Community Expert

Question

Something for the Weekend - Part 250 - A picture for the album!

Forum|Forum|4 months ago
September 26, 2025
34 replies
4704 views

Thanks to all who took the time to participate in our last 'Poison Pen' challenge. There were some great ideas and images.

This week we have something different, thanks to an idea suggested a couple of weeks ago by @Trevor.Dennis . Growing up, I always liked buying record albums and I loved the cover art that contained the record, sometimes as much, and occasionaly more, than the record itself! There were iconic images such as Hipgnosis' graphical prism on Pink Floyd's 'Dark Side of the Moon', or Richard Corben's fantastic graveyard bike on Meatloaf's 'Bat out of Hell', and who can forget Peter Blake and Jann Haworth's cover for the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.

So the challenge for this week is to think of an album you liked and come up with your own cover design for it. There is no real starter image but I have attached a simple grey square 2500 x 2500 pixels in sRGB to use as a format.

When you post your response can you add just a few words on what the album is and how you went about it. It may help others see the potential of different approaches, software, and tools to such a challenge.

The “rules”:

Anything goes, as long as it meets the forum rules on decency, copyright, etc.
Anyone, and everyone, is welcome to have a go, whether you are a complete beginner or a Photoshop expert. This is not just for our forum “regulars”.
The challenge is not limited to Photoshop. Any Adobe software can be used.
There are no prizes apart from the chance to practice, show off your skills, or bring a bit of humor and fun. Don't be shy, join in and have a go!

When posting back your image — please use the blue reply button in this first post and use the 'Insert Photos' icon at the top of the reply box. If posting a comment on someone else’s entry, then please use the grey reply button next to their image post.

Have fun!

Dave

Show previous replies

Trevor.Dennis

Community Expert

One last go at this. I used Nano Banana to give my Dave Head a Bowie look, but I made the text in Photoshop, and the transitions in Prem Pro. I tried doing it with Photoshop, but the dissolve is time restricted. Then I wondered if the was a morph transition in AE, but this is what they call Mortp in Prem Pro. I actually had a pretty decent morph effect in Deluxe Paint on an Amiga 1000 40 years ago!

C

Christelle RD

Community Expert

Another excellent one Trevor!
It's very interesting to see how much testing you did on different tools to achieve the desired result...

Trevor.Dennis

Community Expert

The trick (which I think I got from a Jesuz Rameriz video) is to have both heads on the same layer with a background (no transparency). I forget what I used for the prompt, but I used the words 'left' and 'right' rather than describe the two characters. So, something like this, but the first time I tried it did its usual 'too much skin' thing and 'The computer says no.' So I had to remove the neck and shoulders from DB. Then something like 'Place the red hair from the person the right to the person on the left, and also apply the lightning flash and skin tone.

I just tried it again with the above promt. It basically turned our Dave into DB.

This time I tried Flux Kontext and it moved DB to the left and turned the original DB into Sinéad O'Connor. This was all inside Photoshop, and I used Firefly when I first did the transformation.

IO think my crtedits reset yesterday, and I had a tiny go last night, so that 4100 credits is maybe not a bottomless pit.

davescm

Author

Community Expert

Dave

jane-e

Community Expert

Brilliant, Dave! I'd love to hear a few words on how you went about it.

Jane

Trevor.Dennis

Community Expert

If ever there was an album cover that asked to be animated...

I couldn't bare to cut it down enough to upload as a GIF, and knowing that most of Rick Beato's uploads get copywrite strikes, I decided not to add the audio. It's only 720p but it looks a lot better if you click to view it on YouTube.

davescm

Author

Community Expert

Nice Trevor. How did you create the animation, was it AI?
Dave

Trevor.Dennis

Community Expert

Dave, I meant it as a continuation of soccer animation. So it was Firefly using Vio 3. After the soccer video I had 3900/4100 premium points The Abbey Road video took it down to 3290, and I have 21 hours till they reset. I'm trying to make the point that if we don't use those Premium Points, then then we are wasting the chance to gain experience.

In the last few days I have seen tutorials from Julianne Kost, Colin Smith, and Jesus Rameriz. As usual, Jesus has gone deeper than anyone else, because he is a Photoshop genius, but more than that, he is constantly using the tools in the work he does with Lisa Carney. for instance, he has worked out that if you are using the Ai to change an object's colour, you can use its hex code, and even specify a Pantone Color Code!

At times like this, when Photoshop is in a state of continual Flux (did you see what I did there? 😉 ) I like to use the time filters with YouTube with something like 'Photoshop Partner Models — Filter this week'

Trevor.Dennis

Community Expert

Going off topic here, but after watching Jesus Rameriz latest upload on his Photoshop Traning Channel about the new Generative Fill and Firefly partner models, I decided it was time to use some of those CE credits that were otherwise going to waste. I used Nano Banana to expand my Dave Head. Put him in Sunderland FC strip, and expand the canvas to 1920 x 1080.

I used that as the first frame in Firefly image to video, and bopught the resulting back into Photoshop. Using Export > Save for Web produced a 43mb GIF, and the forum has a 10mb limit. The action is all in the centre so I cropped out the unused area, downsized to 600 pixels high. That was still 12mb so I had to reduce colours to 64 and it was down to 9mb.

This was the first time I tried this, and I hit generate before selecting the model. So it used the defualt when I think I was supposed to use Vio 3. It has stuffed up his mouth, but I really should have tried to do a better job of that smile, and maybe Vio 3 would have worked better. It used 800 credits, and I have 4090/4100 left. I bet most of us are wasting them.

The prompt was 'Have the man perform tricks with a football. He should bounce the ball on his head and feet.'

fbeaume

Community Expert

lol!
Any resemblance to existing characters is purely coincidental.Isn't it?

fbeaume

Community Expert

Just a match stock image, a gradient map, few textures and blending modes experiences...
A “back to basics” approach like the one taken on this great album.

fbeaume

Community Expert

And I couldn't resist making a copy of the album “Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace”...
It's not their best album (in my opinion), but it's one of my favorite covers...
Bomb tail created with Firefly, amplifier lamp from Adobe Stock...

Trevor.Dennis

Community Expert

I prefer the bomb texture in your version fb, and its internals are more interesting as well. Do you know what that device is? Could this be the Foo Fighters Atomic Remix?

Trevor.Dennis

Community Expert

When I had the idea for this thread, I'd just made the Dark Side cover, just for the love of it, and it was that sort of graphic illustration I had in mind. That's as opposed to some of the more organic uploads we've had, because they are harder to do. This is King Crimson's Larks Tongues in Aspic, and when I looked at the cover I thought of the new star tool and if there was a way to make the rays curve like this. If there is, I couldn't think of it, and this has 27 spikes and the new tool only goes to 20. So it was back to Step & Repeat. The faces are mostly stroked paths because I am not flash at free-hand, and it was mostly done using the original as a template. So not hard, but it did turn out to take a couple of hours and was a lot of fun.

davescm

Author

Community Expert

A very nice re-creation Trevor. We sometimes see threads asking how do I learn, and this kind of project is a great way to find out how to achieve a result. 🙂
Dave

Trevor.Dennis

Community Expert

I just remembered doing this one for the windmill SFTW. AFAIR the original does not look like this, so this is more inspired by the Gorillaz Feel Good video. I made the island, added Dave's windmill, and the trees look very much like Photoshop > Render > Tree. I don't think there was any water in the original, so that was probably my idea. That was done with Flaming Pear's Flood 2. This is slightly different the one in the Windmill thread, as I noticed that I'd missed the small propeller at the back, so I have just added that.

davescm

Author

Community Expert

It does have the elements of the original cover, Trevor. To be honest, I like this one better and your incorporation of the video style is nicely done too. 🙂
Dave

Trevor.Dennis

Community Expert

davescm

Author

Community Expert

Another nice re-creation, Trevor. The textures are excellent. Led Zeppelin are doing well in this week's SFTW 🙂
Dave

War Unicorn

Community Expert

NIN's classic album. Had to not-too-painstakingly paint in some of the stains and the wires. (I used ArtRage Vitae for this part, as I love its painting tools.) Rest is background textures of my own making. (Which also added some stains not on the original album cover. Might look a bit overkill, but meh. I like dirty.) Had to transform the "N's" on the type and flip them horizontally to match the original album's design. Added the gradient at the bottom for some flare (which also isn't in the original).

Trevor.Dennis

Community Expert

Wow James! That is an excellent recreation. You have a lot of the texture very close, and the shapes of the large rust areas (where the paint is completely gone) are spot on. Realy nice work.