Did a senior picture shot with my subject on the beach, I wanted to add her name into the sand and give it a realistic look. Not having much luck. Anyone care to share there ideas or maybe a web site they know of that has a technique.
I like using GIMP's Bumpmap filter for this. I copy my sig with white background on top layer, fill base layer with sand (created this one; easy enough to do with the right textures) and then run GIMP's Bumpmap filter on the base layer. I did run Pick noise on the sig to make the outlines rough (when you right on sand, you don't get completely smooth outlines).