How to best design book cover series spines?

Question

I'm designing a series of book covers. Specifically, I'm trying to open up 4 different cover files and work on all the spines as if they were one file, and yet have them saved to their individual file when I'm done.

I'm using photoshop, but "arrange windows" is the closest I've come to what I need and it's not getting the job done very well. Is there another tool, or even adobe program that is better suited for this?

I appreciate your help.

davescm · Accepted Answer

+1 to Jain's remarks.Use Photoshop to prepare images and InDesign for layout. If there is a common image then just prepare it once and change the text in InDesign for each layout. Dave

J E L · Answer

Hi @defaultp2vwu2y917az, InDesign is the better software to use for back cover / spine / front cover layouts so they can easily be exported to PDF with the proper trim size for printing, if printing books is your goal. I'm not exactly clear what you mean by "work on all the spines as if they were one file." Do you mean apply the same spine art to all 4 covers? In Photoshop, you could take the cover image file and extend the canvas to the spine width determined by the page count or printer specifications, and then add your spine text and elements, either by cut and paste, drag and drop, or place. Don't forget the bleeds if those are required.

ETA: If you have one file with 4 spines, each on a separate layer, you can export each layer to its own file.

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