How to make a forum marker?

[maijiyeon]

Hey.Can someone show me tutorial on how to make a forum marker. Example : http://i578.photobucket.com/albums/ss22 ... uplets.png , http://i578.photobucket.com/albums/ss22 ... /lobby.png , http://i578.photobucket.com/albums/ss22 ... ojects.png . I'm still searching the way to make one. Help me. and can someone tell me where is the right forum section for me to ask request for how to make effects and etc!? I'm really newbie in GIMP and have GIMP 2.6.11. I maybe need screencaps. Thanks T_T

[Arzoroc]

Hm .. let me see.

I'll make a quick one and comment on what I've done. Remember that this is a 5 minute work though, and you should put a lot more effort into images to make them end up looking like the ones you listed

So first of all, open up Gimp and make a new image (File > New) with your desired size. I took 200x150 pixels in my example.
After that, go to "File > Open as Layer" and select your image (the one that shall become the logo). Your Gimp window should look a bit like this (mine is in German and a bit customized, so don't mind the little differences):


Now that this is done, your background image might be way too big for the small image you want it to be in the end. You can solve that by resizing the image you just opened. On the layers dialog, click on the layer of the image you opened. Then, on the main window, go to "Layer > Scale Layer" and scale it to a size you're fine with. If it's displaced, for example if you can only see the head of 1 person instead of the whole body, you can also use the Move Tool (The small icon with the 4 arrows in your toolbox) to move the image around.
I scaled my image down by 50% and moved it around a bit to get a nice scene of my grass shot into focus:


The next thing you wanna do is create a rectangle selection around the center of your image. Do this by selecting the rectangle select tool (Link if you don't know where to find it) and then making a selection click-and-drag style . You should end up with something like this:


Now, to make the selection rounded, go to the tool options. They should be floating around somewhere. If they don't, a small click on "Windows > Dockable Dialogs > Tool Options" should reveal it again. As long as you selected the rectangle selection tool you should be able to select an option called "Rounded Corners". Check the box next to it and move the appearing radius-slider around until you are satisfied with your result:


Now, just as a preparation step, add an alpha channel to your image and hide your background layer. You hide layers by clicking on the small eye-icon next to the layer's name in the layers dialog, making it disappear (THE BACKGROUND LAYER, NOT YOUR IMAGE LAYER). Alpha channels are added by rightclicking on a layer and selecting "Add Alpha Channel" (TO YOUR IMAGE LAYER)


Now just follow these steps:
Select > Invert
Select > Cut

This should leave you with the following result:


Now, create a new layer with default settings by clicking on "Layer > Add new Layer". Leave the settings and hit okay.
The small text rectangle is created by the same steps we used earlier:
- Select the rectangle selection tool
- Click and drag around the bottom half of your image
You should end up with something like this:


It's now time to choose your color!! Click on the little black rectangle you see at the color selection icon (see image below) and select a new color in the window that appears. I used a random orange tone:


When you finished selecting your color, drag and drop the little color rectangle you clicked on in the last step (which should have turned your color now) and drag it into your (still active) selection. It should get filled with your color now:


The rest is just some decoration: Get the small holes into the text rectangle by selecting the Round Selection Tool (see image) and click-dragging a small hole. Then go to "Edit > Cut" and you've got a hole in your rectangle:


Repeat this on the other side and finally add some text with the text tool:


Finally, save your image as "YOURNAME.png", the _.PNG is important to keep the background transparent, a _.JPG would fill it up with black or white.

My example image ended up like this:


Again, I did this in 5 minutes, so your result will end up WAY better if you take your time. Select good images, ,match the colors and text and you should be fine


Hope this helped.
Post your results or your questions if you have any.


Arzo

[sagteck]

Adding on to Arzoroc's tutorial.

Start with really big images and scale down. That's how you'll acheive best quality.

I'm using this sample image from wikipedia. Notice it is about 800x600. This image you provided is 133x108. So let's aim for that size for the final product.

You want to create a scaled up 133x108 size image so that you can contain the 800x600 image. 1024x832 is a good size to conain 800x600.

Spoiler: show

Add in the old man by selecting File > Open as Layers and move him to the edge of the top, centered.

Click on View > Snap to Grid. Click the rectangle select tool and go to tool options (on the right of screenshot 2) and check Rounded Corners; set the radius to 70.0. It needs to be very big since we're working with a large image which will eventually be very small.

Spoiler: show

Before you can remove anything you need to add an alpha channel for transparency since the old man is a JPG image. Make sure the layer for the old man is selected and click on Layer > Transparency > Add Alpha Channel.

Now click on Select > Invert and press your delete key. Select > None. You should see the old man with rounded corners.

Spoiler: show

Create a new layer and call it Text BG. With the Rectangular select tool; select about 1/3 of the way up the image from the bottom (it still has rounded corners of 70).

Spoiler: show

Use the color picker tool and be sure to choose the right color for the Text BG. Click the bucked fill and fill in your selection. The Text BG has a shadow so create a new layer and grow the selection by 26px by selecting Select > Grow Selection in the menu.

Spoiler: show

Fill that new selection in with black using the bucket fill tool, move the Text BG Shadow Layer below the Text BG layer. Now to make the shadow part. With the Text BG Shadow layer selected unselect the image and then choose Filters > Blur > Gaussian Blur; make horizontal and vertical 150.0. and let it happen. Now select the lower half of the blurred layer and delete it. we don't want the lower left and right corners to be dark.

Spoiler: show

Set the opacity for the Text BG Shadow Layer to about 75. Create some text at the top of the Text BG layer and call it whatever you want. I'm calling it old man and setting the font to Sans Bold. Go to the darkest color of the text and use the color selector tool again so that you can choose the right color for the text.

Spoiler: show

Use the color selector tool and choose the lighter part of the text at the top of your Couples image so you have to two Red colors of the text. Now select by color the Old Man text so that all the text is selected by using the Select by Color Tool. Create a new layer for the selection, choose the Gradient tool to and create a gradient over the text.

Spoiler: show

Delete the holes through the Text BG and Text BG Shadow layers.

Spoiler: show

Here's the end result from me (also a rough job). But you get the point.



Making the Text BG Thinner, lowering the corner radius, making the circle holes smaller, choosing the right text and text size, and deleting the edges of the Text BG Shadow will help you to get an image more like the samples you provided. Gotta love rough tutorials . The text in couplets also looks like it has it's own shadow so running the select by color, grow selection, gaussian blur, and adjusting the shadow opacity will get you text more like the couplets as well.

SAM

[Arzoroc]

Cheater!! Adding a drop shadow

[Maffe811]

Text needs drop shadow too ?

[sagteck]

Cheater!! Adding a drop shadow

If you look closer at the original image you see that it has a gradient shadow on the bottom edge of the picture above the text background. If you look at my image newly revised old man I applied some of the changes I mentioned to match it All about the details to make it look similar

Text needs drop shadow too ?

If you analyze the text of the original image you'll notice a slight shadow fuzz and not a drop shadow. I applied the same technique on my above revised image and you can see what I meant from before. If I were to tweak the size of the Text BG and choose proper font settings then it would be difficult to tell the styles apart methinks.

Arial Narrow is almost the font but not quite.

SAM

[Arzoroc]

Yea I didn't see that before

Anyway, good job with your 3rd version I hate it when I haven't got the time to do a proper one.

OP, any words? Y U NO ANSWER YOUR OWN THREAD?!

[maijiyeon]

Oh ~ Thank you for the tutorials! ^_^ It's quite hard for me since I'm beginner. Thank you anyway~