I am trying to add a stroke to an imported image, but the stroke never shows. Help why it not work?

[11Pekoe]

See attached video. I just want to add a stroke to the images in my AI project but the stroke never shows. What's wrong? How do I get the stroke to show?

[Bobby Henderson]

Pixel-based images placed or embedded into an Adobe Illustrator document can't have strokes added directly to them. Even tricks with the Appearance panel don't work. The solution is creating a box the same size as the pixel-based image, applying a stroke to that box and then aligning it to the image. Move the box behind the image if the line stroke needs to be set behind the image.

[Fasih K.]

The big question is why this feature is limited to shapes only? why it can't be applied directly the imported objects?

[Ton Frederiks]

You may try to add a stroke in the Appearance panel. 

The image must be embedded and the stroke needs to have an Outline Object Effect applied.

You can make it an Object Style.

[casinclaire]

This is just the tip I've been looking for.  It worked perfectly with an image I needed to outline. I was dreading having to draw a rectangle the same size because the image was also skewed in the layout, and I'd have had to match that as well.  This worked great.  Thanks so much!

[Monika Gause]

It doesn't need to be embedded. Use a Convert to shape effect on the stroke

[Ton Frederiks]

Yes, it behaved a little wonky, but trying again with a linked file works too.

[11Pekoe]

I figured it out I did effect > path > outline object and now the stroke shows

[Ton Frederiks]

Good to hear that worked.