Herself's Webtools

OK so it’s still an ugly vulture. What this post is really about is creating shiny, pretty, metallic images from regular images in Gimp. This will work with text, icons, pictures, even ugly vultures. You’ll be like King Midas.

The first thing to do is to separate your image from the background. Cut, erase, use the color wand, what ever you usually do to pull your images apart.

Once we have the vulture separated we will invert the colors. [ Layer->Colors->Invert ]

Next open a new image the same size as the one you are working on [ Image->New ]

Fill the new image with a gold gradient [ Click on the green shaded button for gradients 2nd row, 3rd from right. Then go to the bottom right 3 buttons. There is a black dot, a wood background and a gray gradient bar under the two of them. Click on the grey gradient bar and select Golden . Once that is done go back to the new image. Click the mouse on one side and drag the line that appears to the other side and click again to anchor it. The image will fill with your gradient. ]

Go back to your original picture. Select [ Filters->Light Effects->Lighting Effects ]

You now have a window open with an image and several tabs. In each tab select the following:
Options:
—Check Transparent background ( if wanted )
—Check Create new image
Light:
—Leave alone
Material:
—Check Metallic
Bump map:
—Check Enable bump mapping
—Select your picture for the bump map image
Environment Map:
—Check Enable environment mapping
—Select the gold background
Click OK

A new image will be created in gold.

If you don’t like the way the image looks try taking out some of the detail by going back to Bump Map and changing the maximum height to a much lower number. Recheck your other settings are still correct before hitting ok.

Metallic something will give you a steel like appearance. I also left the background in this shot to show you how it would look.

See also Gimp Basics: Beginning