[thelist] Fancy text blending with PHP/GD

[Chris Dorer]

Can I ask why you're intent on using GD?  Have you had the chance to
consider using image magick?

It has a phenomenal set of easy to use commandline tools that integrates
easily with php that does just about everything you're describing below.



On 7/31/06, Brooking, John <John.Brooking at sappi.com> wrote:
>
> Does anyone have any experience creating doing fancy text and image
> blending using PHP/GD? My wife and I are currently using Paint Shop Pro
> 9 to prepare images for her online art gallery, and I'm wondering if I
> can automate it more using GD.
>
> What we do is create kind of a "watermark" on each image with the
> copyright notice, for example, see [1]. In PSP, the steps to get that
> effect are to put the text on a new layer as black on white, and fill in
> the rest of the layer as white, then apply the Emboss effect to that
> layer, and set the layer blend mode to Soft Light. I don't completely
> understand what the Soft Light filter does (something about the
> background shining through depending on the gray value of the layer
> pixel), but we found this procedure documented on the 'net somewhere and
> it works great.
>
> I've just written some software to allow her to upload the images
> herself through a form, and the software will create an initial
> thumbnail and full-size image, as well as allow her to tweak the size
> once it's uploaded. I'd like to eliminate the manual PSP step of putting
> on the copyright notice, but I can't tell from my reading yet if GD can
> do this, specifically the Emboss effect and the Soft Light blending. I
> haven't found anything definitive by searching the net yet, and I also
> have not been able to find any mailing lists dedicated just to GD, even
> by looking on the PHP or GD sites. Before I spend a lot of time
> experimenting, I though I'd see if anyone here had any knowledge of
> this.
>
> So, ideas, anyone? Thanks in advance! (BTW, any client-side fanciness
> like JavaScript is not sufficient, because the whole idea of the
> copyright notice is that if anyone downloads the image, it will still
> contain the notice. [Unless they intentionally crop it out themselves,
> which I think would allow for legal action.])
>
> - John
>
> [1] http://www.mainebrook.com/art/picture.php?imageID=45&page=1
>
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