Godzilla attacks San Francisco

On Mon, 16 Dec 2002, in alt.graphics, go_orlando wrote:

I would like to design a logo which uses a city skyline as a mask against another image so that the outlines of the buildings in the skyline would be filled by the exposed parts of the other image.

Any ideas?

The program I am using is the GIMP.

Thanks!

Here's my response, graphically

• First, I found a pair of pictures using Google's images.google.com search engine. (I also chose "Large" size in the Advanced search options.)

  I got http://www.roarvgm.com/COVERS/DC/godzilla-front.JPG and http://www.cpmission.com/bigjim/sanfran/sanfran5.jpg.

• Second, I loaded the skyline into The GIMP, a free, 'Open Source' image tool for Linux, Unix and Windows. It's quite similar to Adobe's Photoshop, just without the price tag. (Without any price tag, actually!)

• I used the 'Magic' selection tool to highlight the blue sky in the background.

• In the Layers dialog, I right-clicked the image's single layer and told Gimp to first "Add Alpha Channel", and then "Add Layer Mask."

• In the new layer mask, I used the Fill tool to fill the selection with black. This caused that part of the layer itself to be transparent. (In The Gimp, you'll see a checkered background where the sky was.)

• In the Layers dialog, I clicked the "New Layer" button at the bottom left. I then moved this new layer below the original layer, using the "Move Layer Down" button at the bottom of the dialog window.

• I loaded the Godzilla picture into The Gimp, and pasted it into the new layer. Where the sky used to be (where it's transparent now, thanks to the black color in the layer mask), Godzilla showed through.

• Just for fun, I also made a 3rd layer, between the skyline and Godzilla, and filled it in with a yellow/red/black gradient, using the Gradient tool. I set that layer's Opacity so that it didn't cover up Godzilla, but merely added some texture to it.

Alternatively, you can replace the city itself with black (or, in this case, a black/dark-purple gradient). I simply painted right over the city itself using the Gradient tool:

Here's the native Gimp file for the first picture:

• godzilla-sanfran.xcf.gz

Enjoy!