Carved Text

Making text look like it is carved into a texture requires a couple of illusions. Even when done properly, the eye doesn't always respond. But here goes anyway.

For this texture I used the Sand 1 Preset.

Type the text you would like to use (thicker fonts look better for this effect), color it white, and press CTRL+C to copy it to the clipboard. To keep everything in order use the Align command from the Object menu to Center Both. Now we need to change the text into a selection using the pull down menu on the Attribute Bar. Use the Tone Map from the Format menu, and move the Midtone slider to minus 25. It should look similar to this:

Press SHFT+M to merge. Use CTRL+D to make a duplicate image, Fill this new image with black and paste your text from the clipboard using CTRL+V. Use Align again to center the text in the document. Press CTRL+M to merge it with the background. Then press CTRL+V to paste another copy of the text. Change the text color to black and position the text so that a white edge is visible on the upper left.

Merge this new text object. In the Format menu, change the Data Type to Grayscale. Activate the original image and choose Import from the Selection menu. If the "open grayscale images" button is checked, your black and white image will be available. Click OK. Use the Tone Map again, but this time move the Shadow slider to minus 100. Press SHFT+M to merge. When finished your picture should now look similar to this:

The next steps are a bit tricky, so be careful. Use CTRL+V to paste your text back into the image, and once again align it to the center. Turn it into a selection using the Attribute bar. From the Selection menu choose Invert. Press CTRL+SHFT+O to convert the selection into an object. Now we can add a shadow. Right-click on the new object and choose Shadow from the Context menu. Make sure the color is black. The default settings of 10 for the offsets and 10 for the Soft edge should work OK, depending on the size of your image and text. But change the Transparency to about 35 to darken it a little. Merge this object.

Now it kinda sorta looks like it's recessed into the texture, depending how you look at it. We can add one more illusion to help it - a highlight. Once again paste the text back into the image and center it. Change it to a selection and use CTRL+SHFT+O to make it an object. This time in the Shadow dialog change both of the offsets to 1, Transparency to 70, and Soft Edge to 0. Then change the shadow color to white. Click OK. Merge.

There you have it. If you see it. A difficult feat to pull off in PI. If anyone has a better method, please send an e-mail. I'd love to see it.

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