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Ghosts

Zambezi sunset

A 'ghost' is a lightened area of an image on which text is usually overlayed; you'll often see the effect in brochures and ads. The idea is to keep the graphic as a background but make the text stand out more. We'll give three methods here, the last of which is the best - it also shows how to use layers.

Method 1

• Click on the Paint pot icon, and ensure the Colouring effect is selected.
• Set the colour to white.
• Click on the Pencil and select the solid rectangle; drag the Opacity slider to 50%.
• Drag out a rectangle.
• Fix (Space bar) when you're happy, or Undo (F8) and try again.

This is quick and cheap on memory.

Method 2

• Click on the Paint pot icon, and ensure the Toning effect is selected.
• Click on the Value icon, and drag the slider right to about 30%.
• Click on the Pencil and select the solid rectangle; ensure the Opacity slider is at 100%.
• Drag out a rectangle.
• Fix (Space bar) when you're happy, or Undo (F8) and try again.

This method suffers from possible saturation of light-coloured areas.

Method 3

• Open the Channels window, and click on Layers....
• In the Layers window, click on the New layer icon (bottom right, a blank sheet of paper).
• In the Create new layer dialogue, type "ghost" into the Name field and click on Create.
• You've now created a new, blank (transparent) layer; maximise the Layers window to see its details. Usefully, Photodesk has set things up so that this new layer can be written to (the Pencil is highlighted) and you can see both it and the underlaying original layer (both Eyes are highlighted).
• Now we draw a rectangle. Click on the Paint pot icon, and ensure the Colouring effect is selected.
• Set the colour to white.
• Click on the Pencil and select the solid rectangle; ensure the Opacity slider is at 100%.
• Drag out a rectangle and fix when happy.
• You should now have a solid white rectangle overlayed on your image. Go to the Layers window, and drag the Opacity slider to about 50%, or whatever suits.

This is the best method, as you can tweak the amount of ghosting at any time after you've created it by changing the layer's opacity. Create any text on another layer on top of both.

Variations

• Create an 'anti-ghost' by drawing in black, if you want white text.
• You can get rounded/bevelled corners (as in the example image above) by increasing the line size and selecting the appropriate joint icon in the Drawing tools window.
• If you use method 3, you can apply various effects to the rectangle in its layer. Try blurring (motion blur, for instance), rippling, stylising. Also you can add a colour cast by drawing in a pastel shade. Play around with the Layers:Mode setting, too.
• It doesn't have to be a rectangle, of course.
• The image above used the layers method. The text was added on a further layer, with a linear Effect gradient running from left to right using the Rainbow palette. To add the shadow, select the text (in the text layer, click on the Scissors icon and press Ctrl-A) and copy it to the clipboard (Ctrl-C). Click on the Copy:Shadow effects icon, and set Shading:70, Diffusion:50, X offset:6 and Y offset:4. Paste back using Ctrl-V and fix.