Drawing shapes with Shape tool??!!

[annaharvey]

Hi, I wondered if anyone could help here. I'm sure it's simple but my brain won't engage!! Too many late nights with the new baby! How can I draw a rectangle, like a border, around an image, and still see the image. Can I change the width and colour of the line?? It's driving me mad. Thanks :?

[MikeH]

Hi Anna,

There is a video tutorial on this in the free section of the web site:

http://www.photoshopelementsuser.com/videotips/

Is this what you are trying to do?

Post back how you get on and whether you have any questions.

Mike

[annaharvey]

Hi Mike, Thanks for the reply. I've looked at this but it's not quite what I want. Basically I have a collection of images all on different layers, coming together to form a montage, on one larger canvas. I want to frame some of the images on that canvas with a silver grey or black line to give the overall montage some structure. My images are taken on white backgrounds so they look like they are floating around at the moment, they need to be grounded with a border ot two.

Anna

[MikeH]

Anna,

Oh sorry... OK to do what you want,the Shape tool isn't the thing to use. Instead you draw a border using the Rectangular Marquee Tool. Here's how:

:arrow: Make a new layer above the Background Layer.

:arrow: Use the Rectangular Marquee tool to draw a selection around the image.

:arrow: To draw a border around more than one image, just hold the SHIFT key down.

:arrow: Set your Background to the colour you want using the colour picker.

:arrow: Press the CTRL and Backspace keys to fill the border.

:arrow: Reduce the opacity if you want the images underneath to show through the border.

Hope this helps... let me know how you get on or if you have any queries...

Mike

[annaharvey]

Hi Mike, thanks, I've tried this but I can only get a thick border I want a line, as if I'd drawn around it with a pencil. The line tool works but would take me ages I need another way.

Anna

[Wendy]

Anna,

I'm not 100% sure if this is what you are looking to do ... but would Edit>Stroke on each image give you the effect you are looking for? Using that you could vary the size of the stroke ... minimum being 1pixel

hope it helps :)

Wendy

[MikeH]

Anna,

Click on this link to see the effect that Wendy described...

http://www.pixentral.com/show.php?pic=130oiGVfvZQa46R9wmVa7UuQoiWSVR0

Mike

[Wendy]

Anna ...

Mike's image shows you just what you would get from doing Edit>Stroke using different pixel sizes.

An added advantage would be that if each images is on its own layer you would just need to select the image itself ... (Control Click on the thumbnail in the layers palette) then simply do Edit>Stroke and choose your number of pixels.


Wendy