alpha to selection and text

[alin33]

I'm applying alpha to selection to text and fill the text with a gradient.I have noticed that after applying alpha to select the text loses his text attributes -usually I'm doing text to path cause I need the text layer to be regular layer-but after alpha to selection I don't have the text layer to path option-I need the final result -regular layer-Does the alpha to selection made it regular layer and not text permanently?

[rich2005]

Quote:...-Does the alpha to selection made it regular layer and not text permanently?..

No. But do not rely on recovering the original text layer, many thing can happen between-times.

The obvious is duplicate the text layer before filling with a gradient and losing the text property.

Another is text to path before filling with a gradient and losing the text property.

However, if it was a Gimp text layer, try selecting the text tool, click in the (was) text layer and you get a message like this.



Choose create new layer and you get this.

[Ofnuts]

(03-03-2018, 08:50 AM)alin33 Wrote: I'm applying alpha to selection to text and fill the text with a gradient.I have noticed that after applying alpha to select the text loses his text attributes -usually I'm doing text to path cause I need the text layer to be regular layer-but after alpha to selection I don't have the text layer to path option-I need the final result -regular layer-Does the alpha to selection made it regular layer and not text permanently?

It's not the alpha-to-selection, it's the painting. Any alteration of a text layer by something else than the Text tool changes the text layer into a plain bitmap layer. Either:

* keep a copy of the text layer
* Layer>Text>Text to path and keep the path
* Layer>Transparency>Alpha to Selection and Select>Save to channel

As a side note, you should not use a selection for this. The edge pixels are only partially opaque, so alpha-to-selection only partially selects these pixels, and the color changes are only partially applied to them. What you should do instead is lock the alpha channel and bucket-fill. In he image below the circle is initially blue (0,0,255). It is filled with red (255,0,0) with both techniques. Notice the faint dark rim in the A2S version. If you zoom in you see purple pixels that indicate that some of the blue has remained due to the incomplete painting of the partially selected pixels.

   

[Espermaschine]

Alpha selected text is not a very accurate representation of the text. Instead use Text To Path and call up a selection from that path, if you need one (or want to add a stroke to your text).
Beside that, im with ofnuts: locking the alpha channel and applying the gradient is the better way to do it.