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In this section, we concerned with text: how to place it, how to colour it and how to shape it. We'll start off very simply by adding a main title to our poster. Normally, we would add another layer to do this, but the tool we'll use will do that for us. RMC over the image, and select Filters -> Render -> Dynamic Text. This should immediately bring up a warning along the lines "Current layer isn't a GDynText layer or it has no alpha channel. Forcing new layer creation.". This simply means the dynamic text tool will create a new layer for us. Click 'Dismiss' and continue. |
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The dialogue box that appears gives a large white space to type a sample of our text in. Type your title in and select the size; 60 pixels is a reasonable starting point, and select the colour of your title by clicking the square icon 3rd in from the left at the top of the dialogue box. Make sure it isn't white!! To one side of that are some formatting options (shown as horizontal lines), select the centre one. Now we can choose our font. Click in the font name box and then cycle through the fonts using the the down arrow on your keyboard. This is a quick and easy way to go through the many fonts you (hopefully!) own. Once you've found what you want, click apply. This places your title on the poster, by default in the top left corner. Check the size is correct, if it isn't, you need to go into the white space where you typed your title and press return to make the line end where you want it. Eventually, no doubt after some experimentation, we end up with something like the screen shot left. When you're finally certain you have what you want, click OK. Now you can move the selection by pressing 'm' and dragging your title to where you want it. You'll notice that the title now has a layer all to itself. |
We're now in a position to think about the composition of the rest
of the poster. A central element gives us the opportunity to
embellish the sides of the poster with themes or small icons to
remind folk of what to bring to the party. At this point, I would
probably search and steal from the web! If your conscience allows
to do this, then going to a search engine such as google and entering the
appropriate words plus an image tag (e.g. "barbecue + jpg") can
quickly lead you to images which at the very least you can
dismantle and reinvent to your own needs .However, I'd like to keep
this simple, so we'll stick to some fancy text formatting below the
picture, using some basic techniques to jazz up your
text.
Now move on to the next lesson...
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Kester Clegg Last modified: Mon Dec 4 23:11:26 GMT 2000 |