New Cover For Sweeps

I don't remember what my initial idea was.  Probably it was the version with a girl in a bathtub.  I contacted a very competent artist in Holland to do the drawing but I guess language was a barrier.  I couldn't find a photo nor a vector graphic.  I came up with one with bubbles.   That didn't work.   Then I found a stock illustration.  Settled.  Not thrilled with it  but these things are only temporary anyway.  For me.  Geez, if I paid $300 I'd keep the thing forever.

Then I was going through some old postcards and found a girl in a bathtub.  It doesn't scream vintage to me even if it is so I thought I'd give it a whirl for a couple weeks or until the end of the year.  I'm going to put it on BN for now, Amazon later or never.  I don't have to make up my mind this afternoon.

Technical explanation--

I had a vintage postage image.  I tweaked it in Lightroom, brightened it, clarified it and hit it with the luminance function to remove all the noise that had accumulated in the last 100 years.  I suppose I could have attempted to tint her pink or something.  It always looks so phony.

In Photoshop, I lifted the girl and tub off the original background and turned it into a PNG file (no background).

For the background I used a gradient fill I had made for something else, then hit that with a mild Gaussian blur.

I made a new layer and placed the PNG on that.

I made new layer for the background bubbles.  (Best not to work on the original image.  Use layers in case you screw up.)  The bubbles are a Photoshop brush I got from somewhere on the net.  Google Photoshop bubbles brushes.  You'll find them.  Download the file then click to open.  Photoshop will do the rest for you.

I made a new layer for the title.  In Blending Options, I hit that with a small stroke using a gradient I had made for something else.   This is how you get the bubbles behind the text.

I made a new layer for the foreground bubbles.  This is how you get the bubbles on top of the text.

I made a new layer for my name.

Easy, huh?