Gimp Tutorial: Add outline to text
- July 24th, 2010
- Write comment
As I make the graphics for my website, I thought it might be a good idea to throw together some simple tutorials that go through how to use Gimp to do such things. For those of you who don’t know, Gimp is a free image editing software. It can be downloaded here: http://www.gimp.org/ by clicking the Download link:
Download Gimp, a free image manipulation program
Once Gimp is downloaded and installed, open Gimp to begin working. Once open, click File, then New… and accept the default entries. You will be presented with the default workspace:
The Default Workspace
Select the Text tool from the Toolbox and click in the center of your workspace. This will open up the Text Editor window, where you can type your text:
A Window to edit text in your workspace.
Once your text is entered, click the Close button. Click the Path from Text button at the bottom of the Toolbox window:
Toolbox Path from Text Button
Click the Layers menu and select New Layer… accepting the defaults. Click the Select menu and select From Path. Now click the Select menu and select Grow… This will open Grow Selection window, where you can enter the number of pixels to grow the selection by in order for it to create an outline of your original text:
Grow Selection Window
Now select the Paint Bucket tool from the ToolBox and select an appropriate color for your text outline. Click within the selection, this will cause your chosen color to be displayed over the top of the text. (We’ll fix that next.) Select the Layer menu, then select the Stack sub menu, then select Lower Layer. This will move the outline layer below the text layer and cause the text to have the desired outline:
Lower Layer Menu Selection
That’s it. You now have outlined text. Play around with the details of the text and the selection to have more or less border, rounded corners, or feathered edges. This is how the Blue IT Services logo was made on the company website:
BlueITServices
I got this method from a great tutorial post here: http://www.astahost.com/info.php/Text-Outline-Gimp_t18852.html
I hope this helps someone out!