[Gimp-user] "Word Art" from Scanned Text

[Torsten Neuer]

Am Freitag, 18. April 2008 00:54:15 schrieb Joel C. Salomon:
> I'm trying to do some lettering on a half-circle, and it occurred to
> me that I should be able to do a mock-up on the computer. To that end,
> I'm trying to take a scan of my caligraphy, and warp it into the
> proper shape—sort of like Word 'Art'. But how can I achieve this
> twisting with a scanned image?

I would scan the image at a very high DPI, then convert it into SVG (either 
with pstoedit, autotrace or by loading into Gimp, doing a selection and save 
the path-converted selection).  The SVG I would then load into a vector 
drawing program like Inkscape and twist it there.  Then back to Gimp.

That would probably have better results than warping the scan itself as it 
wouldn't change the appearance of the letters themselves as warping would.

If you don't do the lettering with hand-drawn calligraphy, you can use Gimp's 
text tool and write along a path in the image (I think that's covered in the 
manual or one of the tutorials).  Last not least, you can use the vectorized 
calligraphy also to create a calligraphic font of your own to be used in that 
way (that would be the most elegant, yet also most labour-intensive method, I 
think).


  Torsten
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