Create an Inner Text Shadow in GIMP
There isn’t a simple one-click option to add inner text shadows in GIMP, but this tutorial shows you how you can achieve this effect, which makes text appear as if it was cut out of the page. If you have a copy of GIMP installed, then you can get started with the tutorial.
GIMP vs. Photoshop
Anyone used to working with Adobe Photoshop will know that inner text shadow is easily applied through the use of layer styles, but GIMP doesn’t offer a comparable feature. To add an inner shadow to text in GIMP, you need to carry out a few distinct steps and this may seem a little complex to less advanced users.
The actual amount that you move the layer will depend on what size your text is – the larger it is, the further you will need to move it. For example, if you’re working on relatively small text, perhaps for a button on a web page, you may only want to move the text one pixel in each direction.Our example is a larger size to make the accompanying screen grabs a little clearer (though this technique is most effective at smaller sizes) and so we moved the black text two pixels in each direction.
If you’re working on text that is a small size, you probably won’t need to move the blurred layer, but as you’re working on larger text, you can select the Move Tool and shift the layer down and to the right by one pixel in each direction.
This hides any of the blurred layer that falls outside of the borders of the text layer so that it gives the impression of being an inner text shadow.
However the process is relatively straightforward, so even new users of GIMP should have little difficulty following this tutorial. As well as achieving the overall goal of teaching you to add inner text shadow, in so doing you will also be introduced to using layers, layer masks and applying blur, one of the many default filter effects that ship with GIMP.
