Recently, a friend approached me to assist with a logo for his website. His previous designer had created this friend’s logo with an outline of the text. This is what I found for adding the outline using GIMP or Photoshop.

This tutorial assumes you know the basics such as layers, text tool, paint bucket and working with selections.

Photoshop solution

1. In the area you want text to appear use the Text tool and create the text you wish to outline.
2. Move your mouse over to the Layers panel and click on the text layer to make sure it is the layer selected. Then, execute the combination on Ctrl-Click, Click being the left mouse button. This will select all of your text.
3. Move your mouse to the menu and choose Select > Modify > Expand
4. This will bring up the dialog to specify how many pixels to expand the selection. For this example, we’ll specify 2 pixels
5. From the Toolbar, choose the Paint Bucket tool and select a foreground colour. For this example, I chose red.
6. This next step is important to understand. Up to this point, it was possible to resize the text. Clicking the area selected to fill-in with the chosen outline colour, you will be prompted to convert the text to a rasterized layer. This means the text will no longer be text and as such can not be edited. Click OK to proceed.
7. Using the Paint Bucket tool, fill-in the gaps between the black and the expanded selections. For letters like R and O, don’t forget to fill-in inner areas.
8. Save your work.

GIMP solution

1. In the area you want text to appear use the Text tool and create the text you wish to outline.
2. Once your text is complete, return to the Toolbox panel and click on Path from Text.
3. Move your mouse pointer to the Select menu and choose From path This will select your text.
4. Click on the Select menu once more and chose Grow…
5. For this example, grow the selection by 2 pixels. Click OK.
6. From the Toolbox menu, choose the Bucket Fill Tool and a foreground colour. For this example, red was chosen.
7. Using the Paint Bucket tool, fill-in the gaps between the black and the expanded selections. For letters like R and O, don’t forget to fill-in inner areas.
8. Save your work.