In this tutorial i will show you how to make your text effect a little bit nicer.

1. i start with a canvas 640x480px in a nice warm yellow #f6f31e
2. Black text, Serif Bold Italic 139px, Spacing -9, messed a bit with the O and made it bigger



3. alpha select the text and save the selection to a channel – we will need this later

4. on a new transparent layer, fill selection with a gradient or a color or a pattern – this will become our stroke
i used a gradient i made for the gradient challenge thread: viewtopic.php?f=4&t=6325&start=20



5. Shrink the selection (i used 2) and apply a layermask 'From Selection' and 'Invert Mask'



6. you see now that you have a nice stroke but the text looks jaggy



7. select your text from the saved channel, shrink by 2 → invert and then Gaussian Blur by 2 (applied to base text and stroke layer)
Looks much nicer !



8. a good trick to accentuate your stroke is to add an inner glow
9. make an Inner Glow that will be only a tiny bit bigger than your stroke (i shrank the selection by 2 and blurred by 6):
select your text from the saved channel, shrink, invert and fill with a color - blur
now everything will be covered in the color of your glow, with only a bit of transparency in the middle
to make it easier to see what we will get, go to your saved channel and turn up the opacity of your mask to 100% (you can also change the color of your mask if you need to)



when you are happy, turn the mask off and add a layermask 'Channel' to the Inner Glow layer
turn down the opacity to make the effect nice and subtle – you can also use a layermode like 'Screen' Or 'Grain Merge'



That is your text effect with a little bit of oomph
I added a dropshadow with Noise → Spread: 2 and some scanlines to finish the picture.

I like the effect on the black background!
...and oomph....yes!

another example

background was made with G'MIC -> Lights & Shadows -> Light Glow

Excellent tutorial, Esper. Very nicely done.

It's giving me ideas.

Like Chris, I like it with the black background, too.

I'm not a big user of text but it's giving me ideas too!

I used the Sound FX Font and added my own burst.

Very nice '0'

I used a pattern called Noise that I made instead of a gradient.

nice disco-effect, molly

Thanks for the great tutorial, Esper!

I started out ok, but then got lost with channels. I don't really know how to use them, so I did my own work-around. I did try to save to channel, but ended up with a channel for each color and didn't know which one to use.

it looks good 2-ton !

there are three channels for red green and blue, plus one for the alpha
we dont need those for the tutorial

you use the one at the bottom, the one that says Selection Mask

Thx for sharing Esper!
Maybe that fonts be just Serif Bold, not Italic.

its definitely italic, Akros


EDIT: i cant see the Inner Glow, did you make one ?

2-ton, the channel you use is in scrn shot below. To get it there, go to Select > save to channel. I think some where you either did an extra invert or forgot one. The gradient should be your stroke and the black should be the fill.
As Esper said, the one you use is the little black layer below the channel colors.

well you can always make your stroke the usual way, by saving the text selection to a path and then stroking it
sometimes thats better, but it doesnt work with a pattern or a gradient

yeah, and it could be you had your layermask the wrong way around, 2-ton, i confuse it all the time too

Esper,
Humm in my example above i used Serif Bold Italic, but was different font tutorial.

I tried to follow the tutorial, but after doing the inner glow, I found the image that came down, it would have to be on a new layer. I tried to fix it, but I must have missed me.
I do not know make the scanline, then tested some filters and ended up coming in that fund.


PS.: Maybe just the big "O" was Italic in tutorial example.

Akros,
i think i got the scanlines here:
http://cilyalucio.deviantart.com/art/40 ... moodonly=1

but you can easily make yourself other variations
i made these today (attachment)

here are some tutorials:
http://browse.deviantart.com/?q=scanlines



how did you get your stroke so nicely glowing ?
is it a very subtle gradient ?

Thx for scanlines links Esper
I will study that now!

Well, I fumbled around, and I do not know how I got in my result. Later I will try again.
But I tried to follow the tutorial, only the bottom I just consciously diverting the tutorial, do not know scanlines.
Attached the .xcf not know if shows how I got to the final result;

Edited: Sorry cant up .xcf :
"The upload extension xcf is not allowed"

use the attachment, its at the bottom of the reply field when you are in 'Full Editor' mode