Aqua Gimp

First, create an image of size 660 wid by 520 tall. The size will be reduces later for reasons that will be apparent. Set the foreground color to 5b8596 and the background color to 8eb4c4. Click on the gradient tool and set shape to radial. Click and drag from the center about half of an inch way out. Now click on Filters -> Distorts -> Waves. Set Wavelength to 40.0, amplitude to 3.0, phase to 0.0, and make sure Reflective is checked and hit Ok. We should now have some reflective blue wavey water. Click on create a new layer in the layers box, and make it fill the layer with white. Click on Layer -> Scale layer and scale the layer to 330 wide by 260 high. In the layers box, turn the opacity of this layer down to 25. This white layer will act as a guide for the size our image will eventually be. Now click on the Background layer. Click on the perspective button in tools or hit shift-p to adjust perspective. Click and drag each corner in turn until they are in positions similar to what is show below.

Make sure our perspective altered waves cover up the white box completely. When done hit Transform on the perspective box. Now click on Image -> Canvas Size and set the Canvas Size to 330 wide by 260 height. Click on the Center button and hit ok. Now that we have a correctly sized image, click on the white layer in the layers box. Press CTRL-k to clear the layer to transparent and drag the layer's Opacity back up to 1.0. Right click on the layer and click on Edit Layer Attributes and change the layer name to Text and hit Ok. Now click on the Text Tool in the Tool box and click on the image. Create the word GIMP and set it to the font Courier New Bold size 100(or whatever looks good to you). Set the color to black for now. Center the word above the center of the waves using the move tool. When that's done, right click on the GIMP text layer and click merge down to put it on the transparent layer. Use the same method to create the word the, size 24, centered above the letter I. Then with the text layer selected, click on duplicate layer. Hide the newly created top layer by clicking on the eye to the left of it in the layers box. Select the Text layer(not the Text copy layer) and click on the select by color tool (or hit SHIFT-o). Click on one of the letters in the word and it will select all of them. Now click on the bucket fill tool(SHIFT-B) and in tool options select patter fill, and fill whole selection with the Amethyst(selected from the patterns box). Now click Select -> none. Click on the Text copy layer. Click on Filters -> Blur -> Gaussian Blur. Set horizontal and vertical blur to 5.0 and hit ok. Now select the Text layer and click on Filters -> Map -> Bump map. Select the text copy layer as the bump map, and match your settings to the settings shown below.

Press ok when done. Once the bump mapping is complete we can delete the Text copy layer. Click on the Text copy later and click on the Delete layer button. Now click on duplicate layer to duplicate the text layer. Name this new layer Reflection by right clicking on it and clicking on Edit Layer Attributes. With this new layer selected click Layer -> Transform -> Flip Vertically. Use the move tool to position the upside down text right below the original text. Now click on Filters -> Distort -> Ripple and use the settings show below:

Now select the background layer and click on Duplicate layer in the layers box. Name the new layer Water by right clicking on it and clicking on Edit Layer Attributes. Now we want to re-order our layers to put the Text layer on top, the Water layer second, then the Reflection layer, then the background layer on the bottom. Use the up and down arrows in the layers box to move the currently selected layer to do so. Set transparency on the water layer to 60 or so. For a finishing touch I added a new layer, used the selection tool to draw a fish, flood filled the fish with Amethyst also, and added the wilber image (scaled down to width 60) as the head of the fish. Move this layer down below the Water level. Now for a few finishing touches. Click on Image -> Flatten Image. Click on Select -> Rounded Rectangle and set percent to 30. Click on the Rectangle select tool and hold down shift while selecting the bottom two corners to select them also. Click on select then invert and flood fill the corners white. Select none and you're done :)

Original XCF here and here

about the tutorial

This image was part of the 10th Anniversary of the first release of GIMP.

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