On Thu, 2013-01-24 at 05:05 +0100, RogueRanger wrote:

The procedure I normally did after writing the text was to go to Layer/Style and then you would have several options, like drop shadow, etc etc. I

GIMP does not have layer styles.

(GIMP also does not have a large team of programmers, nor even a team of large programmers...)

One way to get a drop shadow on text... (1) in the layers dialogue, make sure the text layer is active (2) duplicate the layer
(3) make the lower copy active, right-click on its name and rename it to Shadow
(4) use filters->gaussian blur. Probably a radius of 7 pixel would be fine.
(5) select the move tool, and then use the arrow keys on the keyboard to move the layer right 3 pixels and down 3 pixels, to make a shadow.

"The Artist's Guide to GIMP" is a book you may find useful.

Liam

Liam Quin - XML Activity Lead, W3C, http://www.w3.org/People/Quin/
Pictures from old books: http://fromoldbooks.org/
Ankh: irc.sorcery.net irc.gnome.org freenode/#xml

On Thu, 2013-01-24 at 05:30 +0100, RogueRanger wrote:

[...]I just spoke with a friend on facebook, she recommends making my original signature size double of what I need to end up with, which for my forum is 300*110 pixels = 600*220 to get sharper looking text and then reduce it back to the size I need. Is she correct?

It's a good technique to try. If you do it, 1. save a copy of the image as full-size.xcf.gz or full-size.xcf 2. use image->flatten so you only have one layer. 3. use image->scale to 50%, with Cubic interpolation 4. use filters->enhance->sharpen, maybe about 20% will be good.

Also is there a way to put a fine black border around the text like in my other ones?

Several ways - see Michael Hammel's book (no, I don't get paid for plugging it :-) ) or search the Web for gimp 2.8 tutorials. One way: 1. duplicate the text layer
2. use select by colour on the text, so the outline of the text is selected;
3. select->Border Selection by 2 pixels 4. with the lower copy of the text active, use control-, (control-and comma) to fill the outline with the foreground colour (use "d" first to set it to the default black and white if you need to). 5. use Select->None to get rid of the marching ants selection so you can do other things :-)

If you combine this with the drop shadow, you'll end up with three layers - the text, the outline under it, and the drop shadow under that.

I forgot to mention before - after doing blur for the drop shadow, you may need colour->desaturate (choose "preserve luminosity" for a smoother effect) and maybe colour->curves, drag the curve downwards a little in the middle until the shadow is about the right darkness.

There are other ways to do each of these things, but I'm trying to give you some ways that don't involve learning too many new things about GIMP all at the same time. Some people would prefer to use "paths" to do the outline, for example.

I'll enclose a really ugly example xcf file so you can see the layers.

Liam

Liam Quin - XML Activity Lead, W3C, http://www.w3.org/People/Quin/
Pictures from old books: http://fromoldbooks.org/
Ankh: irc.sorcery.net irc.gnome.org freenode/#xml

On 01/24/2013 12:30 AM, Liam R E Quin wrote:

On Thu, 2013-01-24 at 05:30 +0100, RogueRanger wrote:

[...]

1. duplicate the text layer
2. use select by colour on the text, so the outline of the text is selected;
3. select->Border Selection by 2 pixels 4. with the lower copy of the text active, use control-, (control-and comma) to fill the outline with the foreground colour (use "d" first to set it to the default black and white if you need to). 5. use Select->None to get rid of the marching ants selection so you can do other things :-)

A while back I found another method for outlining text when sharp corners are needed. The "select > grow selection" or "border selection" method is faster and usually adequate, this one is slower but gives more fine grained control:

1. Turn on text tool, select text to be outlined.

2. Right click on the text, select "Path from text" from the drop menu.*

3. Back in the layers dialog, create a new transparent layer directly below the text layer.**

4. In the Paths dialog dock, use the Stroke Path tool (2nd button from right at bottom). When the dialog opens, expand the "Line Style" part to see your options.

5. Tweak the line style until the settings look right, and set the stroke width to 2x the desired width of the border around your text.

6. Push the "Stroke" button, and check your results. Control+Z, tweak settings, and Stroke again until your results are just right.

You can do the same thing to outline any shape that is on an otherwise transparent layer by doing "Alpha to Selection" in the right click context menu of the Layers dialog, followed by the Selection to Path button in the Paths dialog. Undo your selection, then proceed as above to make the outline on a new transparent layer below your object.

This ancient tutorial by Jens Lautenbacher is still up on gimp.org:

http://www.gimp.org/tutorials/The_Basics/

This "3D Golden Text" procedure is well worth duplicating in the GIMP to see where the relevant tools are & how they work. Unfortunately a lot of the images in this tutorial were anti-aliased for display against a white background, which makes them look awful around the edges against a dark background, but be not deceived: The techniques shown work very well.

http://www.gimp.org/tutorials/Golden_Text/

Also, open an image, make a text layer with a few large-size words and go to Filters > Alpha To Logo and play around.

:o)

Steve

* This used to be a button on the Text tool properties dialog, I might request adding it back as an aid to user discovery. That's how I originally found the function.

** If you have several text layers, combine associated sets of text layers, outline and/or drop shadow layers, bump masks, etc. in in layer groups. YAY layer groups!

On Thu, 2013-01-24 at 21:05 -0500, Steve Kinney wrote: [...]

A while back I found another method for outlining text

[...]

2. Right click on the text, select "Path from text" from the drop menu.*

Yes, it gives slightly better results, but, as I wrote, I was trying to give methods that didn't involve learning too many things at once :-)

There are also interesting possibilities using text-shaped holes in layer masks.

It would be awesome to see the ability to apply a filter to a text layer, such as blur, and have gimp remember that; the GEGL version in the future might offer such things.

Best,

Liam

Liam Quin - XML Activity Lead, W3C, http://www.w3.org/People/Quin/
Pictures from old books: http://fromoldbooks.org/
Ankh: irc.sorcery.net irc.gnome.org freenode/#xml

This is a general thing about doing text and perhaps doing it better. I'm not really after glamorous or super way out stuff. Just simple but good looking text that is both readable and easy on the eye. So, after using PS CS4 for 3 years and recently losing my hard drive, I had to and I'm glad by the way I did, down load Gimp. But here is the thing, not matter what I try I simply cannot achieve something that looks nice. The first attachment is my 4th attempt with gimp. The ones after that are some I did in PS so you can see what I mean.

The procedure I normally did after writing the text was to go to Layer/Style and then you would have several options, like drop shadow, etc etc. I did find drop shadow with the Gimp but it didn't seem to work.

Try LayerFX.py from http://gimpscripts.com/2011/10/gimp-layer-effects/#wpfb-file-35 Download the one in the mirror. After opening the zip, place the file in your plugins folder: user/.gimp-2.8/plugins. Have a good day