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davidjerk
Inspiring
June 25, 2011
Question

Add Strokes to Placed Images in Illustrator

  • June 25, 2011
  • 6 replies
  • 338106 views

Hi All,

I'm having a problem to add a stroke "frame" around my tiff image in Illustrator. My image is a "traced picture" from Photoshop. I used the following technique:-

Technique: Use an Effect

  • Choose File > Place and select an image to place into Illustrator document.
    1. Choose File > Place and select an image to place into Illustrator document.
    2. The image is selected. Open Appearance panel and from the Appearance panel flyout menu, choose Add New Stroke.
    3. With the Stroke highlighted in the Appearance panel, choose Effect > Path > Outline Object.
    4. However, the result I got was the stroke around the image NOT the frame around the image.

      How do I  achieve it. Any help and tips are greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.

        6 replies

        M
        Mitch7135
        Participant
        November 5, 2020

        Save your clean image as a PNG in Photoshop before creating outline in Illustrator.

        F
        fab-design
        Known Participant
        November 20, 2019

        Do it in InDesign, it takes three seconds (click the object you want to add a stroke to, type a number in the stroke text field). Copy / paste it in Illustrator. Done. I do a lot of design in InDesign, which is faster and more intuitive (try adding one rounded corner to a square in Illustrator, for example...)

        JETalmage
        JETalmage
        Inspiring
        June 25, 2011
        How do I  achieve it.

        The image you're using includes an alpha channel mask (i.e.; white pixels are treated as "transparent"). If the image were not transparent, the Outline Object effect would do what you want.

        To see:

        1. Duplicate the object.
        2. Remove the Outline Object effect.
        3. Object>Rasterize. In the Rasterize dialog, be sure the White Background radio button is selected. (Understand; this will re-rasterize—resample—a raster image, which is always a bad idea. We're just doing it for explanation purposes.)
        4. Redo your steps to add a stroke and apply Outline Object effect.

        Regardless, it's safer (in terms of accuracy) to just draw a rectangle than to rely on this effect.

        JET

        D
        davidjerkAuthor
        Inspiring
        June 27, 2011

        Hi All Masters,

        Thanks for all the effort and time looking at my problem. I will follow the instruction to get it done, thanks again.

        Jacob Bugge
        Community Expert
        Jacob BuggeCommunity Expert
        Community Expert
        June 27, 2011

        For my part you are welcome, David.

        Praveen Shanmugam
        Praveen Shanmugam
        Known Participant
        June 25, 2011

        HI,

        Things you did are right, no prob with those. u need one more step to go on

        after u did outline object, just go to Object>Expand Appearance

        hope it will help u..

        Praveen

        D
        davidjerkAuthor
        Inspiring
        June 25, 2011

        Hi,

        These are 2 screen shots I managed to get. The 1st one was the orginal tiff placed and result is shown in 2nd screen shot. The stroke is round the image NOT the rectangle frame. Pls adv. Thanks a lot.

        markerline
        markerline
        Inspiring
        June 25, 2011

        The best answer is tio use Jacob Bugge's suggestions listed above which is similar to what I would have recommended--using a separate non-filled stroked rectangle to simulate a frame.  You can even add 3D effects to a rectangle this way to simulate a 3D frame with a little more work involved, of course--but this is also possible.

        Jacob Bugge
        Community Expert
        Jacob BuggeCommunity Expert
        Community Expert
        June 25, 2011

        David,

        It sounds as if you are simply placing a raster image in Illy and trying to work on that.  Do you actually see the stroke round the image or does it only appear in the Appearance panel? What does the Layers panel have to say about the object(s)?

        At least in an older version you will have to create a separate vector object.

        You may:

        1) Select the image,

        2) Create a rectangle of the same size by clicking with the Rectangle Tool and inserting the W and H seen in the Transform panel,

        3) Align the rectangle with the image (Align>Align Objects),

        4) With the frame object stroke selected, you may Object>Path>Offset Path by the desired width of the frame,

        5) Select both rectangles and Object>Compound Path>Make.

        To avoid a separate stroke, you may use a fill/nostroke rectangle in 2).

        As an alternative to 4) + 5), you may use a stroke/nofill rectangle and move the stroke outwards by half the desired width of the frame (in CS5 you may do it while creating the rectangle) and Object/Effect>Path>Outline Stroke.

        markerline
        markerline
        Inspiring
        June 25, 2011

        Can you provide screenshots of your 1) results achieved and your 2) desired results?

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