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This tutorial is available as a PDF. Click here to view or download it This is a tutorial on how to make the diamond text I used in my image. After much experimenting I think have finally come up with a method which I hope can be easily replicated to give a similar effect each time. Before you start you will need - a couple of stone textures. I made mine using the Stone 101 thread here. There are several to choose from. You can either make your own or I have added mine for you use. The Dotspecial font available on Dafont.com here. Boltbait`s Selection Tools available in his plugin pack here. dpy`s AA`s Assistant from his pack here The Apply Texture plugin by niwax here. For the sparkles you could use Majik`s Sparkle Effect plugin. And finally Davidf `s Cell Texture plugin . Let`s get started. 1.Open a new image of your chosen size. Mine is 800x300. Create or import a texture of your choice to use as your background. I prefer a darker one as it shows off the text best. 2.Using the Dotspecial font, on a new layer write your text in white, size 110, then align centre.Duplicate the layer,uncheck one copy and move it below the background layer as you will need it later. 3.Pick the Magic Wand, Flood Mode set to Global and Tolerance 50%, then select your text. Now go to Effects>Selection>Bevel Selection at these settings 4.Keeping the text selected next use Effects>Distort>Crystalize at these settings- Deselect and use AA`s Assistant at default settings which should leave you with something like this- 5.Duplicate the text three times.Rename the layers if you prefer. 6.Now, with the top two rock layers unnchecked,go to the Text Fragment layer and use Effects>Blurs>Fragment at these settings- 7.Now make the Text rock 1 layer active and go to Effects>Object>ApplyTexture and use the darker one of the rock textures. Change the layer Blend Mode to Difference. Repeat with the Text rock 2 layer and change the Blend Mode to Negation giving you something like this - Of course these blend modes are just suggestions. Feel free to try different textures and blend modes to create the effect you prefer. 8.New layer at the top above all the others. Change the primary colour to 0094FF and use the bucket tool to fill the layer with this colour. Next go the previously saved text layer below the background,pick the Magic Wand which should still be on Global and select outside the text. Next go to the blue layer and press Delete. You should now just have the blue colour in the text. Change the Blend Mode to Overlay, opacity 60. 9.Now with the colour still the same, make another new layer above the others,rename if you wish, and go to Effects>Render>Cell Texture at these settings- Same as before, select outside the text and delete to leave the effect just on the text. Then change the blend mode to Overlay leaving this effect- 10.Now all you have to do is add a few random sparkles to the diamonds and you are finished. You could of course make some nice jewellery using this method as well. Don`t feel you are restricted to just making text . I am sure this technique could be adapted to create other objects. Now let`s see what you can come up with.

*Thank you TechnoRobbo! ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- *Thank you ERR and Goonfella!

Thanks again for the plugin.

I tried it. It seemed to hang in the Initializing phase. Clicking on Cancel didn't help; it then hung in the Cancelling phase. I had to kill it with the Task Manager.

Cool technique! I like this a lot Thanks Goony.

This must have taken a good amount of work to adapt. Let's see what we can do to put it to good use

The image isn't too clear, so I can't tell exactly what is done. I can suggest a similar effect. Start with the image you want to use. Add an new layer (name it Text). (It will currently be the topmost layer.) Set the Primary Color to white. (If the Primary and Secondary colors are currently black and white, just switch them.) Using the Text tool, type in the desired text. (It will be white on a transparent background.) Duplicate the Text layer (name the new layer Shadow). (The Shadow layer will now be the topmost layer.) Set the Primary Color to black. Run the Drop Shadow plugin on the Shadow layer. Set the Blend Mode of the Shadow layer to one of the darkening Modes, such as Darken or Color Burn. (Darken in my example.) Adjust the Shadow layer Opacity to give the best look (214 in my example). Set the Blend Mode of the Text layer to one of the lightening modes, such as Lighten or Color Dodge. (Color Dodge in my example.) Adjust the Text layer Opacity to give the best look (60 in my example). You can then Flatten the image. For the Drop Shadow, I used an X and Y offset of 2, a Widening Radius of 1, a Blur Radius of 3. The values will depend on the image size and the desired effect. Make sure the "Keep original image" option is selected. The order of the steps can be changed. You might want to add the drop shadow last so its effect can be more clearly seen and adjusted. You can also use the Drop Shadow's Shadow Opacity control instead of changing the Shadow layer's Opacity, though it gives a bit less flexibility. Example: (You should use a title that's more specific. Perhaps something like "Transparent, Shadowed Text.")

Cute piece

Well done Ahmed. There is a small problem with the rendering because sometimes there are some empty stripes in the image (Win8.1 Paint.net 4.05)

*Thank you for the plugin AhmedElyamani.

If you've written a plugin DLL with Visual Studio, you probably know that you can't really debug a DLL by itself. This becomes a sticky point for developing a plugin: how do you debug it!? Visual Studio has excellent facilities for debugging when you are launching an EXE, but for your plugin DLL it's a little more confusing. Note: These instructions do not pertain to CodeLab plugins. The trick is to set up your project settings so that you are actually launching Paint.NET! In this post, I will show you how. I have used this myself while developing some of the plugins I've posted in the past (e.g., HD Photo). I'll use the HD Photo plugin an example. You can get the source code for it by downloading the source code for Paint.NET v3.07: http://www.getpaint.net/download.html . It is in the "extras" folder. Edit: The source code has long since been taken down. Please do not ask for it. Thanks. 1. Open up your project file in Visual Studio. (This much should be obvious 8)) 2. Right click on your project in the Solution Explorer and then click on Properties. 3. Click on the "Debug" tab. 4. Click the "Start external program" radio button, and fill in the path to the Paint.NET executable. 5. Make sure to fill in the Working Directory as well. After you complete steps 4 and 5, you should have this: 6. You will want to create a custom Post Build Event that will copy your plugin DLL to the appropriate location. Otherwise Paint.NET won't be able to find your plugin, or it will use an older version. Like so: (Naturally, if you are setting this up for an Effect plugin, make sure to copy it to the Effects directory, not the FileTypes directory!) 7. Set a breakpoint in your code. This isn't a requirement -- I am listing this for illlustration purposes. As you get better with the debugger, or if you're already a ninja, you will do whatever is necessary. 8. And then run Paint.NET with the Debug -> Start Debugging menu item. Now when there is an exception in your plugin, you will be thrown in to the debugger instead of getting a crash dialog. You can then debug it using the standard Visual Studio debugging commands.