Creative Effects Challenge No. 218 - Word Cloud Art

[tonyw]

I got the idea for this challenge from a post by Lillias on How to Create Word Art  and on further investigation a Blue Lightning video  .

Although there are several sites for incorporating Word Clouds into images the wordart.com one does seem to be particularly good and it's free to use with no registration required. The BlueLightning video gives a very good summary of how to take an image and add a word cloud to it using wordart.com.

You can start with any image editing program and basically select a shape that you want to fill with words, import it into wordart.com, add the words, select the font, colour and a bunch of other options and then download back into your editing program and carry on from there. The only thing to watch is that the free image size is smallish so downsize your image to start (I used 1000 pixels maximum).

The Blue Lightning video is a bit fuzzy on getting the image into wordart.com and does a convert to smart object to a layer at this step. I don't quite understand this and there is no need for it - just save the image to a jpg or png file and import that as a shape into wordart.com.

As for the words you can create a list of your own or import a poem, a speech or anything else that comes to mind. If you don't like some words you can remove them or adjust their importance/size.

Here are a couple of examples. For the first one I created the black on white text in PSE and imported that as a shape in wordart.com - adding the words from Auld Lang Syne. Back in PSE added a background pattern and layer styles to the text. Second was a face from Unsplash and a poem by Dylan Thomas.





Lots of possibilities - I'll leave it up to you to find other creative approaches and above all have some fun doing it!

Tony

[hmca]

Fun challenge! I probably didn't start with the best shape as there wasn't a lot of room for the words to show.

Meant to be a tiger for Clemson football.  Look forward to trying this again.

[tonyw]

Jan 6, 2024 16:36:49 GMT hmca said:

Fun challenge! I probably didn't start with the best shape as there wasn't a lot of room for the words to show.

Meant to be a tiger for Clemson football.  Look forward to trying this again.

Good one - I wonder what it would look like if you inverted the face and added the words to the inverse.  That would certainly give more word room.  Thanks for getting the challenge started.

Tony

[Lillias]

Thanks for the challenge Tony.
I imported a silhouette image from HiClipart.
I wasn't too happy with the first result as there was no definition to the outline of the image. So I opened the original image and obtaining an outline from it I placed it on the wordart image at a reduced opacity.

[hmca]

Tried again....still can't read the words.....but I had some fun and frustration trying to work this out. When I get around to doing another one I will choose a better shape to work with. All part of the learning process, so good exercise.

[fotofrank]

Thanks for this one.

My Take

[tonyw]

Jan 6, 2024 19:10:37 GMT Lillias said:

Thanks for the challenge Tony.
I imported a silhouette image from HiClipart.
I wasn't too happy with the first result as there was no definition to the outline of the image. So I opened the original image and obtaining an outline from it I placed it on the wordart image at a reduced opacity.

Very well done and I found much the same thing with my face and I think did much the same as you to fix it - I remember playing around with blend modes and opacity to get it to look the way I wanted.  Good choice of words too!

Tony

[tonyw]

Jan 6, 2024 21:47:13 GMT fotofrank said:

Thanks for this one.

My Take

That's very different and I like it.  Very cleverly done Frank.  Made me think Word Art could make an interesting background.

Tony

[tonyw]

Jan 6, 2024 19:49:50 GMT hmca said:

Tried again....still can't read the words.....but I had some fun and frustration trying to work this out. When I get around to doing another one I will choose a better shape to work with. All part of the learning process, so good exercise.

Good try and you are probably right that the shape is not the best as there are no big areas to fill with words either in the original or the inverse. 

Tony   

[kdcintx]

i.ibb.co/N9knVd8/Untitled.jpg

[Jim]

Music...

[tonyw]

Jan 7, 2024 9:41:39 GMT Jim said:

Music...

Good choice of words and shape Jim!

Tony

[pontiac1940]

Tony,
Thank you. That is excellent. Thanks to you and Lillias
One could get locked into that for a few hours ... or days.
Question: In one attempt the words were across the work area (i.e., outside of the bird) and not contained inside the bird. I could not find a "button" to click. When re-done it was fine.  
Clive

“Hope” is the thing with feathers

BY EMILY DICKINSON

[hmca]

Created the shape in Photoshop.....and then couldn't stop playing.
Yellow Submarine

[tonyw]

Jan 7, 2024 17:25:47 GMT pontiac1940 said:

Tony,
Thank you. That is excellent. Thanks to you and Lillias
One could get locked into that for a few hours ... or days.
Question: In one attempt the words were across the work area (i.e., outside of the bird) and not contained inside the bird. I could not find a "button" to click. When re-done it was fine.  
Clive

“Hope” is the thing with feathers

BY EMILY DICKINSON

That looks good Clive - and yes you can play around for hours with it!  I think the button to click in cases like that is the edit one under shapes that brings up a screen where you can adjust threshold and edges.  If you import a jpg image where you haven't done a selection and made the background white setting the threshold to 100% will fill the whole image with the words.  Bring the threshold down and and it will increasingly remove words from the lightest areas of the image.  You can also check negative and it will do the reverse.  I think that's the way it works but haven't really played much with it.

Tony