Image: Add glow/border to the image text

[lasithg]

I'm bit confused about this.. is there any way to add boarder to the image text?

[olivervogel]

Its' not possible out of the box. But you can access the GD or Imagick object with getCore, so maybe glow effects can be achieved with certain library functions of GD/Imagick.

[stevendesu]

I know this was closed some time ago, but I found the issue on Google while looking into a way to do this. I think that this actually may be possible without necessitating the use of the getCore function. I've done the following in order to try and create a glow effect and I've _nearly_ had success:

$text = "Foobar";
$textX = 50;
$textY = 50;

// Open image
$image = Image::make('foo.jpg');

// Create empty layer to put text on
$textLayer = Image::canvas( $image->width(), $image->height() );

// Draw four instances of the glow at different corners
$textLayer->text($text, $textX - 2, $textY - 2, function($font) {
    $font->file('...');
    $font->size(40);
    $font->color('#ffffff'); // Glow color
});
$textLayer->text($text, $textX - 2, $textY + 2, function($font) {
    $font->file('...');
    $font->size(40);
    $font->color('#ffffff'); // Glow color
});
$textLayer->text($text, $textX + 2, $textY - 2, function($font) {
    $font->file('...');
    $font->size(40);
    $font->color('#ffffff'); // Glow color
});
$textLayer->text($text, $textX + 2, $textY + 2, function($font) {
    $font->file('...');
    $font->size(40);
    $font->color('#ffffff'); // Glow color
});

// Apply a blur so the glow looks... glowy
$textLayer->blur(4);

// Place standard text on top of the glow effect
$textLayer->text($text, $textX, $textY, function($font) {
    $font->file('...');
    $font->size(40);
    $font->color('#000000'); // Text color
});

// Combine the two layers
$image->insert($textLayer);

When I output just the text layer:

return Response::make($textLayer->encode('png'))->header('Content-Type', 'image/png');

It has the glow and looks perfect. However after compositing the two layers the glow effect is lost and you get five instances of the text overlapping -- four white and one black.

If I could get assistance in understanding the nature of this problem (Possibly a bug in Intervention? Possibly a bug in Imagick? Possibly just me not understanding what I'm doing?) then I would think a blurredText method could be added as a shortcut to the above.

Similarly for outlined text you simply don't apply the blur method -- although if you want a border thicker than a single pixel then you might need more than 4 instances of the text to be sure there are no gaps around your serifs.

[stevendesu]

A quick update:

After some further Googling I found the following: http://www.imagemagick.org/Usage/bugs/blur_trans/

It turns out the reason returning $textLayer worked but $image did not was not a compositing glitch, but because in order to see the glow effect I was adding a background to my $textLayer - it's a glitch that occurs when you blur with no background.

This got me experimenting and I developed the following for successfully adding a blur:

$text = "Foobar";
$textX = 50;
$textY = 50;

// Open image
$image = Image::make('foo.jpg');

// Create empty layer to put text on
// Change 1: The canvas must have a **black** background. This is due to the Imagick transparent blur bug. Give it an alpha of 0.
$textLayer = Image::canvas( $image->width(), $image->height(), array(0, 0, 0, 0) );

// Draw four instances of the glow at different corners
// Change 2: Just four instances was insufficient for a good blur. I added 25
for( $x = -2; $x <= 2; $x++ ) {
    for( $y = -2; $y <= 2; $y++ ) {
        $textLayer->text($text, $textX + $x, $textY + $y, function($font) {
            $font->file('...');
            $font->size(40);
            $font->color('#ffffff'); // Glow color
        });
    }
}

// Apply a blur so the glow looks... glowy
$textLayer->blur(10);

// Place standard text on top of the glow effect
$textLayer->text($text, $textX, $textY, function($font) {
    $font->file('...');
    $font->size(40);
    $font->color('#000000'); // Text color
});

// Combine the two layers
$image->insert($textLayer);

This produced the desired effect: glowing text. Note that the boundaries on $x and $y can be adjusted to increase or decrease the glow radius, and the value on blur() should be adjusted to compensate.