R.I.P. David Bowie 1947 – 2016A quick tutorial that I translated from a Photoshop tutorial and posted on my site to create a text portrait effect of David Bowie, using the lyrics to Ziggy Stardust, which will bend to the contours of his face.
The effect is known as a calligram and in this example I’m combining a famous Bowie image with the lyrics from Ziggy Stardust.
STEP 1* Open your chosen image in GIMP, I used the famous Ziggy Stardust image of Bowie
* Crop to the final dimensions you require.
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STEP 2* Desaturate the image (Colours -> Desaturate).
* Optionally, add some more contrast by adjusting the red channel, using Levels or Brightness/Contrast.
STEP 3* Select the image layer and duplicate it.
* On the duplicate layer add some Gaussian Blur (Filters -> Blur -> Gaussian Blur). Use about 5px radius for both X and Y size. This is the layer used for the Displace filter which, when applied, the blur will soften it’s effect.
* Hide the blurred layer and re-select the image layer.
STEP 4* Use the Text tool to draw a container across the entire image.
* Paste in the lyrics, deleting line breaks and repeating the pasting until the box is full.
Tip: Use LibreOffice to paste your text into a document, select all then goto Format -> Change Case -> UPPERCASE.
* Select all of the text and choose a nice font for your design, I used uppercase ‘Noto Sans Bold’. Reduce the text size and leading size to create a wall of text that densely covers the image.
STEP 5* Make sure the text layer is selected then goto Filters -> Map -> Displace.
* Select the blurred layer in the Aux and Aux2 fields and change the X and Y displacement values to 10.
* If using the pre GEGL Displace filter, the Aux input is to the right hand side of X & Y displacement fields.
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STEP 6* Right click on the displaced text layer and from the dropdown menu choose Alpha to selection.
* Turn off the text layer visibility and select the image layer.
* Goto Edit > Copy Visible, this will take a clipping of the image using the text outline.
STEP 7* Goto Edit -> Paste as new Image. This will create a new document with the text clipping as a new layer.
* Add another new layer with a solid black background
* Lower layer below the pasted text layer.
You should now be left with the original image portrait constructed out of the lyrics that wrap around the contours of the face. The displacement effect has allowed the image to be clearly visible although it is made from a wall of lyrics.
Make a Brightness/Contrast adjustment if required to get the desired final image.
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It's a cool effect and I'm sure the guys around here could get better results than me!
Cheers