Question About Adding Borders To Non Square Shapes?

[tackyjan]

Quite frequently I will come into the need to add a border around a non-square type shape. If it's square, it's easy to do: crop the image at it's boundaries, set the proper background color, and expand the canvas such that the newer area gets filled in with the color giving a nice symmetric boundary.

 

When I am trying to add boundaries to more complex shapes, however, such as circles, triangles, etc. I am at a complete loss. If I do it the same as with the box (crop the image to it's minimal size then expand the canvas) the resulting border only covers the perimeter as follows:

 

(A very crude example.)

 

 

As you can see I was able to shrink the square (border) boundary then increase the canvas size but this is clearly not what I want.

 

What I am hoping for is so somehow use like the Magic wand to draw a boundary around the circle, invert the selection, then "grow" the selection outwards (or inwards if the case may require) then fill in the added space with a color. The effect of growing the selection would be to maintain the spherical selection and all it to grow by N pixels from the center-line, or in the case of more complex shapes, grown by N pixels from the nearest boundary tangent.

 

Is there a way in Paint.NET to make a selection around an arbitrary object, invert the selection, then grown or shrink it, and finally fill the grown selection with a color using the Paint brush?

 

Thank you,

 

Jan

[ventor1]

Assuming I have read your question correctly, you could simply duplicate the layer and then scale up that duplicated layer.

Use the magic wand to select the object on that layer and fill it with your desired colour.

 

Another alternative would be to duplicate the layer again and then play around with 'median' under the Effects/Noise tab. I often use median effectively to scale object outlines where there are no corners such as that which are found in triangles, etc. Playing with percentile and radius will give you very different, and sometimes great results.

 

'Outline Object', 'Outline selection' and 'Drop Shadow' also offer alternate methods.

 

Cheers,

V.

Edited September 3, 2014 by ventor1

[Cc4FuzzyHuggles]

Hello.
 
I think you might like BoltBait's plugin pack : http://forums.getpaint.net/index.php?/topic/28488-boltbaits-plugin-pack-for-v40-updated-august-7-2014/
It has both an Outline Object plugin and an Outline Selection Plugin.
 
You might also like the Drop Shadow plugin, which is part of this pack : http://forums.getpaint.net/index.php?/topic/8375-drop-shadow-and-other-effects-krisvdms-plugin-pack-updated-2010-10-26/
 
For the Outline Object and Drop Shadow plugins, be sure the object that you want to outline is on it's own layer with a transparent background.
 
If you choose to use the selection outline plugin, sometimes selections leave rough edges, for rough edges I suggest these plugins :
-- Feather Plugin (part of BoltBait's Plugin Pack)

-- Feather selection (again, part of BoltBait's Pack)
-- AA's Assistant is part of dpy's Plugin Pack.
-- Basic Antialias
-- Alpha Blur 

Tip :
AA's Assistant tends to be the favorite plugin for others when smoothing edges, however depending on what you are trying to do, you might like a different plugin or a combo of plugins. I often run Feather first, then I run AA's Assistant twice for best smoothing results.
 
(Don't know how to install plugins? See how here : http://forums.getpaint.net/index.php?/topic/1708-how-to-install-pluginsgeneral-plugin-troubleshooting-thread/)

Edited September 3, 2014 by Cc4FuzzyHuggles

[Ego Eram Reputo]

I'm not 100% this is what you want, but do try it:

 

1. Install Outline from this plugin pack BoltBait's plugin pack

 

2. Place your object on it's own transparent layer.

 

3. Run Outline from the Effects > Object menu.

 

 

Edit: Beaten by Fuzzy