one is a bunch of filters you can use, and then the last tab is just to blur stuff (I don't use this one very often either)

This was probably the worst way of explaining this app to you guys, but I hope you got something out of it. If you need any addition help, I'm always here and there is also a question mark button on the home tab that you can press to get tutorials and other things.

Don't get discouraged if you're not great at using the app right away; it took me weeks until I finally got used to it. Just remember that this is all about trial and error, so your picture won't always looks perfect at first. After this chapter I think I'll start with some actual tutorials and other tips, but I'm starting to wonder if I should just make an instagram tutorial account. I feel like it would be a lot easier for you guys to understand and for me to make, but I'm not sure if I have that much time for that. We'll see how it goes.

Let me know how you guys do!