6 Adding Text
 Up 6a Text FX

The GIMP's text tool is much less sophisticated than that of Photoshop 6. Word wrap is not possible, for example, so you have to press the Enter key to move to the next line. Also, the GIMP has no option for typing vertical text or for putting text in bold or italic.

First choose the text tool in the toolbox or just press the 't' key. Select properties such as font and size but be aware that you can also change these properties after the text has been created. Click on the image where you want to create the text then type your text and press the Close button when you have finished typing. Make sure that the layers palette is visible and you will notice that a new text layer has just been created - you can tell it is a text layer by the symbol.

If you want to modify text in a text layer the text editor must be open even if you want to modify not the text itself but some other property like its color or size. Therefore it is not sufficient to make sure that the text layer is active and that the text tool is selected - you must click the text with the text tool in order to open the text editor so that changes to the text options will affect the existing text.

While the text layer is selected you can use the move tool to move the text to the desired location in the image - be careful to drag the letters and not the spaces between them.

If you want to modify some existing text then make sure that the corresponding text layer is selected in the layers window and then click on the image with the text tool (or click the layer to activate it and then double-click the icon). This will cause the Text Editor to re-open.

If you want to add a new text layer instead of modifying an existing one then make sure that a picture layer (not a text layer) is selected in the layers window before clicking on the picture with the text tool.

As explained in the Layers lesson, information about layers can only be recorded if you save your picture in the XCF format. Once you are sure that your image is finished, however, you should save it in the very compact JPG format.

Anti-aliasing is a slight blurring of the edge of the letters to stop them appearing jagged. It should normally be turned on. Here are letters typed without anti-aliasing and then with anti-aliasing:

      

Hinting modifies the text when small fonts are used so as to make them more legible - it's on by default so you should probably leave it on.

Force auto-hinter 'tries to automatically compute information for better representation of the character font'. Don't ask me what that means! It's off by default so you should probably leave it off.

Create Path from Text creates a selection path from the selected text - it's like the Text Mask feature in Photoshop. Once you have converted the text into a selection it will have lost its color and you will be able to manipulate the selection just as if the selection had been made with the lasso tool: darken it, apply filters to it etc.

A text layer is not like a picture layer - a text layer contains only text information (font, size, the text itself etc) while a picture layer contains only information about pixels. There are many operations that you may want to apply to text (rotation, filters etc) which are only really meaningful for picture layers and therefore the GIMP will quietly convert the text layer into a picture layer if necessary, without telling you it has done so (in Photoshop 6 you have to deliberately 'pixellize' the layer). The problem comes when you want to modify the text (e.g. change the spelling or the font) in a layer that has been converted to a picture layer - in order to convert the picture layer back to a text layer the GIMP will have to discard all the 'picture operations' that you have done since the text layer was converted to a picture layer. The GIMP will warn you about this and give you various options including discarding those changes.

What special effects can be applied to text? With the text layer selected you can apply various menu items such as:

bulletYou can rotate the text with Layer>Transform>Arbitrary Rotation... (or just Shift+R). Drag a corner of the text rectangle and then press Enter. If the text rotates the 'wrong way' then make sure the 'forward' direction is selected in the rotate tool's options window.
bulletOther available effects include:
Script-Fu>Shadow>Drop-Shadow
bulletMany other text effects that can be generated with Xtns>Script-Fu>Logos in the main Gimp window - click HERE for some examples. Some but not all of the same effects can be found in the menus of the image windows at Script-Fu>Alpha to Logo.

Now let's get some practice with the text tool. Download this image to your folder, open it in the GIMP, then add text to try to make it look like the picture underneath (except that you will not shrink the picture).


Some hints:

For the 'ISSA' text, I used the text tool with options set to Impact Condensed font (if you have it) size 250, bright yellow. Then I used Layer>Transform>Rotate 90° CCW to rotate the text (as soon as you do this you will note that the text no longer shows as a text layer in the layers dialog - it has been quietly converted to a regular picture layer). Then I moved the text roughly into position with the Move tool, stretched it with the scale tool and adjusted the layer's opacity in the layers dialog to make the layer semi-transparent.

For the green text I used Franklin Gothic Medium Italic size 33, right-aligned. When I was sure the text was OK I added a subtle drop shadow with Script-Fu>Shadow>Drop-Shadow using offsets of 3, blur radius 8 and opacity 30. Note: when you choose the drop shadow script you may get the impression nothing has happened - on my computer at least, the dialog does not 'come to the surface' until I click it on the task bar at the bottom of the screen.

Finally, the blue text. This uses a complex Script-Fu effect and is best generated in a separate window and then copied and pasted into our image. This is because some complex scripts resize the canvas and therefore we might otherwise lose most of our picture. Choose File>New and use the text tool to create the text with Arial, size 60 (better a little too big than a little too small). Then apply the effect with Script-Fu>Alpha to Logo>Basic I. Now we need to copy the resulting image so that we can paste it into the main image - this needs care because we have layers which we need to delete before we copy the image. You probably have four layers in this image right now but we only want the top two so right-click each of the other layers and delete each one. Now we need to copy the image but Ctrl-C won't do because that will copy only the contents of the active layer - you will need to choose Edit>Copy Visible to get both the visible layers at the same time. Paste what you have copied into the other image and move and resize as necessary. You're done!

Now that you have finished, you should save the image into your folder as a jpg (compressed) image. If you think you may want to do more work on this image then you should also save it in the XCF format.

6a Text FX

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