That’s the thing, though, the finished product doesn’t look seamless. I have a lot of respect for people that are good at photoshop, but she is not one of them.

Design is done in the head and is usually expressed with a pencil or pen on paper, as thumbnails, scribbles, whatever. Designs are ideas. The thinking leads to a series of thumbnails or scribbles, some branching off tangentially, others following a developmental thread until a concept which seems sound is arrived at. No computer has been used to this point. But the design now exists.

This is the point at which a computer may start to be useful, to render the idea either as a comp layout or finished illustration, fleshing out, crystallising and refining the idea which was first developed in the head with the aid of pencil and paper.

This clip does not show design at all.

That said, I hate most book covers these days. They’re all the same uncreative cut/pasted stock photos of women’s shoulders and feet, maybe with a flower somewhere. They just look interchangeable.

film matte paintings are done much the same way. take whatever photo stock you have and manipulate it to suite your scene.

It IsN’T easy though. you would think it was by the video, but it takes much time to properly size assets, change their hue, saturation, and even perspective so that it seems like one seamless picture.