Re: [Gimp-user] Question About Recreating a Drop Shadow

[Steve Kinney <admin pilobilus net>]

On 05/09/2017 04:10 PM, Kevin Cozens wrote:
> On 2017-05-09 02:40 PM, Amber Sunder wrote:
> > I'm new to using GIMP and am trying to edit the work of the person in my
> > position previous to me. She used a drop shadow on the title of the page
> [snip]
> > This isn't your normal drop shadow, so I'm not sure how she created it!
> [snip]
> > this particular document was created using GIMP
>
> GIMP includes a filter to add drop shadow to an item. There are (or
> were) some filters let you create text with a drop shadow.

With your text layer selected, do Filters > Light and shadow > Drop
shadow.  Tweak the settings, try it, undo, adjust again, etc. until you
get what you are after or determine that this filter won't do it.

You might also want to try some of the effects at Filters > Alpha to
logo.  Note that the results come out as layers, and you can remove,
change opacity, or otherwise edit the individual layers to tweak the
result.  If the strange drop shadow was originally made with one of
these scripts, you should be able to get an exact duplicate without too
much trial and error.

An "abnormal" drop shadow may or may not be reproducible with a filter
or script; but it's not hard to do these things by hand.

Basic drop shadow:

* Create your text with the Text tool; size and position it as required.
 Note that you can alter letter spacing, line spacing, alignment inside
the text box (left, center, right or justified) with a tool in the Tool
Options dock when the Text tool is active and a text layer is selected.

* In the Layers dock, make a copy of your text layer.  Change the color
of the original (lower) text layer to black by drag-and-drop from the
color tool while that layer is selected.  Or, use the shadow color of
your choice.

* Next, with the lower (shadow) layer selected, right click that layer's
icon in the Layers dialog and do "Discard text information."  It is now
a normal image layer that you can do awful things to.

* Still with the shadow layer selected in the Layers dialog, turn on the
Move tool, click on the image canvas window to make it active, and use
your keyboard arrow keys to offset the shadow layer from the text layer,
positioning it to function as a drop shadow.

* Do Filters > Blur > Gaussian Blur to give your shadow a soft edge.
Play with different blur values, move the layer around a bit, etc. until
it starts to look right (Ctrl+z is your friend - instant easy undo).
You may also want to adjust the shadow layer's opacity via the slider at
the top of the Layers dock.

I don't know what's unusual about the drop shadow you are duplicating,
but variations on the method presented above should allow you to
duplicate most anything that can be called a drop shadow.

> You said the drop shadow on the image you are dealing with is not
> "normal". What is different about it? If the image was created by GIMP
> it may be slightly different than a drop shadow created by Photoshop (or
> some other editing program) but it was most likely created using the
> built-in drop shadow features of GIMP.

Verily:  If we could see the original you are trying to duplicate, the
method used might be obvious.  Or at least a way to do the same thing
should not be hard for the gang here to come up with.

:o)