Adding text in GIMP

[davoush]

Hello all, and thanks for the help so far - I hope my questions are not becoming annoying, maybe I'm a little over enthusiastic.

My problem now is, I have a basic map made in Fractal Terrains, that I would like to edit in GIMP - by adding text for cities and such. Are there any tutorials on how to make this look nice? For some reason my FT maps are not saving at a very good quality - what settings do you recommend I use?

For the writing, it does not need to be particularly arty, just clean and clear really.

Many thanks

[Hai-Etlik]

Well, you might consider Inkscape for text placement instead. It can do text along paths and very fine tuned adjustments to character positioning.

[ravells]

Hi Davoush, not sure which version of FT you are using but you do have options in how big you want to make the output file. If you want to have a really big output file then you will need to tile your exports and stitch them together with a program like Hugin (free on the web).

In FT go to: File / export world / multiple files.

[Jaxilon]

You can place text in Gimp but I have found that if you want to place any text on a path (in other words on a curve of any kind) you would be better to learn how to use Inkscape. Gimp is supposed to be able to do it but it sure seems to get gobbledy gooped up.

Basically, what I do is save a full sized version of my map as a .jpg, open it in inkscape or import it, create a new layer for the labels and go to town. Then turn off the base layer and export just the text layer as a .png which I then pull back into gimp as a new layer in my original .xcf

Hope that helps. I was lost when I first tried this as well until RobA helped me out. I think he may have a mini tutorial or something on this now that I think about it.

[davoush]

Thanks for the replies everyone! I have started learning inkscape and it does indeed seem to be more effective for placing text along paths.

[Jaxilon]

One thing I learned recently is that it if you use the rotation arrows to tilt the text it can get ragged edges. It is better if you move the path instead as it keeps the edges nice and clean. I barely know Inkscape though because I only use it to label stuff so maybe it's me.