Editing a letter

[X3nion]

Dear community!

I'm using GIMP 2.10 and I've got a question.
Therefore, I uploaded a picture below.
My plan is to make the shown letter "O" more bold than it is to a custom thickness.
How can I do this, so that it gets regularly bolder?

For an angled letter like "E" this was very easy, but how can I do this with a round letter?



I'm looking forward to hearing from you and would be very thankful for every hint!

Kind regards,
X3nion

[Blighty]

1. In the layers dialogue, right click and do Alpha to Selection
2. Select > Grow by 1,2, 3 or whatever you need
3. Bucket fill the selection with black.
4. Select > None

What method did you use for the E? Why does it not work for the O?

[rich2005]

Not at all sure exactly what is required. Same as Blighty, how are you making an "E" bolder?

Then do you want to keep text properties or reduce the text layer to a raster layer?

Some options, in pictures.

   

(1) The regular text for comparison

(2) The 'o' selected in the on canvas tool and bold applied

(3) The 'o' selected in the on canvas tool and the font/size changed.

(4) Lose the text layer properties, fuzzy select   inside the 'o' stroke the selection. Edit -> Stroke selection

[X3nion]

Hello and thanks for your answers!

I should have explained it better.

First of all: Regarding the „E“, I just took the square selecting tool, selected a certain area and filled it black. This procedure I repeated at 4 different areas (3 horizontal and 1 vertical area), so that in the end, the E became regularly bold - a very primitive way.

The „O“ is from a logo and I couldn‘t find out the original font, so I can‘t work with the font toolbox.
I‘d like to make it bold, but in a customized way. In the end, the proportions of the black filled area shall remain the same.
You can see it in the picture my original post: the top and bottom areas are a little bit thinner than the lateral areas.

So there are 3 options:
1) Increase the black area towards the outer surface
2) Increase the black area towards the inner surface
3) Increase the black area both towards the inner and the outer


Do you have any idea how to realize those 3 options?
And to which of the 3 mentioned options would your description fit, Blighty?


Kind regards,
X3nion

[rich2005]

You can use the fuzzy select. Then stroke the selection.

Both edges, fuzzy select the black, stroke selection


Inside edge, fuzzy select the 'hole' , stroke the selection.


The outside edge, Two stage, fuzzy select the black then fuzzy select using the add mode the 'hole'. Stroke the selection.

[tmanni]

You can also use Filters > Blur > Median Blur... with
- Neighborhood: Circle
- Radius: what you want
- Alpha percentile: 100.00

[akovia]

(09-04-2019, 07:43 PM)X3nion Wrote: The „O“ is from a logo and I couldn‘t find out the original font, so I can‘t work with the font toolbox.

Hey X3nion,
I'm assuming you've tried both whatfontis and whatthefont already. There are some more obscure font identification sites and forums you could try if it's really important. I did a tutorial a while back on how to identify fonts if you want to have a look.

If finding or acquiring the font is out of the question, I would recommend tracing the letters with the path tool. This will give you the best results by far and will make it scalable as well without losing any quality. There are lots of good tutorials around but if you need a hand, let me know. I quickly traced your "O" with the path tool and you can see how much cleaner the edges are. There are some tricks to getting things perfectly symmetrical but it's really not that difficult.

   

[X3nion]

Hello and thanks for all your great answers! :-)

@rich2005 and @tmanni: Your tutorials and hints work very well, thank you!

@akovia: Wow that's great! I only managed to do this using "Inkscape" and a vectorized png file. How did you do that using GIMP?? ;-)
It would be great if you would give me a hand how you did it, especially because you wrote that you traced it "quickly".
And yeah, I already tried those font detection sites.


Kind regards,
X3nion

[rich2005]

There is a Gimp plugin plugin-potrace.py see: http://gimpchat.com/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=17493 that can trace an outline.
It uses a external application potrace (details on gimpchat page) to create the path. If you get it working usually works well with text.

Example: Original text / Filled and stroked path / and the path generated by potrace.



Edit: Hints for Windows users.
Download the potrace zip. Unzip. Put the two files mkbitmap.exe & potrace.exe in C:\Program Files\GIMP 2\bin and the plugin-potrace.py in C:\Users\"yourname"\AppData\Roaming\GIMP\2.10\plug-ins

[akovia]

(09-05-2019, 10:34 PM)X3nion Wrote: @akovia: Wow that's great! I only managed to do this using "Inkscape" and a vectorized png file. How did you do that using GIMP?? ;-)
It would be great if you would give me a hand how you did it, especially because you wrote that you traced it "quickly".
And yeah, I already tried those font detection sites.

Well around 3 minutes, but could shave a couple seconds if my OCD didn't make me remove the unneeded nodes. I'd love to see your logo or font sample. There are very few fonts I haven't been able to find and I might have better luck. 

Of course some logo artists modify the fonts, but sometimes they only stretch or distort them which can usually be recreated without too much trouble. Tracing is my last resort unless it's an easy or short logo.