# How can I put transparent text on a digital photo?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-i-put-transparent-text-on-a-digital-photo/134480
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [October 30, 2002, 2:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-i-put-transparent-text-on-a-digital-photo/134480 "2002-10-30T02:02:31Z")
**Posts on this page:** 12
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Llama\_Llogophile](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Llama_Llogophile)
#### Post date: [October 30, 2002, 2:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-i-put-transparent-text-on-a-digital-photo/134480/1 "2002-10-30T02:02:31Z")
And how can I do this without buying a really expensive graphic editor?
I have a .jpg photo of a car I sold. This photo needs to go on a web site with the word “Sold” in big red transparent letters over it.
Ideas? Thanks in advance!
G
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### Author:  [@kirk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kirk)
#### Post date: [October 30, 2002, 2:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-i-put-transparent-text-on-a-digital-photo/134480/2 "2002-10-30T02:37:23Z")
Assuming you have MS Windows, open up the Paint program under the Accessories menu, click on the text tool then under the Image menu, uncheck Draw Opaque. Type away…
If you don’t have Paint installed. Install it from Add/Remove Programs from the Control Panel. Click on Windows Setup, then go through the Accessories section and check off Paint.
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### Author:  [@Duckster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duckster)
#### Post date: [October 30, 2002, 2:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-i-put-transparent-text-on-a-digital-photo/134480/3 "2002-10-30T02:51:01Z")
Try [Paintshop Pro](http://www.jasc.com/) or [PhotoImpact](http://www.ulead.com/) under their 30-day free trials.
Besides, you might actually _like_ one/both of them. The prices are very reasonable.
Compared to [Photoshop](http://www.adobe.com/main.html) they are more cost-effective and do a better job.
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### Author:  [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)
#### Post date: [October 30, 2002, 4:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-i-put-transparent-text-on-a-digital-photo/134480/4 "2002-10-30T04:45:59Z")
You could e-mail me the photo along with the text you want attached. I’ll take care of it (using Photoshop), because I’m such a nice guy.
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### Author:  [@Shalmanese](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shalmanese)
#### Post date: [October 30, 2002, 1:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-i-put-transparent-text-on-a-digital-photo/134480/5 "2002-10-30T13:00:43Z")
Dont listen to any of the advice given. its easy to put transperant text into any photo and you dont need any fancy graphics software to do it. Just copy & paste the picture and rename the new picture as “\ with transperant text.jpg”…
Oh, you meant TRANSLUCENT text… thats a different matter all together 😃
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### Author:  [@scotth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scotth)
#### Post date: [October 30, 2002, 1:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-i-put-transparent-text-on-a-digital-photo/134480/6 "2002-10-30T13:17:17Z")
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by Duckster \*
> \*\*Try [Paintshop Pro](http://www.jasc.com/) or [PhotoImpact](http://www.ulead.com/) under their 30-day free trials.
>
> Besides, you might actually _like_ one/both of them. The prices are very reasonable.
>
> Compared to [Photoshop](http://www.adobe.com/main.html) they are more cost-effective and do a better job. \*\*
Do a better job? That is a riot. Obviously you have never taken the time to master photoshop.
For what you want to do, Ducksters advice is good. But don’t get the impression that either product holds a candle to photoshop.
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### Author:  [@dylan\_73](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dylan_73)
#### Post date: [October 30, 2002, 1:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-i-put-transparent-text-on-a-digital-photo/134480/7 "2002-10-30T13:21:53Z")
The GIMP is free to download, has a free license (GPL) and is a pretty powerful graphics package.
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### Author:  [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)
#### Post date: [October 30, 2002, 1:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-i-put-transparent-text-on-a-digital-photo/134480/8 "2002-10-30T13:24:37Z")
If **Brian** doesn’t work out, I’ll offer you the same service.
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### Author:  [@dylan\_73](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dylan_73)
#### Post date: [October 30, 2002, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-i-put-transparent-text-on-a-digital-photo/134480/9 "2002-10-30T17:22:21Z")
In preview, I noticed that this seems long and complicated. It’s not really; it makes a lot more sense when you have the GIMP opened in front of you. Anyway…
If you do decide to download the GIMP, here’s how you do this. Note that GIMP has multiple Undo, so just hit Ctrl+Z if you need to go back a step or two.
Start GIMP and make sure you have The Gimp main panel and the Layers, Channels and Paths dialog open. If it’s not open, go to File…Dialogs…Layers, Channels and Paths.
Open your image. Choose the text colour by double clicking on the Foreground & Background Colors bit at the bottom of the main panel.
Click the Text button on the main panel (the button with a T on it). Now, clicking anywhere on the image should give you the text entry box. Choose a font you like and type the text “SOLD” in the box. Don’t worry about the size; we’ll resize it later. Drag the text into the position you want.
If you want to rotate the text (if not, skip this paragraph) click the Rotation, Scaling, Shearing, Perspective button. Hard to describe, but it’s at column 5, row 2 on the main panel. If you hover the mouse over the button a description pops up anyway. Now clicking the text pops up Rotation Information. Enter an angle like 45 degrees or something, click Rotate and it’ll rotate your text.
To resize the text layer, Right Click on Floating Selection on the Layers, Channels and Paths dialog, and choose Scale Layer. Mess about with it till you get the size you want (remember, Ctrl+Z to Undo if you need to.)
You’ll notice that the Layers, Channels and Paths dialog also has a slider marked “Opacity”. You can guess what that does! Move it till you get the level of opacity you want.
To save, Right Click on the image and go to File…Save as. If you think you might want to edit this image at some point in the future, save it now in the GIMPs own format (XCF, the last on the list) to retain the Layer information.
Now Save As jpg. It’ll warn you that JPEG can’t handle Transparancy so you have to Export. This just means that you’ll lose the Layer info in this copy; you will really have the transparancy effect.
That’s it. Hmm…I’ve never done this before and I’m not very familiar with the GIMP. It was easier than I thought…quite fun too…I think I’ll try some special effects on my text now…
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### Author:  [@Llama\_Llogophile](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Llama_Llogophile)
#### Post date: [October 31, 2002, 1:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-i-put-transparent-text-on-a-digital-photo/134480/10 "2002-10-31T01:29:35Z")
Thanks folks! I’m going to try it myself with the downloads that have been suggested. Failing that, I’ll be emailing Jjimm and/or Brian. 🙂
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### Author:  [@Morbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Morbo)
#### Post date: [October 31, 2002, 1:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-i-put-transparent-text-on-a-digital-photo/134480/11 "2002-10-31T01:41:33Z")
If you already have Office, PowerPoint or Word will do it easily. Of course, if you don’t already have Office, use GIMP or one of the other cheaper ones.
- Launch PPT or Word
- Insert the picture, double-click it and get the Size off the Size tab.
- File | Page Setup and change the page to the size of the picture.
- Delete the picture. (Once the page setup changes, the picture will distort).
- Re-insert the picture, then insert red text over it. (You can rotate it, make it bigger, use WordArt, etc).
- File | Save As | Choose JPEG from the dropdown.
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### Author:  [@dylan\_73](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dylan_73)
#### Post date: [October 31, 2002, 12:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-i-put-transparent-text-on-a-digital-photo/134480/12 "2002-10-31T12:11:28Z")
**Dooku** : I don’t think Word or Powerpoint will give you the translucent effect that **Gassendi** was looking for…you can see the one I tried [here](http://www.lgu.ac.uk/~seumas/bees2.jpg). Don’t laugh; my artistic ability runs into negative figures…🙂 But you can see the kind of thing I mean.