Indie Book Covers

As you may have seen, from a few posts ago, we have been trying our hand at book covers for Dead Awakenings. I knew what I wanted, but it wasn't turning out quite the way I wanted, though I do graphic design myself. So my husband tried his hand at it. And even a friend of mine tried his hand at it. Turns out, it isn't as easy as I had hoped.

Though I like all the covers we have tried; and there is a new one I just finished that I haven't even shown anyone yet. I am not "Wowed" by any of them to the point of saying "YES! That's the one!"
So the book covers are still a work in progress.

I read that you should have a specific scene in your book that inspires the cover artist. That when you write you should keep your cover artist in mind and try and write something just for them. However, I have not really seen a Romance book that takes a scene from the book and puts it on the cover. Or many of the books I read, for that matter.

Look at Hunger Games, Twilight, House of Night, Black Dagger Brotherhood, Sookie Stackhouse, Night Circus, or any number of other books on my shelf, and I don't see a "scene" on the front of their books. They are dark, have the main characters on them, or some element from the book that is a great representation, but not a scene per say. So, I am not going for the scene feeling on the cover.

What I want it the face of my heroine from the book, yet I have not found the right one yet. I have an idea for one, but I am not sure how to achieve it.

I saw this article on the amazon boards and I thought it might be helpful to those trying to make their own cover. To me, it is great. It talks about tips and tricks to fine tune a cover once you have a basic idea as to what you want.

http://www.kindleboards.com/index.php/topic,127338.0.html#.UF31fV57MNM.facebook

This was really a helpful tutorial, even for someone like me that does Photoshop almost daily!
Thanx