This what I mean about inspiration, throw me a bone guys, how do you make such small work while retaining such integrity, I've been trying to figure out how to make thumbnails but it just keeps going over my head? Your 'band logos' Wallace are fantastic, thank you.

Cricket is my game not baseball, but I thought this concept might work -

gaaah, don't do this to me, people!!! i'm absolutely not allowed to lay with gimp right now and this thread is making me just itch to open it up! you've made some really amazing stuff here.

Unfortunately Wallace, I really don't have a clue about how image size / resolution and file size relate to each other, somehow my brain can't seem to absorb the information I probably need. You suggested posting thumbnails rather than great big images so I thought "Ok - just how do I do that then?"
Other than Facebook and Ms Office, Gimp and GimpChat is my first venture into the digital world.
I try to research on-line but mostly get myself into more of a tangle than not.
The thumbnails you and OMG have posted are fantastic, however when (for example) I tried to make a GimpChat banner, I couldn't keep definition within such a small image size.

Thanks!

It's taken nearly a year for me to figure out the mirror option on the curve bend filter

Thank you Wallace, I appreciate all the help you give me

I'm trying to figure out exactly what I'm working with re; raster and/or vector (looked online and baffled even further)
Here's my problem; I create text in Gimp - shape to my liking - zoom in about 800% to trace paths, reall taking time and care (text to path produces a real bad outcome) then subsequent strokes on the paths are uneven and/or incomplete.
Upon inspection (at 0 zoom) the traced paths are themselves uneven and/or incomplete???
Would I be looking to make my traced paths into SVG? If so how can this be done, I can't find how Gimp does this?
(Are other folk getting such good results by using other software?)

Text-to-path usually works well. Do you have examples of the "bad outcome" (and the source text layer)?

I agree path from text is fine, however on this occasion I had to warp the text then trace the paths. I can't provide an xcf as I made good the paths. I just wondered if paths can break down when traced at 800% zoom for work at default, or is it more likely some error in the tracing by me?

Alternatives to tracing by hand

It depends on all sorts of factors. For curved text, the Gimp Text-along-Path works as good as anything. You can also use Inkscape for that. The only real advantage with Inkscape is real-time editing. You see what you get as you adjust the path.

For some things Gimp can be better than Inkscape. An envelope deform using Saule Goodes Warp Text script can look better than the Inkscape envelope deform.

example: The blue is Gimp warp-text with the deform path showing. Red imported from Inkscape. Warp Text will tend to keep verticals, vertical


Warp Text script see: http://chiselapp.com/user/saulgoode/rep ... pt-fu/home In the rendering section.

When debugging by scripts I often zoom at 25600% for editing, and never broke a path that way. And my biggest hand-tracing project resulted in 2358 anchors in 67 strokes. So IMHO, GIMP isn't a very likely suspect.

Thanks guys - concede to that one, I'll have to slow down