Stained Glass

Open a new file, about 400 pixels wide by 200 pixels high, 16 millioncolors with a white background. Select black as your foreground color andadd some text. Any solid text will work well for this effect. Here I'veused Arial Black, 72 point.

Now we need to change our text into just an outline. Go to Images,Edge Effects: Trace Contour. This should give a black outline on a whitebackground.

Now we have the outline we need, but it isn't quite thick enough.To make the ouline wider, we can use the Erode filter. We want the insidesof our letters to remain the same size, so we have to make sure that theoutline only thickens outwards. To do this, use the Select Tool (The magicwand) and click inside each of the letters. Remember to hold down the Shiftkey while you select each new letter, so that when you're done, the insidesof all of the letters will be selected. Next, go to Selections:Invert.Now everything EXCEPT the insides of the letters should be selected. Thosewhite areas inside the letters will now remain uneffected by the next step.Go to Images,Special Filters:Erode. I applied the erode filter three timesto get the thickness shown here.

Next, using the Shape drawing tool, draw a rectangle around yourtext. This rectangle will be the actual size of our final creation. Makesure that the tool is set to Outline, and not Filled.

Now divide the empty space inside the rectangle into small areas.Each area will be a pane in your stained glass window. If you're very artistic(and very patient) you can be very creative about this.

It's time to begin filling in those panes with color. To get thatstained glass look, we use the Flood Fill tool, and select Sunburst Gradientfrom the menu. Choose a darker color as your background color , and a muchlighter shade as your foreground color.

Fill in the areas with various colors, always using a very lightshade for the foreground, and a darker shade for the background. For besteffect, don't color any two adjoining panes the same color.

Using the Area Select tool ( the dashed rectangle) select an areaaround your creation. Go to the Edit menu and copy it to the clipboard.Set your background color to white, and paste your image back into thefile as a transparent selection. Don't worry if it overlaps your originalwork. Again go to Edit, Copy. Then Edit, Paste: as a new Image. You shouldget a new file containing only the stained glass window.

The only thing left to do is a bit of clean-up. There are a fewareas around the lettering that have small white spots. To get rid of these,go to Images, Special Filters:Despeckle. That should clean up those areasquite nicely and finish your stained glass window.

Email me at State_of_Entropy@hotmail.com

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