Creating golden text

This page contains a little tips on creating golden looking text using the GIMP. The third picture above was created using first picture as texture and the second as text-base. Follow the steps below to duplicate this effect.

  1. Open a suitable picture to use as texture. Call this A.
  2. Open a gray-scale picture of same size. Call this B.
  3. Type some text into B.
  4. Duplicate B twice to create C and D.
  5. Gaussian blur C 10 vertically and D 10 horizontally.
  6. Gaussian blur B 10 both vertically and horizontally.
  7. Displacement map A it by 40 in x and y (use C and D respectively as maps). Call the result of this E.
  8. Threshold B by 2, call this F.
  9. Multiply F with E. Call the result G.
  10. Multiply B with G, call this H.
  11. Add H to E, call this J.
  12. Adjust the gamma-brightness-contrast of J to taste.