Familiarize yourself with famous album art. Whether you are interested in designing a retro album cover or seeking to explore new frontiers of album cover design, do yourself a favor and take a sightseeing tour of famous album covers online. Amazon.com offers a wide range of album art, both old and new, and a list of popular artists can be found by researching stats documented in Billboard's record charts.
Browse photos on your computer or on flickr.com. While professional album covers are frequently the products of costly artistic effort and marketing campaigns, a homemade album cover can still look as appealing with a little wise effort. Plenty of high-quality photos are available for use (either commercially or otherwise) on flicker.com. However, if you would rather personalize your album cover, you may choose to use a picture from your own computer as a base image.
Select names for your album and artist. In many ways, this is the most important step of assembling an album cover. Almost as much as the images do, album titles and artist names suggest the content of an album to potential listeners. Also, consider the style and size of the font you will use. Many free fonts are available online to download.
Use digital photo software to manipulate chosen images & text. Most PCs are equipped with photo editing software right out of the box. However, free software is also available online to enable users both to edit pictures as well as to transform them into artwork. GIMP software, modeled in the style of Photoshop, is available for free downloads from the internet.
Customize print specifications for your album cover, or use the cover as a web-ready image. If you are designing your cover for your own personal library, you may want to print the cover as a CD cover in the center of a sheet of copy paper, allowing enough room on the page for flaps of your envelope to be cut. Optionally, the album cover art can be used as an icon to promote & sell your album online.