As we learned in a previous post, to make text stand out against any background, you need to add an outline to it. But how to do that is not always immediately obvious. It’s impossible to do in editors like ms paint and photoshop costs a fortune. But there is an easy way to do it in Gimp. For those that don’t know, Gimp is a free alternative to Photoshop.
Before any graphic designers or photographers way in, yes I am aware it’s not as good as Photoshop. But, for the average user it’s more than enough. And, it also has the advantage of being free. That being said, let’s get on with the tutorial.
Add an outline to text in Gimp
Before we begin, you can follow along with the written instructions or skip down and check out the video.
- Create the text you wish to outline. Personally, I would use arial bold as your font, as it works well with an outline. Make the text color white.
- Once you have written out your text, on your toolbox (underneath where you chose your font), click on path from text.
- Next go to layers and create a new layer. Call it outline and click OK.
- Go to select and choose From Path.
- Then go to select again and choose Grow.
- Grow the text by 4 or 5 lines and click OK.
- Now choose the fill bucket. Make sure the color is black and click inside the area you have just grown.
- Go back to select and choose None.
- Last we need to go back to the toolbox. Click the layer tab and move the outline layer down. If you have followed it correctly, you should now have added an outline to your text.
- If it’s not working, check out the video below to see where you went wrong.