use outline

[kiwis]

I want to use an image like this (not the exact one), i want to remove the white background and select the outline of the world.

I want to then use a inner/outer glow to it to make it stand out on my coloured background.

How can I do this?

 

[Hoogle]

create a layer underneath it blank or whatever colour you want right click your image layer and move the white slider inwards under blending mode.


Then add a levels adjustment to darken it again as sometimes you get a white fringe when you add a colour back ground to it and right click the adjustment layer and select create clipping mask otherwise it will darken out the background layer as well


Unfortunately you cant add a glow to it as you like at this stage because technically the white pixels are still there so you will only get the glow around the outsid.

However this can be fixed by creating a new blank layer selecting that and the layer of your image outline right click and select merge layers problem fixed you can now add whatever effects you want and all under 2 mins of work.
you may want to merge the levels adjustment layer as well as it will darken the effects if you dont do it before you apply them.



As a side note sometimes ps glitches with me when adding layer effects it still recognises it in the cache so if this happens save just your image effect as a png and then reload it into photoshop under a new document

 

[prd]

good reply hoogle

 

[Tom Mann]

If all your line art images are as good as the one you just posted (ie, uniform line width, no gray pixels, only black or white, transparent background, etc.), one might be able to shave a few steps off of the method Hoogle suggested:

1. Add a color adjustment layer to your layer stack. Set it to the color you want for the background. Move it to the bottom of the layer stack.

2. Double click on the map layer and the "Layers Style" menu for that layer will appear. Put a check mark in the "stroke" option. Click on the "stroke" item to pull up options for the stroke. Select whatever color you want. Select the position of the stroke as "inside" and the width as 2 or 3 pixels (ie, just a bit larger than the width of you lines).

3. At this point, you can save the image in whatever form you want, combine them into one layer by flattening, etc.

Since you obviously already know about inner and outer glows and other layer efx, it's astonishingly simple to do. ;-)

HTH,

Tom M



PS - Because of the relatively low rez of the image you posted, I can already see stair-stepping in the line work. I would suggest you at least double the resolution of your line art.

 

[IamSam]

Hi Kiwis,

In addition to the great help offered here, I want to add an observation.

(Mind you, I'm practicing my .gif animations!)

Here, I'm addressing the Inner and outer glow styles as they relate to lines that you refer to in you OP. This is often overlooked.

I'm basing this observation on the idea that you may just want the lines to glow, if I'm wrong, then disregard.

Once you have your line work separated from it's background, all that's needed for an inner and outer glow effect is an outer glow layer style.



Again, once the line work is separated, you can select them (Cmd/Cntrl + Click thumbnail) and change the lines color.

(exaggerated) Black lines.



Red Lines



Just another option for you to consider.

 

[Tom Mann]

Good points, Sam.

I love exercises like this to try to accomplish something in the minimum number of steps, but the proposed method should still allow the user to easily change important aspects, and it can't use some bizarre / obscure trick that it's impossible to ever remember it again.

So, here's my next proposal for coloring the OP's lines, assuming he wants to keep the lines of his B&W art as thin as his original artwork until he adds his own layer efx.

a) The background color is generated by a color fill layer at the bottom of the layer stack;

b) The color of the lines is set by another color fill layer, just above the black and white artwork and clipped to it; and,

c) The layer efx he wants to apply are applied by putting the B&W layer and the upper color fill adjustment layer in a layer group, and then applying the desired effects to the entire group.

T



PS - In the above example, the layer effect that I applied (to the layer group folder) was a white drop "shadow".