Tutorial on how I created the Bismuth text effect. Feedback appreciated.



***Updated version 2 with numbered steps.

Thank you EK

Thank you ek22.

As usual I failed
Got as far as your beautiful pattern but from the last text duplicate I kept getting 'visible' layer while pressing delete so couldn't delete the last lot of grey or the extra pattern.
Will try again tomorrow and see if I have any success then.
ps. does the ppi for a new image have any bearing on this? Mine wouldn't change to 300, even though I tried manually.

So ... many ... steps ...

Well worth it and beautiful job Mike. I like the way you split the text.

Another good one

Mike

When I read, there by page 51:

"It's starting to look like something now. We're almost there."

I almost cried with joy!

EK22, excellent tutorial!
Richly illustrated, in language easy to follow. It must have been laborious, so many steps, so many pictures.
Thank you for the tutorial

Okay, you guys, nice work BTW.
Now, when I get to this step I am having trouble deleting the backgroud coloured layer behind the text. I went alpha selection on the text, then I went Select > invert > clear. When I did that I ended up with grey text and transparent background. Then I went to the colored layer while it was still inverted and tried deleting that and I still ended up with the gray text. Screen shot below.

Molly, select the Texture layer, after alpha select from the bottom text layer.
Then, in texture layer, Invert the selection and delete the excess.

Or

Alpha select from the bottom text layer, invert the selection.
After, select the Texture layer and delete the excess

Edited:
Molly, remember turn off the eyes in layers above. Or you ever will see gray text!

thank you akros, I think that was my problem. I ended up with one less layer when I got near the end of the tute so I guess I will start over. I wish the tute was numbered so I could keep track what layer I have saved, maybe I will try to do that in the pdf before I start again.

I'm sorry you had issues following along with it. I might go through and number the steps, there's a lot of them I guess. When I do these things in gimp I tend to not pay attention to how much stuff I actually do. It doesn't become clear until I try to make a tut and this monstrosity happens. I tried to include lots of pictures of my layers and how they're ordered in hopes of helping people stay on target.

There's only ever 3 grey bumped text layers. I separated them because it gives me flexibility with opacity. It's my process, sorry if that makes things more complex than they need be. Each of the grey layers is a shrunk cut out version of the one underneath it if that helps. The texture layer eventually goes on top to color and texture the result of all the bumping.

Molly it looks like your texture layer you deleted the wrong thing. You want to delete the outside, so that you have texture in shape of your text. Somewhere in your efforts your selection got inverted again. It happens, I've been saying for years I'd want a little blinking light that tells me if I got the inside or the outside selected. But when that happens to you, just Ctrl+Z (undo) and Ctrl+I (invert) again to invert it.

I'm sorry it didn't work for you sallyanne. The dpi matters in terms of picture quality. higher dpi more dots to print, makes for smoother images although they end up pretty big since there's 300 dots per inch of imaginary print paper.

If you are getting a layer that's labeled Visible, then you did a new layer from visible, instead of making just a new blank layer. I only had one step in there that needed new from visible and that was to overlay a blur. All other new layers are either blank or duplicated single layers. Hope that helps.

EK, do you have your original tute before you made it into a PDF? I would like to number the steps so I can keep track of saving the steps as I go and where to go back to. I always work with PDF's but I can't find where or how to edit it to number these. Great tutorial however.

ek22: thanks for doing this, brother!!! i'll definitely give it a try.

love your results, people!!

I updated the original pdf with numbered steps so you don't have to molly. Download it again and it should work for you.

Thank you so much EK. I will find that a lot easier when I can stop at a certain number and save it, woo hoo. , you rock.

That's an interesting take on it Esper.

Well ek22, that was an AWESOME tutorial! Took me awhile to get through it, but SHAZAM! I got through it the first time.