I would really appreciate some suggestions for this. I am a new(ish) GIMP user and honestly this project has devolved more towards a matter of principal than necessity. I HAVE to figure it out.
I am trying to align an image along the edge of the aurora in the picture. The image I am trying to place is piano keys. that will flow up and warp with my target.

Any suggestions at all, I would appreciate it.

There are a few ways you could approach this. One out-of-the-box way in GIMP would be to rotate the image so the background is aligned such that the piano keys are vertical, and then use the Filters > Distorts > Curve Bend... filter, and some trial and error, to warp the piano into the desired shape.

Other ways might include if someone has made a path-bend plugin or script, then you could draw the curves directly on the aurora instead of eyeballing it in the Curve Bend interface, or by writing some custom scripting in the G'MIC plugin for a more analytical approach.

Depending on how you want the keys to look. I would just create a path following the aurora and using a wing ding of a piano key or two use either Ofnuts "Text along Path python script) OR GIMPS right click text layer>text along path filter.
If you create a path along the bottom of the aurora cloud that should work.

http://www.dafont.com/pianofonte.font
With the correct letter combo and letter spacing this just might work for you along with text to path.

Never mind looks like GIMP wants to place the center of the text along the path for some reason.


You could most likely do this in Inkscape however.

First of all, do you have some piano keys that you will be using, are they all separate? What you could do is get some piano keys and make them into a paint brush, then do as Rod mentioned and make a path along where you want them to flow. You could put them on different layers so you can fade, resize and blur some.

Great idea Molly i didn't think of creating a brush from the image and stroking the path.

There are so many ways to arrive at the same destination in Gimp, it is amazing.

Using Filters>Distort>IWARP try distorting the keys image with that after you use perspective to get the shape right.



If you get the perspective correct and use small amounts of IWARP you can get much better results.

XCF attached

Keyboard image is mine so you may use as you wish.

I have made a brush and a pattern

Path stroked with keys brush

Path stroked with pattern

Here is another try with more detailed IWARP movements. XCF is attached. Keyboard layer is in Overlay mode.

About as good as i can get it.

I made this piano key animated brush just for this thread. Maybe this can be used to create the effect you're looking to produce.
I made this image below using it. I just stroked the brush along a path, but I think Rod's idea to use IWarp might work out better after the brush is applied in the size wanted.