Build a larger rectangle and stroke the inside.
Create a selection of the rectangle and stroke it via the edit menu on a new layer
Scott,
I just tried your suggestion and the corners are truncated, just as Steve describes in his original post. I tried outside and center and the corner angle of a center stroke is 1/2 length of the corner angle of an outside stroke.
There are plenty of ways to get what you want, but unfortunately none of them seem to work with a stroke to the outside. I don’t get the reason PS wants to truncate those corners. What is the practical value of that default?
know its not probably suitable, but have you thought about stroking a path with a square un aliased brush?
Surely the reason is that an inside stroke is confined inside the unfeathered Selection while a centered or outside stroke just places an unrestrained track of anti-aliased pixels around the Selection?
Tis been a complaint for a long time.
well the reason behind it is because selections work on an image basis rather than a mathmatical basis…its the same reason why when you expand a selection the corners go round.
Yeah, makes sense on one level. I think we’d rather they take into consideration the fact that almost nobody wants it to do this. It’s obviously possible to create an outline to the outside of a selected area, with square edges. Why not write the program to do what the obvious intent of the average user would be?
Sorry, but I don’t see why this is a problem!
Why not just make the Selection to the correct size and stroke on the inside of it?
Let’s say I want to add a 6 pt. stroke to a rectangular image within the document. I don’t want the stroke to cover up any of that image. The most sensible way to add the stroke would be to add the stroke to the outside of that area, whether using the layer stroke style or selecting the rectangular image area and adding a stroke to the outside. It’s a fairly pointless bother to have to make your selection 6 points bigger all around then adding a stroke to the inside just to get square edges. My workaround would be to stroke the selection with a 12 pt pencil brush, re-selecting the inside 6 pts and deleting it, but that’s also a bother. Sure there’s ways to do it, but it seems the default way of building a stroke to the outside of a selection would be to give a square selection square corners. I’m probably mainly just used to that logic from the way it works in layout apps, but I don’t understand what the practical value to the user might be of rounding the corners by default.
there isnt…its just the way it was programmed, me thinks. Its more of a look what it can do rather than designing it to do what people want it to do. Whether its possible to do it with the existing program framework i dont know, but it is about time PS un shackled itself a little from the past’s capabilities and started building the app around peoples needs. Probably wont happen until we have another gfx revolution.
Photoshop is a pixel editor. It’s strokes are based on brushes. If you want to paint a square corner, make a square brush, as has already been suggested. Vector-based strokes would be nice, but hardly revolutionary. When I need a precise shape or vector element, I draw it in Illustrator and copy it into Photoshop. When Photoshop’s engineers run out of truly revolutionary ideas like Shadow/Highlight, Match Color, the new File Browser, and extensive support for 16-bits/channel, I’m sure they will find the time make a better box.
The square-brush idea doesn’t work if you insist on stroking outside of the selection: you get a little bevel on each corner.
[However, I still don’t see why it is apparently so difficult to use the Transform Selection to size a selection to exactly the size that you need and run the stroke inside!]
I stand corrected: Square brushes make beveled corners.
Nobody said it was difficult. Just a touch non-intuitive. Not what I’ve come to expect from a "stroke to outside." I’ll be darned if anyone actually uses the stroke to outside feature on rectangular selections as it stands. Seems pointless to have it available if it creates effects that aren’t what the user expects by definition. Call it "add pixels to outside" instead of "stroke to outside" and maybe it wouldn’t concern me at all.
Best answer to any question like this should consider the specifications for: What are you trying to do? Which applications will be used in producing the work? Which application will hold the final output? Quantity of images? Resolution of images? And more. There are inherent ‘best avenues’ that can be incorporated depending on the working environment and desired end result.
If this is simply an academic question for using Photoshop only, then I would try shapes or build border ‘frames’ using paths>selection and fill.
For most real-world production schemes, I would most likely add the frames later in another application. (Actually, I would most likely not add strokes around an image at all, because of the over-use of this technique during the early days of Quark.)
I suspect that the borders-around-photographs fashion goes back to the days of paste-ups: it made it easier for the guys who had to strip the separations into the line-film.
I tend to increase my canvas size in all directions so many pixels and add a new layer underneath the image to create borders rather than using any sort of stroke.
Ann, I used to be a stripper, and I think that stripping into a ‘window’ was easiest. I never saw that much use of borders around pics.
Welles has a good approach.
Ken-
Perhaps you should elaborate on your experiences as a stripper…
<g>
And he preferred to do it with an open window
I left the window open on that one.
Well, close the window.
And draw the damned shades while you’re at it.
🙂
My Chippendales License is still in effect, so I’m sworn to secrecy on the special techniques of dancing on the light tables.
My stage name was "X-acto Mondo."
For most real-world production schemes, I would most likely add the frames later in another application.
I tend to increase my canvas size in all directions so many pixels and add a new layer underneath the image to create borders rather than using any sort of stroke.
The question isn’t about adding strokes to your entire image area, but about adding strokes to a selection within an image. That’s sort of like saying you shouldn’t create stroked rectangles in Illustrator, but leave it until you import into a page layout program. There are plenty of uses for stroked rectangles when building artwork in Photoshop. Photoshop does a fine job of creating exactly what you want. The only thing being questioned is the logic of a rounded or beveled stroke to the outside. One simply expects a square selection to give a square stroke, whether inside, outside, or centered. If it doesn’t, fine. We’ll work around it. But we’re still going to wonder why.
"One simply expects a square selection to give a square stroke"
See, I just don’t see it that way. I expect a stroke to maintain a certain amount of distance from the given perimeter in question. When this perimeter comes to a corner as in the 90 degree bend you are referencing here, as it enters into negotiations to make the turn, remembering that the outside of the stroke will maintain the initially established distance from the perimeter, it must begin, at that point, to make a radius in order to maintain a equidistance from the original perimeter. What you are asking, is that the stroke begin to think for you and extend beyond the originally established distance from the perimeter. What you want is for the stroke to begin to think in terms of mitering at best.
I just don’t think that you can expect a computer to think what you are thinking. Simply following instructions is what they do best, and making a rounded corner at at bend is following instructions to maintain stroke width.
I think what’s needed is to have it the way it is in Freehand (and probably Illustrator) where you can choose what the corners and line ends will be. I can see this happening in the Layer Styles Stroke if not in Edit>Stroke in a future version. It’s a little surprising that it’s not there yet.
Ed, that is vector-program behaviour.
Would that method work in a pixel-based program?
An "inside" stroke in Photoshop is surely just a Fill — constrained to a designated thickness?
"One simply expects a square selection to give a square stroke"
yes they do…thats logical…if you start with something square and ask someone to make a border they dont start shaving corners off or rounding them…thats why rounded corners is a second option in illustrator for strokes, thats why rounded corners are the option on shapes etc…
you ask someone to draw an outline around a box, i bet you 99.99% of people will draw corners on it.
however PS is sitting on what it can do rather than what it should, which is why a lot of things work the way they do in PS. The world has caught up with the computer, now its time it started to push forward instead of sitting on its arse.
If Photoshop made strokes with square corners, there would be a huge faction, including me, that would want it to be developed to the point where it would maintain stroke width as an improvement, thus, yielding rounded corners. Either way, there is most use for the operator who knows how to accomplish either as he/she wishes.
Really? You’ve actually got a practical day-to-day use for those rounded corners on boxes? You’ve used them and would find your work restricted without them? Don’t read me wrong. I’m not challenging you. I’m just amazed. (And a bit curious) I just can’t imagine what I’d ever need that for. If PS had always created square corners on outside boxes, I’d be genuinely surprised if anyone had ever once posted a question on the forum asking "How do I get PS to round the corners when I give it a stroke to the outside?" You honestly think you and a huge faction would have been wondering why corners were always at right angles? I guess I just haven’t yet learned how to think outside the box (so to speak).
I still think it’s semantic. If they just called it something else it wouldn’t be an issue.
there is most use for the operator who knows how to accomplish either as he/she wishes
Dittos.
