Re: [Gimp-user] Creating Transparent Text

[Steve Kinney <admin pilobilus net>]

On 02/19/2013 01:37 PM, Burnie West wrote:

> It looks to me like the original signature scan had the artifacts
> around it.

Same here - and very low resolution.  The signature itself is only
64 x 142 pixels, and the artifacts look like they could have come
from scaling an earlier copy in an indexed format.

If possible I would start over with a new signature and scan, at 300
DPI or above, with black ink on white paper.  Then, applying the
filter Colors > Color to Alpha would produce a much more acceptable
result.  The more uniform the color and texture of the paper (or
etc.) used, the more certain the result.

Or you could go in a whole other direction, make a vector path from
the available signature, stroke it with an oblong brush with its
angle and hardness tweaked, and use the result.  This would be a
typical part of creating a logo from a signature.  Just for an
exercise, I did that:

http://pilobilus.net/xfer/helen.zip

Picture worth way more than a thousand words.

:o)

Steve