Adding a black outer glow

Hi,
I seem to be having a senior's moment here. I wish to put a white stroke around my picture (can do), and outside of that a black outer glow. What I am finding is that it doesn't matter whether the background color is white or black, the outer glow (via layer style)is always white. I've tried using a Gaussian blur on a background rectangle but the result is not the same as a natural glow.
What am I missing?

Thanks,

John

John,

In Elements, you can have any color outer glow you want -- as long as it's white.

Byron

John, I think Jodi had a method of changing the color of the outer glow that she posted here months ago. Or maybe I'M having a senior moment!

Here it is, Chuck. She was talking about inne glows, but the general principle should still work.

Byron, it appears that some of the default glows are yellow instead of white, but they're still fixed. In full Photoshop you can select the color....

OK - here's a workaround.

1. Create a New Layer
2. Make your box with the rectangular marquee
3. Edit>Stroke with white color
4. Go to Layer Style>Outer Glow and pick your desired style. Click to create glow. It may be yellow....
5. On Layers palette, click on style symbol and adjust outer glow as desired; it's still yellow.
6. When you have it just right, do a Layer>Simplify Layer. The style has now become part of the layer and is no longer adjustable
7. Go to Enhance>Color>Replace Color. Set Fuzziness to 40 or thereabouts
Click the eyedropper on the yellow glow; all the glow should be selected. Move the lightness slider to left until the glow turns black. Hit OK.

Worked okay here!

Chuck

Chuck,

My comment was more about the inability to MODIFY the color of the glow in PSE than the actual color of the pre-set glows.

I just use the blur trick when I need a glow other than white.

Byron

Barbara, thanks. I couldn't get to the link, though....

Chuck

Works okay here, too, Chuck!

Byron

Chuck here it is again:

Terri Foster "inner glows for frames ??" 11/19/03 1:03pm </cgi-bin/webx?13/7>

Barbara, thanks. That link worked!
:-)

Hi,

Thanks all for the suggestions. Chuck's method worked fine. I'll try Jodi's as well soon. As with all these great ideas people give us, I copy and paste each into an individual text file for use later on. Who can remeber all these steps? I now have quite a collection of good stuff.

When I go to the pbase site: <http://www.pbase.com/pugusers/new_work> and look at the fantastic creations people have made using various Photoshop actions, I think it would be nice to know what these actions did so that I could attempt to replicate the effects in PE2 (using many simple steps). I know that some of the steps are not available in PE2 but there is often a workaround. I have even downloaded an action or two and opened them in notepad to see if I could figure out what was going on, but the text is not clear to me.
Oh well.

Thanks again,

John

John, I'm glad it worked for you; it's kinda of a squirelly workaround, but whatever it takes.....

:-)

Chuck

Another way to make outer/inner gows that is way simple and gives you total control;

make rectangular/elliptical marquee selection around your image>make a new layer and with new layer selected use the 'stroke' command. Choose color and pixel size...30 to 40 pix>center>click OK. Deselect the stroke layer go to filter>blur>glaussian blur...set to around 15+/-. Reselect>delete(for outer glow)...for inner glow>'select inverse'>delete.

also try it by using 'screen' blend mode in stroke command screen....and/or go higher in the pixel dimensions.

this method works with any sort of selection with any of the selection tools...just remember to copy the selection to a new layer first.

Hi Jodi,
Thanks for your technique. It isn't exactly what I was looking for but I have been wondering about how to make a fading stroke outline.
Chuck's method was what I was searching for.
PS: I always read your notes on this forum as they often contain neat tricks.

John