How do I add 3D-effect text on a photo?

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For a title slide or the cover photo of an album, you might want the title set in an attractive, 3D-effect text superimposed on a photo. How can you create that without an expensive special purpose application? Here is a method that uses Paint, a tool you already have on your computer. 

Load your photo into Paint. With the Text tool (see illustration) draw a text box starting approximately in the upper left position of the intended text. imageimage

The text box will resize when you release the mouse button. You will now see a dashed box in your photo and the Text Tools ribbon opens. Type your title.image

The Text Tools in Paint

imageAs long as you keep your pointer in the text box you can modify the text and the text box. There are resizing handles on the box – you know you can resize when the pointer changes to a double-ended arrow shape. You can select the text by dragging the pointer over it. You can change to any font on your computer. The font size box shows sizes from 8 to 72. You are not limited to these sizes. Just type in the size you want, even larger or smaller than the shown range, and the font will be changed to that size (note the size in the illustration above – it is set to 90).

The text will be set in the Color 1 selection. For 3D-effect, shadowed text, select the darker, shadow color. Position the text box to place the text. When the pointer is placed anywhere on the box outline, except near the resize handles, it changes to a four-headed arrow indicating that you can drag the box to another position. When you are happy with the text, font, and placement, click anywhere outside the text box. The text is now set. If it isn’t right, click Undo (or Ctrl+Z) and start over.

Next set the top color, normally a lighter shade, and open another text box and retype your title. Don’t worry about alignment, you can drag the text and place it precisely. image

Drag the text box to position the text just the way you like. When you are satisfied, click anywhere outside the text box.

There are applications that can do a nicer job, but for shadowed text, Paint is easy and probably just as fast.

Lagniappe

(A lagniappe, pronounced “lan-yap”, is a small extra given to a customer at no charge, mostly in Cajun country.)

imageIn Paint the selection of color is more flexible than you might think. There is an array of twenty colors to choose from. To set the color click the color number, Color 1 is the main one, Color 2 the “right-click” color, then click the box with the desired color. If that does not provide you with the exact shade, click Edit colors. imageThis opens an Edit Colors window. Here you have a wider selection of fixed colors and an opportunity to define custom colors. In the larger area you reposition the mark (drag it) to define the hue and saturation – color and intensity. The vertical slider control sets the luminance of that color. You can even enter numeric values in the fields to define the color. Click Add to Custom Colors and the specified color is added and will appear in the bottom row of color boxes. Click OK to complete the color selection.

When you open the Edit Colors window the color presently set as Color 1 will already be set in the custom area. I find this particularly useful when I want a lighter or darker shade of a particular color. The luminance control can be used to select the shade without affecting the hue or saturation. Remember that the Color picker tool (the eye-dropper in the Tools area) can be used to pick a color from any place in a photo. This color can then be adjusted with Edit colors. Neat!

.:.

© 2011 Ludwig Keck

How do I set the base picture for Photo Fuse?

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Windows Live Photo Gallery has a tool called Photo Fuse for combining sections from several similar photos. The classic use is to get all the folks in a group shot with their eyes open and smiling. No mean feat in one shot, but  Photo Fuse makes it easy – if you have enough shots to select from.  Sometimes you want one of the shots as the base, the photo that provides most of the content, but Photo Fuse has its own idea of which photo to use as the primary one. collage-3

There is no obvious way to select the photo that should be used as the base. But, of course, there is a way.

Photo Fuse picks the thumbnail that is closest to the top left – first in the sort order – as the base photo. So the trick is to make sure that the photo you want as the base is the first one in the sort order. Normally photos are sorted by file name, this can be easily changed, but for this particular purpose, my method is to use the rating system. Assign a 5-star rating to the primary photo, and either not rate the others or assign lower ratings. Then sort the thumbnails by Rating.

rateHere is how to do this quickly, I will use only two photos to demonstrate, but you can have any number in the folder. Click on the thumbnail of the desired base photo, click Rate in the Organize group of the Home ribbon. Click on 5 stars. If you have rated any other photos as five stars, rate them lower.

star-sortClick the View tab. Click Ratings then click Reverse sort. Your 5 star rated photo is now at the top.

Just select all the thumbnails from which you want to use portions. Click the Create tab, click Photo Fuse in the Tools group.

Photo Fuse will come up with the 5 star rated photo as the base. You can then move the selection window to the desired area and select the area you like best.. PhotoFuse-1

Photo Fuse does an amazing job of stitching in the selected area. One caution: Be careful in setting the selection area so you don’t include some unwanted detail.

.:.

© 2011 Ludwig Keck

Can I re-import photos when the computer says no new photos were found?

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On occasion you will get a dialog that says “0 new photos and videos were found” when you try to import pictures from your camera.Import-01 This happens if you already have imported those photos, even though you might have deleted or moved the pictures on the computer.

Can you re-import the photos? You can, provided that you did not erase them on the camera. We are assuming here that you have set up your computer to use Windows Live Gallery to import photos from your camera. Just click the Next button (see illustration). In the next window you will see the photos on your camera arranged by date. It will say “0 items selected in 0 groups”. Note that the check box in front of the groups is not checked.

Import-02Import-03

Click on the group check box that you wish to import again. There is also a “Select all” option. Make sure you have selected just the ones you wish to import once more. Click Import and the process starts.

Import-04While the photos are being imported you will see the progress in a dialog like the one shown here. Note the check box with the legend “Erase after importing”. This means “erase from the camera after the photos have been imported to the computer”. I always leave that unchecked, which is also the default. This way the photos stay on the camera.

So what happens if you already have the photos on your computer? A new set will be imported, if the file name already exists, the import process will add a number in parenthesis at the end of the file name for the new file. You will wind up with duplicated photos. No harm will be done to photos that are already on your computer. Of course you can delete the duplicates.

.:.

© 2011 Ludwig Keck

One Year Anniversary

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It has been one year since this blog was first published. With the anniversary celebration I am also updating the looks of this site. Many readers asked for a larger, more readable type and so here it is. This blog received over twelve thousands visits in the first year and many email inquiries have come in. I hope to continue to be able to answer queries promptly, so keep the questions coming.

.:.

© 2011 Ludwig Keck