This is an effect i learned from a youtube video by xgeous.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q8gOFGE2CHk



I modified his technique a tiny bit as i will explain later in the tutorial.

All credit goes to xgeous - i just recreated the tutorial and made the screenshots !
Thank you xgeous !


01. Start with a canvas 840 x 500px #ff4100
02. Type your text: Impact Condensed 234px #ad0000
03. Center your text



04. Go to Filters → Map → Map Object
under Light → 'Lightsource Type' choose 'No Light'
for the Orientation, use the values you see in the screenshot



05. alpha select your text and save it to a channel for future use

06. create a new transparent layer and name it 'Extrusion'
fill the alpha selected text with #2b0000

07. apply Motion Blur to the Extrusion Layer: Length: 30 Angle: 270





08. in the original video tutorial, xgeous duplicates the Extrusion Layer several times and then merges them down
i do it, in what i think is an easier way, by making use of the 'Clone Layer Tool'

Make sure all layers are automatically merged down to one layer or else you will suddenly have 30 layers



when you are done click 'Layer to image size' and put your Base Text Layer on top



09. create a new layer, activate the Base Text selection from the saved channel and fill it with a color that is white mixed with the color of your base text, i used #ffd4d4

10. duplicate your saved channel and Offset it by -2/-2
(i changed the color of the mask to green so you guys can see it better)
choose 'Channel to Selection', then activate your new layer and Cut (or hit Del), then Deselect
you should get something that looks like this:







(instead of doing this with the saved channel, you could just as well move the selection with the 'Move Tool' set to Selection)

11. apply Motion Blur to your Layer, same values as before



12. copy this layer, like 5 times and then merge them down,



13. then put it under your Base Text



14. create a new transparent layer, name it 'Highlight'
15. select your text from channel and apply a gradient: white to transparent,
16. change the mode and opacity to something that looks good to you (i used Screen and 75%), and deselect, like this



17. now for the reflection
turn off the background then click 'New From Visible' put this layer under all layers, but above the background and turn the Background on again



18. add a white layermask to the Reflection Layer, call up the Gradient Tool and set the colours from black to white
activate the layermask and stroke the gradient on the reflection so that it becomes partly transparent, like this:



19. if you dont like the jagged edges, you can erase parts of the Extrusion layer or make them invisible with a layermask



20. and this is your final result. Thanks again xgeous !

Thanks for making it text image based, I saw this tut on chris texteffects's page but I didn't click it as I'm not fond of video tuts. I Love the inner translucency part <3

Very cool effect, Esper. That technique could be used in many ways.

i agree Odin
there is a lot of interesting stuff going on, thats why i felt xgeous tutorial needs another go in textformat as i found his video a bit hard to follow

actually i wanted to do this for a very long time and didnt find the right moment until now

This is a very interesting technique. My first time thru the tutorial I used the same text as the tutorial, but accidentally left the Channel visibility on when I made the "New from Visible" layer. This made the background dark, but otherwise ok (of course the light band at the top of the text is due to this as well).



But when I changed the text, although the effect was still good, I didn't like it quite as much on narrow letters like the bottom of the "T" on the left.



Thanks to both Esper and Xgeous.

looks good Jas45 !

what exactly do you dislike about the "T" ?

maybe there is a way to improve the effect

Esper: I'm not quite sure. It sort of looks like it's stacked on top of a lighter box, rather than the reflection looking like a true reflection. That's not put very well, but I hope you understand what I mean.

I think if the reflection fades to "nothing" about 3/4 way down, it would look better to me. I may play with the layer mask later to see if I can accomplish this, and I would appreciate any ideas you have. The intersecting angles make it hard for me to think of a way to fade the reflection on both the bottom of the "T" and it's left side, as well as the other letters.

Don't get me wrong... I really like the effect. I was just trying to "fine tune" to my liking.

Thanks again.

Esper: I forgot to mention, but my reason for posting two tries on this tutorial, is for comparison. The reflections on the top (the one with XGS-ESP) really look like reflections to me. I think the side of the letters came out darker, and the contrasting lighter reflections are believable.

Hmmm. Well, now I feel like a dummy.

I overlooked the obvious. All I had to do was turn down the opacity on the reflection layer to improve the look of the reflection.

Jas45, i think i understand what you mean

as i had a similar dilemma some time ago when on tried to make a reflection for a different image
you said, it looks like two boxes stacked on top of each other
and i think the trick is, what are we actually looking at here ?

so there is this cybernetic super high reflective surface a bit like a mirror
and in real life a mirror has depth - lets say 0,5cm (~1/5th of an inch)
if you move your reflection a little bit down to simulate there actually is a space between 3D object and reflective surface, then it looks more believable
or at least thats what i think

or use a different mode (e.g. screen, lighten only, soft light, dodge)

Esper: Thanks for your help. I'm catching on a little at a time.

BTW, thanks for the link you gave me a couple of days ago on your "Stroke" thread. I found it very helpful.

The problem is that the reflection isn't symmetrical:


You have to make the reflection quite dark/transparent to make these lighting effects invisible.

I laid some objects on a mirror and all of them had a dark strip between the object and the reflection.

I had copied the text to a path. I made the path visible and moved it down so it lined up with the reflection. Then made a new transparent layer and named it dark between. Activated the path, filled the selection with black, Gaussian blurred it 10 and lowered the opacity to 63.

damn ofnuts, you are right, thank you !

in this case thats not easy to fix,hm

Nice tutorial xgeous
Best result yet O

Thanks ofnuts and Oregonian for the insight.

The solution turned out to be pretty simple... just turn off the layer that is causing the lightness on the sides of the letters. In Esper's tutorial this layer is just called "Layer".



Now it looks much better to me. Thanks again.

Esper thanks for posting this tutorial. That's really cool, and thanks for sharing it with everybody. Yes indeed, you gave me credits for the tutorial, so thank you. Guys it's all about sharing our knowledge with everybody and proving that Gimp can do most of the things that Photoshop can do. To be honest I like to go places like http://psd.tutsplus.com/ to learn extremely cool tricks about Photoshop and adapt those tutorials in Gimp. By the way, you should check it out and try to replicate the tutorials in Gimp. Have fun!

Love your blue text "0"

I've attached a pdf document of the tutorial. It is in Landscape style because of large images.