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GIMP Tutorial #18 – How to Create a 3-D Text

GIMP is a free image editor that offers all the tools, filters, effects and capabilities necessary to help you edit, retouch and manipulate all kind of images and photos like a pro. With GIMP you can also create astonishing images from scratch, and today, in this simple tutorial I will show how to create a 3-D effect for a text. When you finish this tutorial you'll be able to do something like this:

But first things first, in order to be able to follow this tutorial you need GIMP installed and running on your PC, so those who don't have it, can click the “Download” button above and follow the InstallIQTM manager that will guide you through the setup process.

Assuming you have GIMP properly running on your PC, create a new image, the only thing you have to do is set it to be transparent in the Advanced Options.

Now that you have a new image with a transparent background select the Text Tool and type the text you want to turn into 3-D.

Duplicate the text layer. Remember that you can access the layers dialog by pressing CTRL+L in your keyboard.

After that hide the top text layer and select the bottom layer. This layer will work as a base to create the effect perspective.

Now you have to change the color of the text, this color will create the depth effect. To do that you need to select all the non-transparent objects in the layer. Go to the context menu of the layer by right-clicking on it and select "Alpha to Selection".

You'll get something like this:

Then use the Bucket Fill Tool to apply color to the text, and when you're done go to Select →None to clear the selection. Go to Filters → Blur → Motion Blur... and apply this values. Here you can play a bit with Length and Angle values to get different effects.

The next step is to duplicate this text layer like 30 or 40 times till you get something like this:

And the last action is to turn the layer you have hidden into visible and it will look like this:

Final Words

Now you can create awesome 3-D text for your website, you images or just for fun, GIMP is your friend!! Download this incredible image editing program for free by clicking on the link you'l find below, we'll not even ask you to register or anything.