I have taken the opportunity to re-organise the flow of the different aspects of the filter's workings.

The new options are highlighted in this screenshot of the dialog:



It adds the option to clear the existing character layers before copying and pasting the contents into the shape of those characters. It effectively provides the means of copying from a layer or layers where the opacity of the layer has been reduced in order to create a translucent font.

It also adds options to combine two versions of the same font character – although there is no reason why different font shapes should not be combined. This would allow you to place a transparent font character on top of, say, the same character with an outline – or vice versa. Perhaps two versions with different areas of opacity could be combined – plenty of room for experimentation here I think.

Here are two examples of fonts created using the new options (together with my Custom Font Outlines filter). The first uses one of OMG's mesh patterns as the body of the font combined with a gradient border outline font.



The second example combines a translucent background from a seamless pattern by Lyle with a rainbow type gradient border.

Here are some tips (not enought to be a tut), like those that I posted on GL, for those who are unsure of the process.

Choose a custom font (it doesn't have to be white since we're only going to grab the shape) to use and make, or find, a semi-transparent/translucent image (png format perhaps) to work with.

Here I used my Chunky custom font (since it's white I have displayed it on a coloured background):


1. Open up the custom font and the image in Gimp and copy and paste your image into the custom font as a new layer.

2. Use Image>Fit Canvas to Layers to make all of the image visible and available to use.

I used a seamless pattern created by Lyle on Deviant Art.

3. Bring up the Custom Font Labels v1.07 Filter from the Filters menu.

4. Set the first two options (Create new characters and Clear contents) to ‘Yes’.

You can also set any of the following options to ‘Yes’ if required:

Remove all non-font layers
Ensure that all layers are positioned to the origin
Sort layers into order
Display current layer names in a message box

5. Click on ‘Ok’ and save the file under a new name (I will reference this as the background file).

Here is the result of my output.


6. Open up the original custom font again.

7. Now bring up the Custom Font Outlines v0.03 Filter from the Filters menu.

8. Decide what sort of outline effect you want to have – pattern, gradient or plain line – and set the appropriate options to ‘Yes’.

9. Set the outline width to whatever width you feel would look best with your custom font size.

10. Set the Outlines only layers to ‘Yes’ and click on ‘Ok’.

11. Save this file under another new name (I will reference this file as the outline file).

I used a rainbow gradient set to about 12 pixels wide as the outline border for mine.

Help Part 2:

13. Now Re-open the first saved background file.

14. Again bring up the Custom Font Labels v1.07 Filter from the Filters menu.

15. Set the Combine the current character with one from the custom font below option to ‘Yes’.

16. Use the xcf custom font file box to locate the file that you saved as the outline file

17. Set all the other options to ‘No’ and click on ‘Ok’.

When the filter completes its work, you can save the new file under a new name.

If you no longer need the background and/or outline files then simple delete them from your folders.