Let’s assume that you have found an interesting image or texture that you think would make a good custom font by using that plain, old, boring font face you have in a folder somewhere on your drive; it’s just begging for you to conjure up some little bit of Gimp magic for it.
Of course you may have the perfect idea already in mind that requires all sorts of manipulation and filters added; then again you may just be feeling uninspired. If that is the case, try the following workflow with some of the filters from Custom Font Tools:
Here is a sample of the custom font that I want to add an image face to.
Getting the image ready
That’s up to you – it’s your choice. Mine was a ‘marble’ image downloaded from wallpapercave.com. I particularly liked the flowing lines in the image.
I generally scale the image to match the height of the custom font that I am using. The original size was 2208 x 1242 px and using it at this size would have meant that the flowing lines would not be so noticeable on some of the characters. My own custom font bases are all 600 px high so I scaled the image to 600 pixels in height.
I felt like using some drama in the image so I used the colorize filter to add red. I could always have filled a layer with a gradient and changed the layer mode and used that effect with the image instead.
I also often use a bump map of the image with another copy of itself – not too much with an image of this size however. The result:
Open the custom font file in Gimp: Rather than apply it to all the layers, select one character and copy and paste that as a new image to work with. Add the image as a new layer and then use the Custom Font Tool, Face Maker filter to place the image on the character.
Duplicate the layer two times to create three copies in order to apply the three different filters for evaluation.
Font Style 1: Shine
Open the Effects Only filter from the Custom Font Tools menu on the Filters menu. Select Add shine and set the Trim shine in pixels to one pixel to avoid creating a halo around the edge of the characters. This is the quickest and easiest way to add a bit of bling to any custom font.
Font Style 2: Lighting Effects GT Style
On the next image open the Lighting Effects filter and run it with the default settings. You will know at once if this filter is potentially useful with the image. If it looks promising then you can always play about further with the settings; use the undo history and/or Ctrl + Z to undo the settings that do not work for you.
Font Style 3: Metallic Effects
On the final copy open up the Metallic Effects filter: Set the ‘Metallic texture’ to ‘Dull’, the ‘Metallic Colour’ to ‘Gold’ and the ‘Employ original texture’ to ‘Yes’ before running the filter. Once again you will see immediately if there is any point in refining the results by playing about with the other filter options.
So there you have it – three custom fonts for the price of one. Surely one of them must tickle your Gimp taste buds. If not just blame the image and try out the next one. If any of the testers work for you, apply the filter to the full set of custom font characters and save your work. Have fun.
