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 Post subject: Text with a crisp highlight
PostPosted: Wed Aug 14, 2013 1:59 pm  (#1) 
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This tutorial is inspired by Efenstor's 'Glas or Bevel' script.
I dont know exactly how his script achieves the effect, as its written in python, but i will show you a way how to get a similar effect manually.

Knowledge is power !

The effect is very much the same as in my 'Banner Tutorial', but this time the highlight has an offset.

Image

Lets start !

01. My canvas is 800x400 – i applied a gradient as the background.

Image

02. Type your text – i used the font Ventography at 300px
dont make your text too small to avoid jaggy edges !

03. Align your text, apply layer to image size if necessary, then alpha select.

04. Save the selection to a channel (Select → Save to channel).

05. Shrink the selection by a value that you want your highlight to be offset (i used 4).

06. Create a new transparent layer on top of all.

07. Fill the selection on the transparent layer with a 50ies grey (#808080).

08. Save the shrinked selection to a channel – in the channels tab, rename this channel to 'Highlight'
then deselect.

Image

We will bump map this grey layer, then get rid of the grey to extract the highlight.

09. Gaussian blur the highlight channel (thats the one from the shrinked selection) – i will use a value of 5, higher and lower values are possible, but 5 is mostly a good value

10. activate the grey highlight layer, call up the BumpMap (thats under 'Filter → Map').

Under BumpMap choose the blurred highlight channel
….decide on the direction of light – i will use the default.
Find a Depth that will give you a strong highlight – this can be as small as 3 or much bigger
i will use 10.
Depending on what kind of effect you want, you may want to have a very bright highlight – for that play with the Angle – see how the brightness changes with different values.
I used an Angle of 15

For this effect we dont need a shadow, so turn up the Ambient to the max - that will filter out all the black shadows.

Image

Image

11. To extract the white highlights out of the grey layer, apply Color to Alpha (Colours → Color to Alpha), with the exact 50ies grey (#808080).

Image

Image

12. Next we want to tighten that extracted highlight with an alpha-curve
this step depends on what you made your highlight in the BumpMap process.
In my example the highlight is already pretty tight, but sometimes it can be fuzzy.

Call up the curves-tool and set the channel to alpha !
Now give the curve an angular shape like you see in the screenshot.
Depending on your individual highlight, the anchors may be dragged higher lower, more to the right or to the left....
important is, that you find a good middle ground between too fuzzy and jaggy !

Image

For demonstration purposes i will show you the same highlight made fuzzy by blurring it by 5.
Also i changed the text-color to black for better contrast.
As you see, this looks pretty good as it is and depending on what you want to achieve this can be great.

Image

Here are a few examples how you can custom shape the highlight:

Image

Here the highlight is way too jaggy. Try a different curve !!!

Image

This is a very thin highlight (that could benefit from a duplicate to make it brighter)....

Image

and here its quite fat.

Image

To finish our little texteffect i will add an Inner Shadow

01. Alpha select your basetext and then invert.
02. Create a new transparent layer, name it Inner Shadow.
03. Fill the selection with a dark colour, depending on your basetext. Then deselect.
04. Gaussian Blur the layer (i used a value of 8)
05. Next offset the layer so that you get a 3D-ish effect.
I clicked the layer with the Move Tool, then used the arrow keys 2 px down and 2px to the right

Image

06. To get rid of everything that is outside the textboundaries apply a layermask 'from channel'
(Make sure to use the channel for our basetext, not the blurred bumpmap !)

Image

07. Set the Mode to 'Multiply' or any other that makes sense for you and play with the Opacity if necessary.

For the sake of the effect i added a dropshadow and that concludes this tutorial.

Image

I hope you found it informative, useful and perhaps even superior to using a script ! ;)


Last edited by Esper on Fri Aug 16, 2013 10:07 am, edited 1 time in total.

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 Post subject: Re: Text with a crisp highlight
PostPosted: Wed Aug 14, 2013 2:54 pm  (#2) 
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Like affect, if need 200 same and some fonts & size change. Should script be better do that?


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 Post subject: Re: Text with a crisp highlight
PostPosted: Wed Aug 14, 2013 3:01 pm  (#3) 
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obviously billjim ;)


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 Post subject: Re: Text with a crisp highlight
PostPosted: Wed Aug 14, 2013 3:04 pm  (#4) 
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Nice tutorial Esper, just glancing through it I actually really like the back text with the fat Highlights.

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 Post subject: Re: Text with a crisp highlight
PostPosted: Wed Aug 14, 2013 3:15 pm  (#5) 
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thanks hearty !

a nice twist might be to delete the actual text and make the dropshadow knocked out by the textlayer
that way you may get a glass-like effect

Image

Image


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 Post subject: Re: Text with a crisp highlight
PostPosted: Wed Aug 14, 2013 8:17 pm  (#6) 
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Nice tutorial Esper. :bigthup
Here's my text... ;-)
Image
BTW... I didn't apply the 'alpha curve' to the highlights and seeing it in full resolution I can see that I should have.

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 Post subject: Re: Text with a crisp highlight
PostPosted: Wed Aug 14, 2013 8:24 pm  (#7) 
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excellent Wallace !

and a whole lot of purple shades ! nice !

maybe that CRogers guy was right and the inner shadow actually needs to be the other way round....
i wasnt sure when i looked at my result....but it was like that in the script and it looked right, so i did it just the same


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 Post subject: Re: Text with a crisp highlight
PostPosted: Wed Aug 14, 2013 8:29 pm  (#8) 
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Esper wrote:
excellent Wallace !

and a whole lot of purple shades ! nice !

maybe that CRogers guy was right and the inner shadow actually needs to be the other way round....
i wasnt sure when i looked at my result....but it was like that in the script and it looked right, so i did it just the same

Thanks Esper, now that you mention it, maybe shifting the shadow in the opposite direction could make a difference. :puzzled

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 Post subject: Re: Text with a crisp highlight
PostPosted: Wed Aug 14, 2013 8:35 pm  (#9) 
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dunno, this certainly does not look right, does it ?

Image

or this

Image


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 Post subject: Re: Text with a crisp highlight
PostPosted: Wed Aug 14, 2013 8:40 pm  (#10) 
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Esper wrote:
dunno, this certainly does not look right, does it ?

[ Image ]

or this

[ Image ]

I think your right, It looks better the original way you explained it in the tut.

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 Post subject: Re: Text with a crisp highlight
PostPosted: Thu Aug 15, 2013 12:11 pm  (#11) 
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Hi again... hopefully for a longer time this time. lol
The bottom version you may notice looks a bit better, because the glossy (white) reflection (also called "specular reflection") is in the upper-left hand side of your text, and the shadow is at the bottom right. This indicates that your light source is also up there somewhere. If your light source is in that direction your shadows should be in the opposite direction (lower right), because your text is getting in the way of the light coming from your light source, and blocking the light from hitting the surface under your text, on the opposite side. This is why if you have any shadow showing on the side with the light source (upper left) it looks wrong, because there is nothing between your text and the light source that would cast a shadow on that side. The only exception would be if there were another light source on the lower right side of the text, but if that were true, you'd see the same glossy reflection from that light source on the bottom right side. Since there isn't one, your brain has a hard time determining the shape of the text, and it will look inverted, or flip back and forth like a trippy optical illusion.


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 Post subject: Re: Text with a crisp highlight
PostPosted: Thu Aug 15, 2013 5:28 pm  (#12) 
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Esper,
I could not resist. :roll:
Not sure if I could play the tutorial correctly, I was unsure in some steps.
I think I should have chosen another font, but ok.
Image
Esper wrote:
thanks hearty !
a nice twist might be to delete the actual text and make the dropshadow knocked out by the textlayer
that way you may get a glass-like effect
[ [url]Image[/url] ]
[ [url]Image[/url] ]

Also did not quite understand what you meant in the quote above. I tried and got the result seen in the third image (bottom).

Speaking of glass-like effect ... when you will teach the effect shown in http://gimp-science-labs.blogspot.de/20 ... ments.html ?

Thx for the tuto!

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 Post subject: Re: Text with a crisp highlight
PostPosted: Thu Aug 15, 2013 6:19 pm  (#13) 
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CRogers wrote:
*snip*light source*snip*

im not sure if i get you....(english is not my first language so this discussion may be a bit complicated for me)
are we talking about the text from my tutorial or the "glass" effect i did later ?

on the tutorial text we used an Azimuth of 135 when bumpmapping, so the direction of light is known
thats why the highlight is on the left side and the shadow on the right

what is not exactly clear is why the inner shadow on the left looks correct
shouldnt that side be illuminated as well ?

Image


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 Post subject: Re: Text with a crisp highlight
PostPosted: Thu Aug 15, 2013 6:31 pm  (#14) 
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Akros wrote:
Esper,
I could not resist. :roll:
well i hope so !
you are my number one tutorial follower - i need you ! :)

Quote:
Not sure if I could play the tutorial correctly, I was unsure in some steps.
it looks all correct, what step did you find unclear ?

Quote:
Also did not quite understand what you meant in the quote above. I tried and got the result seen in the third image (bottom).
again, what did you not understand ?
the shadow being knocked out by the textlayer ?

that small rod is a gradient called 'GPS Steel Bars' - not sure where that came from...maybe its included in Gimp ?
the distortion of the little rod by the "Glass" was done with the displacement filter
i think your inner shadow needs to be less black and more transparent to look like my result

for the highlights i used two duplicates, the top one is tightened some more
the background where the text is, also has some RGB noise added



overall i think you did great !! :bigthup
the first version looks best :clap

i think the highlights on the second version are too fat
you should blur the highlight a bit, then tighten with the alpha curve, so that you get a very thin and crisp highlight

thank you for doing my tutorial, Akros ! :coolthup





P.S:
Quote:
Speaking of glass-like effect ... when you will teach the effect shown in http://gimp-science-labs.blogspot.de/20 ... ments.html ?
i dont think this is good enough for a tutorial (and too weird too), also i think you did enough of my tutorials to be capable to do it on your own, i gave all the necessary info in the description ;)


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 Post subject: Re: Text with a crisp highlight
PostPosted: Fri Aug 16, 2013 2:54 am  (#15) 
:tyspin
Image


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 Post subject: Re: Text with a crisp highlight
PostPosted: Fri Aug 16, 2013 6:37 am  (#16) 
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Esper wrote:
CRogers wrote:
*snip*light source*snip*

im not sure if i get you....(english is not my first language so this discussion may be a bit complicated for me)
are we talking about the text from my tutorial or the "glass" effect i did later ?

on the tutorial text we used an Azimuth of 135 when bumpmapping, so the direction of light is known
thats why the highlight is on the left side and the shadow on the right

what is not exactly clear is why the inner shadow on the left looks correct
shouldnt that side be illuminated as well ?

[ Image ]


Ah, maybe the mistake is mine! I thought you were talking about the outer shadow. But that depends on whether or not the text is supposed to be clear glass or not. I'll post some examples after I can get to a proper computer. Sorry for the confusion. I will include an example of caustics in the sample as well so.you can see what I'm talking about there.


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 Post subject: Re: Text with a crisp highlight
PostPosted: Fri Aug 16, 2013 9:16 am  (#17) 
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fluffybunny wrote:
:tyspin
Image
excellent result and very elegant design, fluffy ! :clap


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 Post subject: Re: Text with a crisp highlight
PostPosted: Fri Aug 16, 2013 9:19 am  (#18) 
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CRogers wrote:
Ah, maybe the mistake is mine! I thought you were talking about the outer shadow. But that depends on whether or not the text is supposed to be clear glass or not. I'll post some examples after I can get to a proper computer. Sorry for the confusion. I will include an example of caustics in the sample as well so.you can see what I'm talking about there.
well maybe not, i posted two quick variations after Wallace posted his result, and one of them had the dropshadow the wrong direction

anyway, looking forward to your examples regarding caustics
that sounds really interesting !


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 Post subject: Re: Text with a crisp highlight
PostPosted: Fri Aug 16, 2013 9:34 am  (#19) 
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At some point I wondered if removing the selection or not. Also in what position the inner shadow layer should stay. But it seems that I dealt with it well.

"i think your inner shadow needs to be less black and more transparent to look like my result"
"you should blur the highlight a bit, then tighten with the alpha curve, so that you get a very thin and crisp highlight"


Yah, it really makes much difference. I do not blurred before applying the curve. Thank you for looking these details!
Image
I'm almost memorizing the steps! Thx for the tuto!

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 Post subject: Re: Text with a crisp highlight
PostPosted: Fri Aug 16, 2013 9:37 am  (#20) 
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fluffybunny wrote:
:tyspin
Image

Wow FB!
The star of your background was amazing! Very nice! :clap

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