Gradient Fill?

[Puissance]

Hi all,

I would like to have some text with a gradient background. Is it possible with Paint.NET?

[Yata]

Make a layer for your gradient.

Make a layer for your text and put it over the gradient layer.

[Puissance]

I have done that so far, but is it possible to have the text filled as a gradient? So that the text is not a solid colour. Thanks for replying so quickly!

[Yata]

Alrighty.

Make a layer, put your text in.

Use the magic wand, select the letters, make your gradient within the selection.

[Down]

Shift-click the area around the text with the wand, then invert selection then use the gradient.

Edit: Too slow!

[GangstaCrab]

1. select the text with the magic wand

2. select the colors you want the gradient to be (primary and secondary)

3. select the gradient tool

doing this will only fill the selected area (text) with the gradient instead of the entire background. Hope this helps

EDIT: Yeah, I was too slow too, but I used emoticons

[Yata]

P3wned

Used my one not-proper grammar word for the year

200'th post!

[Puissance]

Haha, nice. When I read those, I was like, "OMG, that's so smart!"

I never thought about using the magic wand at all. I was trying to blend layers and all these things.

[Cornipsus]

If you wanted to make a gradient with more than two colors:

1. Make a text layer, black on white.

2. Make a layer, with blend mode set to multiply.

3. On the multiply layer, make colored boxes that form the gradient you want.

4. Gaussian blur the multiply layer until it looks good.

5. Flatten the image.

6. (Optional) Use the alpha mask plugin to make the background transparent.

I used this technique for my sig.

[thebiggfella]

Nice tips guys. I didn't know about this one.

[crosswalker]

You'll get better results(for anti-aliased text) if you use the Alpha Mask Plugin suggested above. Your basic method would be as follows.

1: Make your gradient.

2: Add a new layer :AddNewLayer:, and on it, type your text in black.

3: Double click the text layer :Properties: (in the layers window) and adjust the opacity down to around 50% (so you can see through the text but still see it's outline)

4: Move your text around until you like the gradient that you see through it. Set the layer opacity back to 100% (255)

5: With the text layer selected, press ctrl+a to select all. :SelectAll:

6: Press ctrl+x to cut the selection and ctrl+alt+v :PasteNewImage: to paste it into a new image.

7: Add a new layer :AddNewLayer:, fill it with white :PaintBucketTool:, and move it below your text layer. :Down:

8: Save the image as a png :Save: (in a place where it will be easily accessible, like the desktop)

9: Go back to your gradient image, delete all layers except for the gradient. :Delete:

10: Select Effects->Alpha Mask and use the text image you just created as the mask (You'll have to check the invert mask box)

:Save: Save your finished image and you're done!

Given the # of steps, it seems like quite a bit of work, but once you get used to using keyboard shortcuts, it really doesn't take that long at all.