PS Elements 8 question

On Mon, 28 Dec 2009 23:36:49 +0000, Dan <dan> wrote:

How do I draw a thin black line around the edges of a rectangular picture ? I am using P.S. Elements 8 on Mac OSX Snow Leopard
This may well be a simple request, but I have tried using the help instructions on drawing rectangles without success.

Select>All>Stroke and set the stroke to black and the thickness you want.

—
Tony Cooper – Orlando, Florida

tony cooper wrote:

On Mon, 28 Dec 2009 23:36:49 +0000, Dan <dan> wrote:

How do I draw a thin black line around the edges of a rectangular picture ? I am using P.S. Elements 8 on Mac OSX Snow Leopard

Select>All>Stroke and set the stroke to black and the thickness you want.

Indeed that does work – easy when you know how – P.S."help" files never seem to deal with these simple actions. I need a good book; any ideas ?

Thanks for your help.

On Tue, 29 Dec 2009 16:26:00 +0000, Dan <dan> wrote:

tony cooper wrote:

On Mon, 28 Dec 2009 23:36:49 +0000, Dan <dan> wrote:

How do I draw a thin black line around the edges of a rectangular picture ? I am using P.S. Elements 8 on Mac OSX Snow Leopard

Select>All>Stroke and set the stroke to black and the thickness you want.

Indeed that does work – easy when you know how – P.S."help" files never seem to deal with these simple actions. I need a good book; any ideas ?

I’ll give you the same advice I always give to this question…go to a Borders, a Barnes & Noble, a Books-A-Million, or whatever bookstore you have in the area where you live. Leaf through all of the books on Photoshop that they have and then purchase the book that you find the easiest to follow.

Over the years that I’ve used Photoshop I’ve purchased dozens of books. Some, that were highly recommended, were difficult for me to follow.

If it’s a question about a specific task, Google. While I routinely add the stroke borders to my images, and have been doing so for some time, I Googled "Photoshop making borders" and found this: http://www.scrapjazz.com/topics/Computer_Center/Software/852 .php

There’s an on-line tutorial for just about anything you want to do.

—
Tony Cooper – Orlando, Florida

Dan <dan@?.?.invalid> was inspired to say

tony cooper wrote:

On Mon, 28 Dec 2009 23:36:49 +0000, Dan <dan> wrote:

How do I draw a thin black line around the edges of a rectangular picture ? I am using P.S. Elements 8 on Mac OSX Snow Leopard

Select>All>Stroke and set the stroke to black and the thickness you want.

Indeed that does work – easy when you know how – P.S."help" files never seem to deal with these simple actions. I need a good book; any ideas ?

Interesting, I’ve been using Elements for about 6 years and never used that command!

Having now tried it out (in PSE 5), it creates a border inside the photo (all selected) but cannot create a border *outside* the existing photo (ie outside the selection). That means that my carefully framed picture is messed up by a selection.

I can see, however, that it’s useful for a transparent border effect and for drawing lines around irregular areas in the image.
But perhaps there’s something I’ve missed.

I’ve been using the canvas size command;
Image/Resize/Canvas size with relative checked.
That gives me in two operations a thin white line inside a thicker black one.

I really would like a Photoshop action set up for me to make this easier! (One of the problems with Elements.)

Mike
—
Michael J Davis

<><
"I never have taken a picture I’ve intended.
They’re always better or worse."
Diane Arbus
<><

On Thu, 31 Dec 2009 13:02:29 +0000, Michael J Davis
wrote:

Dan <dan@?.?.invalid> was inspired to say

tony cooper wrote:

On Mon, 28 Dec 2009 23:36:49 +0000, Dan <dan> wrote:

How do I draw a thin black line around the edges of a rectangular picture ? I am using P.S. Elements 8 on Mac OSX Snow Leopard

Select>All>Stroke and set the stroke to black and the thickness you want.

Indeed that does work – easy when you know how – P.S."help" files never seem to deal with these simple actions. I need a good book; any ideas ?

Interesting, I’ve been using Elements for about 6 years and never used that command!

Having now tried it out (in PSE 5), it creates a border inside the photo (all selected) but cannot create a border *outside* the existing photo (ie outside the selection). That means that my carefully framed picture is messed up by a selection.

I can’t figure out what you are doing. The Select>All>Stroke puts a line the width of the number of pixels you designate completely around the image at the outer edge of the photograph.

There two reasons I use this:

1. When the image is to be put up for view on the web, a fine line around the image frames the image. If the image is to be displayed on a white background, I’ll use a black stroke. Here’s an example of an image with a 5 px black stroke.

http://tonycooper.smugmug.com/photos/753852484_N5GdQ-XL.jpg

If the image is to be displayed on a black background, I’ll use a white stroke. Since I usually put images up on SmugMug or in DGrin, which has a black background, I usually use a white stroke.

I like a thin line, but any thickness can be set.

2. If the image is to be printed and framed, I’ll use a wider stroke so part of the image is not covered by the frame. Usually, I stroke in white, but there are times I may select a color for this.

If the image is not the same ratio as the frame, I’ll use Image>Resize>Canvas Size and set the background color to the color I want as the border.

However, sometimes – for this purpose – I’ll use File>New and create a new canvas of the appropriate size and fill with the color I want. Then I go to Window>Tile and use the move tool to bring the photo onto the new canvas and use Free Transform to position and size the photo on the new canvas. Then flatten.

Note…I work in CS4, but I have Elements. All of the above steps can be done in either program as written. The image above was stroked in Elements.

—
Tony Cooper – Orlando, Florida

tony cooper was inspired to say

On Thu, 31 Dec 2009 13:02:29 +0000, Michael J Davis
wrote:

Dan <dan@?.?.invalid> was inspired to say

tony cooper wrote:

On Mon, 28 Dec 2009 23:36:49 +0000, Dan <dan> wrote:

How do I draw a thin black line around the edges of a rectangular picture ? I am using P.S. Elements 8 on Mac OSX Snow Leopard

Select>All>Stroke and set the stroke to black and the thickness you want.

Indeed that does work – easy when you know how – P.S."help" files never seem to deal with these simple actions. I need a good book; any ideas ?

Interesting, I’ve been using Elements for about 6 years and never used that command!

Having now tried it out (in PSE 5), it creates a border inside the photo (all selected) but cannot create a border *outside* the existing photo (ie outside the selection). That means that my carefully framed picture is messed up by a selection.

I can’t figure out what you are doing. The Select>All>Stroke puts a line the width of the number of pixels you designate completely around the image at the outer edge of the photograph.

There two reasons I use this:

1. When the image is to be put up for view on the web, a fine line around the image frames the image. If the image is to be displayed on a white background, I’ll use a black stroke. Here’s an example of an image with a 5 px black stroke.

http://tonycooper.smugmug.com/photos/753852484_N5GdQ-XL.jpg
If the image is to be displayed on a black background, I’ll use a white stroke. Since I usually put images up on SmugMug or in DGrin, which has a black background, I usually use a white stroke.
I like a thin line, but any thickness can be set.

2. If the image is to be printed and framed, I’ll use a wider stroke so part of the image is not covered by the frame. Usually, I stroke in white, but there are times I may select a color for this.
If the image is not the same ratio as the frame, I’ll use Image>Resize>Canvas Size and set the background color to the color I want as the border.

However, sometimes – for this purpose – I’ll use File>New and create a new canvas of the appropriate size and fill with the color I want. Then I go to Window>Tile and use the move tool to bring the photo onto the new canvas and use Free Transform to position and size the photo on the new canvas. Then flatten.

Note…I work in CS4, but I have Elements. All of the above steps can be done in either program as written. The image above was stroked in Elements.

Tony, many thanks for the reply – with some useful comments. But I haven’t made myself clear. Let me explain by a practical example (in Elements 5).

1. Create a new blank canvas 1000pixels sq.
2. Fill it with a white fill
3. Select it
4. Apply Stroke 25pixels black Outside
5. Nothing happens!

The canvas does NOT expand to provide a surround. If I select Centre stroke, I get a 12 pixel surround inside the canvas, and if I choose Inside, I get a 25pixel surround inside the canvas edge.

This confirms what I am saying above – that, having cropped the picture to the composition I want, applying Stroke (centre or inside) cuts off some of my picture. So I can only get the effect I want by enlarging the canvas. If I have to do that, there’s no point in using Stroke as I can, more simply choose the extension colour directly.

Your description – correctly – uses a layer to resize the finished canvas. That’s fine, but is essentially the same as I’m describing.

Now are we at cross purposes here? Is there something I’ve missed?

Thanks

Mike
—
Michael J Davis
<><
"I never have taken a picture I’ve intended.
They’re always better or worse."
Diane Arbus
<><

On Thu, 7 Jan 2010 15:21:51 +0000, Michael J Davis
wrote:

tony cooper was inspired to say

On Thu, 31 Dec 2009 13:02:29 +0000, Michael J Davis
wrote:

Dan <dan@?.?.invalid> was inspired to say

tony cooper wrote:

On Mon, 28 Dec 2009 23:36:49 +0000, Dan <dan> wrote:

How do I draw a thin black line around the edges of a rectangular picture ? I am using P.S. Elements 8 on Mac OSX Snow Leopard

Select>All>Stroke and set the stroke to black and the thickness you want.

Indeed that does work – easy when you know how – P.S."help" files never seem to deal with these simple actions. I need a good book; any ideas ?

Interesting, I’ve been using Elements for about 6 years and never used that command!

Having now tried it out (in PSE 5), it creates a border inside the photo (all selected) but cannot create a border *outside* the existing photo (ie outside the selection). That means that my carefully framed picture is messed up by a selection.

I can’t figure out what you are doing. The Select>All>Stroke puts a line the width of the number of pixels you designate completely around the image at the outer edge of the photograph.

There two reasons I use this:

1. When the image is to be put up for view on the web, a fine line around the image frames the image. If the image is to be displayed on a white background, I’ll use a black stroke. Here’s an example of an image with a 5 px black stroke.

http://tonycooper.smugmug.com/photos/753852484_N5GdQ-XL.jpg
If the image is to be displayed on a black background, I’ll use a white stroke. Since I usually put images up on SmugMug or in DGrin, which has a black background, I usually use a white stroke.
I like a thin line, but any thickness can be set.

2. If the image is to be printed and framed, I’ll use a wider stroke so part of the image is not covered by the frame. Usually, I stroke in white, but there are times I may select a color for this.
If the image is not the same ratio as the frame, I’ll use Image>Resize>Canvas Size and set the background color to the color I want as the border.

However, sometimes – for this purpose – I’ll use File>New and create a new canvas of the appropriate size and fill with the color I want. Then I go to Window>Tile and use the move tool to bring the photo onto the new canvas and use Free Transform to position and size the photo on the new canvas. Then flatten.

Note…I work in CS4, but I have Elements. All of the above steps can be done in either program as written. The image above was stroked in Elements.

Tony, many thanks for the reply – with some useful comments. But I haven’t made myself clear. Let me explain by a practical example (in Elements 5).

1. Create a new blank canvas 1000pixels sq.
2. Fill it with a white fill
3. Select it
4. Apply Stroke 25pixels black Outside
5. Nothing happens!

The canvas does NOT expand to provide a surround. If I select Centre stroke, I get a 12 pixel surround inside the canvas, and if I choose Inside, I get a 25pixel surround inside the canvas edge.

This is really an easy concept to understand if you think about it as an exercise with paper and pen. If you put a white 3 x 5 card on your desk and use a felt-tip pen with a tip width of 1/4" and try to draw a border around the 3 x 5 card.

If you draw the border *outside* the edge of the card you don’t mark the card at all. If you draw the border with the pen *centered* on the edge of the card you will create a border 1/8" around the card (half the pen tip is on the paper). If you draw the border with the pen *inside* the edge of the card you will create a border 1/4" wide on the card.

All of this is obvious when you do it with a pen and paper. Do it on a computer screen and the same things happen. You do not expect the border you draw on paper to expand the size of the 3 x 5 card, and you should not expect a stroke on the computer screen to expand that canvas.

This confirms what I am saying above – that, having cropped the picture to the composition I want, applying Stroke (centre or inside) cuts off some of my picture. So I can only get the effect I want by enlarging the canvas. If I have to do that, there’s no point in using Stroke as I can, more simply choose the extension colour directly.

If you want to use stroke, then you compose the image to include an area on outer edges that the stroke will cover up. Again, go back to the pen and paper exercise. The mark the pen makes covers up part of the card. The stroke does the same thing to the image. "Stroke" is exactly like using a felt-tip pen on your image.

To do what you want with the stroke function, then just crop or compose your image to include an area that you are prepared to cover up.

Another way to do it is to use Free Transform to reduce the image to 975 pixels square and then stroke. Using Free Transform, you reduce the image but not the canvas. Personally, I’d compose with a 25 pixel area around the outside that you are willing to cover up.

Your description – correctly – uses a layer to resize the finished canvas. That’s fine, but is essentially the same as I’m describing.
Now are we at cross purposes here? Is there something I’ve missed?

The thing you’re missing is that you select the right tool for the job. Stroke is the wrong tool if you don’t want to cover up any of the image because stroking at 100% opacity is covering up some of the image. Stroke is the right tool if the image can lose the part of the image the stroke covers up.

—
Tony Cooper – Orlando, Florida

tony cooper was inspired to say

On Thu, 7 Jan 2010 15:21:51 +0000, Michael J Davis
wrote:

tony cooper was inspired to say

On Thu, 31 Dec 2009 13:02:29 +0000, Michael J Davis
wrote:

Dan <dan@?.?.invalid> was inspired to say

tony cooper wrote:

On Mon, 28 Dec 2009 23:36:49 +0000, Dan <dan> wrote:

How do I draw a thin black line around the edges of a rectangular picture ? I am using P.S. Elements 8 on Mac OSX Snow Leopard

Select>All>Stroke and set the stroke to black and the thickness you want.

Indeed that does work – easy when you know how – P.S."help" files never seem to deal with these simple actions. I need a good book; any ideas ?

Interesting, I’ve been using Elements for about 6 years and never used that command!

Having now tried it out (in PSE 5), it creates a border inside the photo (all selected) but cannot create a border *outside* the existing photo (ie outside the selection). That means that my carefully framed picture is messed up by a selection.

I can’t figure out what you are doing. The Select>All>Stroke puts a line the width of the number of pixels you designate completely around the image at the outer edge of the photograph.

There two reasons I use this:

1. When the image is to be put up for view on the web, a fine line around the image frames the image. If the image is to be displayed on a white background, I’ll use a black stroke. Here’s an example of an image with a 5 px black stroke.

http://tonycooper.smugmug.com/photos/753852484_N5GdQ-XL.jpg
If the image is to be displayed on a black background, I’ll use a white stroke. Since I usually put images up on SmugMug or in DGrin, which has a black background, I usually use a white stroke.
I like a thin line, but any thickness can be set.

2. If the image is to be printed and framed, I’ll use a wider stroke so part of the image is not covered by the frame. Usually, I stroke in white, but there are times I may select a color for this.
If the image is not the same ratio as the frame, I’ll use Image>Resize>Canvas Size and set the background color to the color I want as the border.

However, sometimes – for this purpose – I’ll use File>New and create a new canvas of the appropriate size and fill with the color I want. Then I go to Window>Tile and use the move tool to bring the photo onto the new canvas and use Free Transform to position and size the photo on the new canvas. Then flatten.

Note…I work in CS4, but I have Elements. All of the above steps can be done in either program as written. The image above was stroked in Elements.

Tony, many thanks for the reply – with some useful comments. But I haven’t made myself clear. Let me explain by a practical example (in Elements 5).

1. Create a new blank canvas 1000pixels sq.
2. Fill it with a white fill
3. Select it
4. Apply Stroke 25pixels black Outside
5. Nothing happens!

The canvas does NOT expand to provide a surround. If I select Centre stroke, I get a 12 pixel surround inside the canvas, and if I choose Inside, I get a 25pixel surround inside the canvas edge.

This is really an easy concept to understand if you think about it as an exercise with paper and pen. If you put a white 3 x 5 card on your desk and use a felt-tip pen with a tip width of 1/4" and try to draw a border around the 3 x 5 card.

If you draw the border *outside* the edge of the card you don’t mark the card at all. If you draw the border with the pen *centered* on the edge of the card you will create a border 1/8" around the card (half the pen tip is on the paper). If you draw the border with the pen *inside* the edge of the card you will create a border 1/4" wide on the card.

All of this is obvious when you do it with a pen and paper. Do it on a computer screen and the same things happen. You do not expect the border you draw on paper to expand the size of the 3 x 5 card, and you should not expect a stroke on the computer screen to expand that canvas.

This confirms what I am saying above – that, having cropped the picture to the composition I want, applying Stroke (centre or inside) cuts off some of my picture. So I can only get the effect I want by enlarging the canvas. If I have to do that, there’s no point in using Stroke as I can, more simply choose the extension colour directly.

If you want to use stroke, then you compose the image to include an area on outer edges that the stroke will cover up. Again, go back to the pen and paper exercise. The mark the pen makes covers up part of the card. The stroke does the same thing to the image. "Stroke" is exactly like using a felt-tip pen on your image.

To do what you want with the stroke function, then just crop or compose your image to include an area that you are prepared to cover up.

Another way to do it is to use Free Transform to reduce the image to 975 pixels square and then stroke. Using Free Transform, you reduce the image but not the canvas. Personally, I’d compose with a 25 pixel area around the outside that you are willing to cover up.

Your description – correctly – uses a layer to resize the finished canvas. That’s fine, but is essentially the same as I’m describing.
Now are we at cross purposes here? Is there something I’ve missed?

The thing you’re missing is that you select the right tool for the job. Stroke is the wrong tool if you don’t want to cover up any of the image because stroking at 100% opacity is covering up some of the image. Stroke is the right tool if the image can lose the part of the image the stroke covers up.

Tony, thanks again.

I don’t use stroke because I use resize canvas for putting a border around my pictures.

The original poster, Dan, asked:-

"How do I draw a thin black line around the edges of a rectangular picture ?"

I merely pointed out that Stroke (a command that I rarely use) took away from some of the picture. I wondered if I was missing something. You have confirmed that I wasn’t. Thanks!

(I can however see some uses for stroke that I may wish to use in the future, notably irregular borders. Again thanks.)

Mike
—
Michael J Davis

<><
"I never have taken a picture I’ve intended.
They’re always better or worse."
Diane Arbus
<><