I took the photos for my cover page yesterday. To make the spice gradient I took a piece of scrapbooking paper and laid out the spices in lines of rainbow order. Then, to add texture and make the photo more interesting, I took a chopsticks and pushed the spices so that they looked more rustic. Then I sprinkled a little extra spice below the main column to create a slight gradient effect and make the edges look less harsh. Here's how it turned out:
I then imported the photo into Lightroom and raised the contrast, saturation, and exposure as well as slightly changed the hues to create a warmer tone. Here's the edited version:
Once I import it into photoshop I'm going to rotate the spices so that they are vertical and I'm going to try lowering the exposure of the yellow slightly because I'm worried about how it will look with letters over it. I'm also going to use Photoshop to make only the second half of the colors more saturated since they are looking pretty dull in comparison to the first three colors. I'm going to put it in to photoshop tomorrow and play with the different font placements and colors.
