Typography editing in GIMP

[Freodin]

It doesn't answer the why of Inlscape either even if it would seem natural to me that a vector software would be good to work with geometrically simple beings like letters.

Basically, that is the point. When you want to deal with outlines and such, of course a program based on lines (curves) is better for doing that.

I realize that this is not rocket science but as what I get by playing with GIMP is rather ugly, I assume that there are a few tricks that make the process faster and easier.

Perhaps you could show us what you are trying to do and what kind of results you got (ugly or not, who cares? ).

That would make it easier for us to understand what you are looking for, and perhaps figure out how to do it.

[Deadshade]

Basically, that is the point. When you want to deal with outlines and such, of course a program based on lines (curves) is better for doing that.


Perhaps you could show us what you are trying to do and what kind of results you got (ugly or not, who cares? ).

That would make it easier for us to understand what you are looking for, and perhaps figure out how to do it.

Good idea, I should have thought about it first


On this map I labelled normally by putting the labels (in black with a little blur) on free, light places.
Then I wanted to try to find out how to put them on darker places with features.
So on the SE hills I wanted to do light with bluish glow (using drop shadows in GIMP because there is apparently no direct function for outer glow or if there is, I didn't find it).
Ugly as I said.
The contrast , the blur, the consistence - nothing is right to my eye.

[Freodin]

For the "outer glow" effect... I fear I have to add to your learning curve. No, GIMP does not directly offer such a function. But GIMP is very flexible, and has the option to do a lot of these things via scripts. For effects like "outer glow" (and a number of other often used layer effects) there is a script called "LayerFX". You can find it here. Just download the script (I prefer the layerfx.py version), put it into the GIMP plug-in folder (in WIN7 you can find it under User/YourName/.gimp-2.8/plug-ins), start GIMP and it will show up in the LAYERS menu.

You can also achive glow effects and such with a using a simple blur and playing around with the alpha-curves. The GIMP science labs have a ton of nice tutorials for typographic effects of all kinds (though most not quite suited for maps ). It is a great source for GIMP tips though.

There are also (of course, it's the internet!) a lot of boards and forums dealing with GIMP.... for example the GimpChat forum. There also you can find a lot of tutorials showing how to achive certain effects (again, not directly usable for maps, but very helpful for learning and understanding GIMP).


As for your endeavour here... when you want to have a dark label on dark background, it is in most cases better to have the "outer glow" just reduce the opacity of the surrounding background instead of adding a lighter outline. Just let the lighter paper colour shine through.