Everyone - please see the original book cover images at the end of this post.
monik7 wrote:You’ve done a lot of work on this Anne. I’m impressed! My comment is that, to me, the horse’s muzzle looks too long now and seems to be stretched too long and far down to be natural. Just my observation from having a horse and being around horses so much. I would have left the breast plate as it’s not fancy, just plain leather and standard cowboy equipment, and necessary when traveling up hills and mountains to keep the saddle from slipping toward the horse’s tail. I like this boy much better and also the font and white color used for the title.
Sandi
Sandi!!
You definitely have the eye for details!! Truly awesome comments, and you hit
all of them 100%, absolutely right on the nose!!!
THANK YOU SO VERY MUCH! Just for fun - and just to explain the reasons I think I needed to go in this way (including "turning" the head shot of the boy a bit, so that he seems to be looking more "up" than down - he seems to be looking down in the photo):
monik7 wrote:My comment is that, to me, the horse’s muzzle looks too long now and seems to be stretched too long and far down to be natural. Just my observation from having a horse and being around horses so much.
Again, you are
absolutely, 100% correct on this.
The explanation: I actually spent about 15 - 20 hours, over many, many days, searching all of the "stock photo" websites (where one pays $$ for a license to use a photo image - thus making the use of the photo "legal"). I could not find anything that even came close to what I wanted (I even emailed several dude ranches in Wyoming to see if they might like to sell a license for a cowboy image), I just kept returning to the image of this particular "cowboy" that I found on Shutterstock.com.
I will put the original three images that I used - yes, THREE
- uncorrected images of both the cowboy, and the boy, at the bottom of this post.
There are several different images of this cowboy model on horseback on Shutterstock (different poses) and most of these images I also found (also during my research) that these images of this cowboy model were already being used as covers for other Amazon books.
The specific image I finally selected was not (at least as far as I could tell) yet used on an Amazon book cover.
However, these other Amazon book covers were similar enough to my chosen image for my book cover, that there could be no mistake that they were the same cowboy and horse!
What to do so that this wouldn't be totally obvious at first glance? I settled on removing the mustache and beard from the cowboy, removing what appeared to be "silver conchos" (I'm sure you know what these are, Sandi, but for everyone else these are often sterling silver saddle decorations) and any other indication that this might be "fancy tack".
I also made the image "thinner" because the cowboy drifter in my story was thin, as is his horse. The original image suggests a well-fed man, and a well-fed horse! This would hardly do
! In making the image "thinner", the effect also made the cowboy taller - and the horse's head longer. Originally, the horse and rider were thinner than what I ended up with (and, thus, the horse's head was longer - although the horse's head is fairly long in the original photo, below) - but I then tweaked the image just a bit so that (hopefully!) this would not be noticed by the average non-horse-person.
I did consider re-sizing the head, but in doing this kind of photo-manipulation work (I am using PhotoShop Elements 13) one needs to go all the way down to the pixel level to make these kinds of changes (often changing one pixel at a time!), if I want them to look even remotely natural. I estimated it might take me another 8-hour day (perhaps more - I am not fast with this stuff) to reduce the size of the horses' head, and then to re-integrate the changed shape of the horse's head back into the photo.
Sandi, you may not know this but I owned and trained horses for more than twenty years (LOL - in my past life!) so I did recognize, as you did (and any horse-savvy person probably would also). I am just hoping that most people won't really notice. If and when I change the cover image again, I might play around a bit with the horses head. Or not!
monik7 wrote:I would have left the breast plate as it’s not fancy, just plain leather and standard cowboy equipment, and necessary when traveling up hills and mountains to keep the saddle from slipping toward the horse’s tail.
Again, Sandi, you are
totally, absolutely, 100% correct with your observation. You
definitely know your horses!
A lone horseman, traveling through rough country, would
absolutely need a breast plate attached to his saddle, for precisely the same reasons you very clearly state. "Back in the day" I always always used a breast plate on my western saddle when trail riding in the mountains (best trail ride
ever was when a friend trailered us both - and our horses - up to the trailhead of the Pacific Crest Trail, just outside of La Porte, California. We spent the better part of a day riding the PCT. It was years ago, my friend has been gone for many years - but I will never forget it).
Anyway, same problem - all of the images of this same cowboy model, on this same horse, have this very same breast plate. Again, I needed to differentiate my book cover image from the other book covers on Amazon that are using a similar image of the same cowboy on their book cover - at least I needed to change the image enough so this was not so noticeable at first glance. This is the main reason I removed the breast plate. It would not do to have my gentle cowboy story mistaken for a shoot-em-up western!
I am (again!) hoping that the average, non-horse person, will not notice this absence of a breast plate. With horse-savvy people like you, I am surely doomed!!
There are actually a couple of other errors in the image as well - one that I knew (and chose to ignore) and one I noticed only after I uploaded the new cover to Amazon.
1. The horse in the image is a trotting horse, not a single-footing horse as described in my story. Sandy, I am quite sure that you know what a single-footing horse is - but for those who do not, the simple explanation is that, when moving, a single-footing horse puts one foot on the ground at a time, thus "single-foot" (which results in the rider feeling like they are sitting in a gentle rocking chair). A trotting horse will put two feet on the ground at the same time, which is very jarring and uncomfortable for the rider (particularly the inexperienced). Single-footing horses (if anyone is interested in a longer definition of this term, please Google it) are not very common today, and are difficult to find if one is looking for such a horse. But in the days of the old west (and also in even earlier times), when the riding horse was often the primary method of transportation, such horses were held in high regard, and were often in high demand.
Today, horse breeds like the Tennessee Walking Horse, the Missouri Foxtrotter, and the Peruvian Paso are all, basically, a type of "single-footing" horse.
2. (This one kind of bugs me, I didn't notice it before I uploaded the image, but I'm going to let it alone for now): There seems to be a tree branch growing out of the cowboy's left shoulder! Yikes!!
In closing, I would like to again sincerely thank you, Sandi, for your well-considered, keen, and absolutely spot-on - and horse-savvy - observations.
Good job, and I very sincerely thank you for it!
The THREE (!, yep, 3) original, un-retouched photos (just made smaller so they don't take up the entire page) I used for my book cover are below.
Happy reading, everyone!!
Anne
And my actual book cover - a combination/blend of all three images:
