Expand: grow the frame, gain a wrap

Expand grows your cover art outward past its current edges, inventing the new area, so a front-only image can become a full KDP wrap with spine and back.

A cover that exists only as a front is half a paperback. KDP wants one flat image with back, spine and front side by side, and a front-only picture cannot be stretched into that shape without smearing your subject across it. Briefing a fresh wrap produces a different book's cover.

Expand keeps the picture you approved and paints outward past its edges. You choose how far out you are going and which edges move; the model invents the new area to agree with what is already there. Only the art layer grows — your title and author name are live vector type on the layer above, yours to reposition once the wider art is in place.

How to use it

1. Start from the cover you have approved
   Expand reads the art on your canvas, with the same source note at the top of the INPUT column. Treat it as a finishing operation: expand the picture you have actually decided on, because everything you place later has to agree with the edges this run invents.
2. Pick the target
   Three chips sit under Target: Front + spine, Full wrap and Free. Each adds a phrase to the request naming what you are heading toward, and the first two also return the result in the shape that target actually needs rather than the upright front-cover one. Read those as proofs rather than finished covers: each of the two returns its own shape — front + spine comes back a little wider than the front cover, full wrap comes back landscape — and both sit in the same one-megapixel proof band, which is why this scene ends by pointing at Upscale. Free keeps the upright shape and gives you more room in the directions you choose.
3. Choose which edges move
   Four arrow chips decide where new area is painted, and at least one always stays on. The left arrow is on by default because on a print wrap the spine and the back cover sit to the left of the front. Tap right, top or bottom when what you need is breathing room rather than a wrap.
4. Run it and carry on
   Expand costs one credit. There is no before-and-after flip on this result, and that is deliberate: the frame itself changes, so overlaying two different shapes at the same size would mislead you about what moved. The chip under the result goes to Upscale, which is usually the correct next step, since a wrap has to fill roughly twice the area of a front.

What it solves

An ebook that has to become a paperback

The cover has been live for months, readers recognize it, and now there is a print edition. A new brief would hand you a different picture; expanding keeps the one people already associate with the book and grows it sideways into a wrap. Set your page count in the studio's technical settings first so the layout knows how wide the spine must be, then expand toward Full wrap.

A journal whose back cover is a white rectangle

Guided journals and planners are bought partly on how finished they look, and a blank back is the tell. Expanding the front's world across the back produces a printed back in the same light and palette, with quiet area left where a short description can sit. On low-content titles this is the case that pays for itself immediately.

Art that was cropped too tight

Sometimes the composition is right and the frame is wrong: a mast, a crown or the top of a head runs straight into the trim with nothing left for bleed. Choose Free, tap the single edge that needs room, and let the model paint another stretch of sky. Cheaper and far more predictable than regenerating the picture and hoping the subject sits lower next time.

Frequently asked questions

What exactly is invented?

Everything outside your original frame. The existing scene is kept and the new area is written by the model, which means it can invent a second horizon, repeat a motif it liked, or add a figure nobody asked for. Inspect the new edges at full size before accepting a run, and inspect them twice on a wrap, where the entire back cover is invented area.

Does this give me the right spine width?

No, and it should not be trusted to. Spine width comes from your page count and paper type and lives in the studio's technical settings, which is what places the fold on the export. Expand supplies art area for the wrap; the layout decides where the spine falls across it. Set the page count first and the two agree.

Why is there no Before tab in this scene?

Because the comparison would lie. Every other scene returns an image the same shape as its source, so flipping between them is honest. Expand changes the shape on purpose, and showing the old frame at the new size would suggest your subject moved or shrank when it did nothing of the kind. What you get instead is the expanded result and a route straight to Upscale.

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