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Hello reader
Here is final result that we will be achieving from this tutorial:
First of all you need to have some picture of yourself or an object that you wish to have appearing on the surface of the coin. As in this tutorial, I have used and old black & wihte picture of Mr. Arnold Schwarzenegger (found at wikipedia):
LOL, it is not an obligation to use Arnold's picture or even a human's picture, you may use anything that you want be bumping over the surface of coin, which may also be simple text.
Too much lecture passed, let us get started with tutorial.
Please follow the steps below:
[*] Start with new image of desired dimensions, I used 300 x 300 pixels gimp image.
[*] Create New trasparent layer and name it 'coin-bg' (coin background).
[*] Make a circle of desired size (I created 175 x 175 i think)using elliptic region selection tool (the second tool icon in main gimp window). This will eb the total area of the coin.
[*] Save selection to channels, by going through menus Select > Save to Chanel. Come back in layers tab and select the layer named 'coin-bg'.
[*] Select gradient tool, select black to white gradient, go to gradient tool options and set the option shape to Linear. Now fill the layer 'coin-bg' with this gradient from top-left cornre of selection to bottom-right corner of selection and yo uget something like this:
[*] Make sure the selection is still active (where it must be). Go through menus Select > Shrink, a new window will appear, enter value 5 and click button OK. Again save this selection to channels too, by going through menus Select > Save to Chanel. Within the Channels tab, right click the lowest channel (looking like white hole in black recntagle) and click menu item Channel to Selection. You will notice the old selection is restored. Now rightclick the top most channel and select menu item Subtract from Selection. You will notice a new kind of broder selection is there, make sure to add this selection to channels too (for future use). Upto now you will have something similar to followign image:
[*] Now create a new transparent layer and name it 'raised-border'. Make sure it is selected. Fill it with solid white color, and set the layer mode to Overlay.
[*] Remove selection by going through menus Select > None. And open the image as layer, the image we talked about in start (The Arnold's picture). If yo uare usign an old gimp and does not have option to load an iamge as layer then open it as separate image, copy the iamge layer, and bring it in your current gimp image. Now drag the layer and bring it between the two new layers we created, and name the layer 'picture'. Finally set layer mode to Overlay. Order of the layers must look like this:
And the image upto now, must look something similar to:
[*] Right click the layer named 'picture' and select menu item Merge Down, or alternatively press key 'W'. And, right click the top layer and do the same (Merge Down). You will notice all the layers have been emerged into one. There is another way which is, rightclick any layer and select Flatten Image, but this creates a white background which is not required in our tutorial. Or you can do so, but delete the white area. You select the methods suites you.
[*] Go though menus (within image window) Filters > Distorts > Emboss, a new window will appear, play with available options and finally click button OK when you are done. I had this finally:
[*] Now, if you wish to make its edges randomly broken from edges, then, go to channels tab rightclick the bottom most channel and click Chanel to Selection. Then distress the selection, by going through menus (within image window) Script-fu > Selection > Distress Selection, a new window will appear simply click OK. Press key Ctrl+I to invert selection (make sure your icon layer is selected), and press key Ctrl+K to delete the areas of icon going outside of selection.
Now make some drop shadow etc. I played with it many times and finally got the result shown in top of the tutorial. And the result of this tutorial is :
some tips:
1. Make a golden gradient filled layer over the image layer and set its mode to Grain Merge, which will give look of and old golden coin.
2. To make the border more realistic, decrease its thickness and fill some Shaped (Angular) of gradient to it.
I hope you guys found it interesting, questions are entertained.
regards
