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This article by Juan Manuel Ferreyra, author of GIMP 2.6 Cookbook, is about working with text. GIMP uses the fonts installed in the system. Many times, they are not enough for even the average user. There are many websites that let you download cheap fonts for a low price and also, fortunately, there are hundreds of websites with free, open-source fonts for download, a huge community of font-loving enthusiasts that have no problem with sharing their creations.
GIMP comes with a wide variety of filters and effects. Now, we are going to use some of them with just text layers, to give you a clear idea of how to create great looking text starting from a solid-color font. In this article, we will cover:
Installing a font to use it with GIMP is a really quick and easy task. Just copy the font files to the .fonts folder or to your .gimp-[version]/fonts folder in your home directory. Then, restart GIMP.
Once you have your fonts set up, they will be available for you with which to work. GIMP comes with a wide variety of filters and effects. We saw a few of them in action in the previous article on Creating a Logo. Now, we are going to use some of them with just text layers, to give you a clear idea of how to create great looking text starting from a solid-color font.
This is a fairly simple recipe where we are going to create 3D text.
Follow these steps to create text with a 3D effect:
Once you click OK, duplicate the layer five or six times. These layers are the basis of the 3D text effect.
Select another layer, click the Move Tool again and press the down key twice. Repeat this operation on each of the duplicated layers, for each layer press the down key one more time than the previous layer. When you are satisfied with the thickness of the text, merge all the duplicated layers and your image will be ready:
This is a simple recipe. We will create glowing text with a subtle outline. I’ll be using a gradient to fill it and make it a little more psychedelic, but you can pick a solid color if you want, or create your own gradient for it.
You can create glowing text by following these steps:
Here’s what the final piece looks like:
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