It doesn’t matter if you prefer to work using pre-designed templates and gallery images or from scratch; every marketer who regularly needs or uses digital graphics should try Box Shot King.

It combines the options of high-powered graphics editors like Adobe Photoshop with easy pre-designed graphics subscription sites, resulting in a complete combination that until now was often considered impossible:

• Significant time saving in graphics creations
• Highly-customized, professional-level results
• Zero outsourcing costs

Your graphics are created in the “cloud”, so when you are finished, you simply download them to your desktop. (You can also upload your own designs.)  Most of the customization is done using easy drag-and-drop inserting, re-sizing and applying. You don’t have to possess graphic design skills – just the ability to press a button.

You don’t have to have technical abilities.  And Box Shot King will work on either MAC or PC.  Everything is simplified to the ultimate degree.  Every task is easy.

Even professional graphic designers are likely to use Box Shot King, just for its simplicity and time-saving capabilities alone.

What You Can Create

Box Shot King is designed for online marketers who need standard marketing graphics.

These include:

• eBook Covers, spiral bound
• CD covers
• DVD covers
• Mobile covers
• iPad screen displays

Things you can do with Box Shot King images:

• Insert text
• Insert images
• Upload images
• Resize images
• Create 3D images
• Download and save them to your desktop

How the Image Editor Works (Overview)

Box Shot King’s image editor is much easier to edit than either Adobe Photoshop or Gimp.  Let’s take a look at some simple tasks.  First, log into Box Shot King.

Click on the “Start Now” button or on any portion of the graphic below the “Create” tab – it doesn’t matter which one.

You will be taken straight away to the eCover Template Gallery.  This is just a sampling of its designs…

Select the template you want.

You are now ready to begin customizing your promotional graphic template with additional text and images.

 

Step 1.  Setting a Background

You have four choices when it comes to selecting a background for your image:

• Choosing a background pattern from the images offered in the Background Gallery (“System Default)

• Uploading your own custom background image 

• Using web resources to find the right image

• Entering HEX color codes for your signature branded colors

No matter what method you choose, after you’ve made your selection, you will see your chosen background rendering (i.e. loading in) – almost as if it was “painting” itself.

Once it has filled the “canvas”, you can drag-and-resize anywhere within the canvas to select only the portion you want to use.  Your book cover will display in the upper right hand side of the canvas as you drag, reflecting how these changes will look within the “real” cover.

To resize, you will see little square “nodes” in each of the four corners.

As you move your cursor over a node, it will change to a double arrow.

This indicates that you can:

• Shrink the size of the area to be visible as your cover background
• Expand the size of the area to be visible as your cover background
• Move the visible area around

Go ahead and experiment with changing the areas to be visible by dragging and re-sizing the bounding box (dotted, movable edges of the highlighted canvas area).

The area that becomes greyed-out in your “canvas” – outside the bounding box – will not appear in the final eBook cover.

(It can take a couple of seconds for changes to render, or appear.)

In other words, you are not obliged to keep the entire background.  Note that, in resizing and area selection, below, we have selected only a small portion of the available background graphic to appear as our book cover graphic…

 

Press the orange-gold “Select and continue” button.

Step 2.  Modifying a Font

You will add elements to your background – text and graphics.  First, let’s look at the text options.

In the top, horizontal menu bar, select “Insert Text”:

A new window will open up under the menu.  It will contain a textarea box where you first input your text by typing it; then selecting and applying text options and effects (found in the menu bar below the textarea box).

Let’s go through the options on this menu bar…

• Color Style – Use this if you know your preferred HEX color code for your text color.  Simply type it in the tiny textarea box within the Color Style tab.

The background color of the textarea box will change to show you the actual text color you’ve selected.

 

• Text Outline – You can also add an outline to your text. 

• Alignment – Next, decide if you want your text centered, left-justified or right-justified. 

• Font – When you press “Font”, however, an entire gallery opens up.  Simply click on the graphic thumbnail of the font you want to apply it.

• Text Effects – Another gallery opens up when you press the “Text Effects” link. You can apply any of these effects to any font you have selected.

Once you have selected all your text preferences, press the orange-gold “Submit” button.

Your text will take a few seconds to render (load in).  You will see the horizontal bar of squares within the load window moving continuously to indicate that rendering is proceeding… Finally, you will see the text you typed into the textarea box, with your effects, fonts and outlines applied.

Step 3.  Adding a Graphic

To add a graphic to your template, go back to your main, horizontal menu bar and select either of the following tabs:

• Insert Images
• Upload Images

Notice that the options bar below the menu will change to offer you graphics customizations options, such as blur, flip, arc, rotate and the like.

Let’s insert an image from the collection supplied by Box Shot King and apply each of these effects, so you can see what each actually does…

First, we’ll press “Upload Images” and upload one of our own images.

(Notice that you can upload only .JPG, .GIF and .PNG file types.)

Choose a file from your hard drive.  While it is uploading, you can glance at the bottom-left corner of your canvas and check its progress. Once it has loaded in, you will see the plain, unadorned, unfiltered image over top of your chosen background.  (You can drag your photo to the size and proportion you want.)

And here is what your photo looks like with various graphics options applied…

1.     Flip

You can flip your graphic vertically or horizontally (e.g. our boat, here, is now pointing the opposite direction).

 2.     Arc

Applies an arcing effect on a black background to our photo.

3.     Grayscale

Removes all color from our photo.

4.     Sharpen

Provides you with customizable options to sharpen details or edges in your photo.

5.     Blur

Provides customizable options for softening all the edges in your photo.

6.     Contrast

Increases the range between light and dark areas in your photo.  You can customize the degree to which you want to showcase lighter or darker contrasts.

“Copy”, “Cut” and “Rotate” should need no explanation.

You can apply each effect alone, or in combination with other effects.  For example, here’s what happens if you apply “Arc”, “Blur” and “Grayscale” all at once…

You can undo any effect if you are not happy with it very easily – by pressing the “Undo” button.

You can delete your graphic, if you are not happy with it, by pressing the red-lettered “Delete” button next to “Undo”.