Drawing shapes with borders? - Adobe Photoshop & Illustrator

[Peter Duniho]

Okay, this is probably a silly question. But I'm new to Photoshop Elements, so someone please bear with me.

PE includes some basic drawing tools. These are really handy for creating new images from scratch (i.e. illustrations, rather than photo editing, even though PE isn't really an illustration program), as well as adding highlights to photographic images.

However, I don't seem to be able to figure out how to draw geometric shapes that have a border, or how to draw unfilled shapes. I realize that those concepts are more in line with paint, illustration, or object-oriented drawing programs, but given that PE has shape tools in the first place, I'm surprised there's not any obvious way to choose from the usual two-part options (fill and border, each being optional and having its own color, and the border thickness being able to be specified).

Am I missing something obvious? Or is this really not in PE? If it's not in there, any suggestions on good techniques for faking it?

Thanks!
pete

[Jodi Frye]

Peter, you do not mention if you need to keep your shape in vector format or not which is key to answering your question. Rasterizing ( simplify ) the shape layer leaves it open to all possibilities of editing...just go to toolbar under 'edit' and all your needs are there for a rasterized shape...'stroke' is the one that ads a border in color and size you want. First thing you would have to though is select the layer so that the 'marching ants' are around it ( hold down control key and click on layer in palette ). Anyways, 'clear ' is there or just click delete on keyboard for an unfilled raster selection. As far as keeping it vector; once you place your first shape on your canvas you'll see a toolbar pop up with 4 little square boxes of different shape options. Play with those for the 'work around '.

[Patti Anderson]

I think Pete is looking for outlines on his shapes, but called them borders. I asked a similar question back on August 10. I had it bookmarked, so here are two of the great answers I received that I think will help.

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From Beth Haney:
If you just want to encircle something in red, use the Elliptical Marquee tool to create the circle, and then go to Edit>Stroke and set the width of your outline in pixels and the color. Or you can select the custom shape tool and then select the option of a hollow ellipse under "Shapes" on the Option Bar.

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From imacgirl/Barb:
You can create an outline using any of the Custom Shapes.

1) Choose the Custom Shape you want, I filled mine with black (this will be removed later). Simplify it.

2) Select the black shape with the Magic Wand and go to Edit>Stroke. Select the color you want, the pixel width and the location. I used light blue, 10 pixels and outside. Hit OK and deselect it.

3) Now select the black shape area with the Magic Wand and go to Edit>Clear. Deselect it. You should now have an outline of your shape in the color you want.

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Patti