Sharp outline plugin?

[Nas]

Is there a plugin out there that gives sharp, angular outlines instead of rounded ones?

 

For instance, I want something that looks like this...

 

 

 

...but with the "outline" plugins I have now, they always come out looking like this.

 

 

The three plugins I have that do this are Kris Vandermotten's Drop Shadow, BoltBait's Object Outline, and another Object Outline by an unknown author.

 

A lot of my PDN projects involve sports team logos, and I would really love a tool that lets me outline like in the first picture.

Edited October 5, 2014 by Nas

[Pixey]

Hi @Nas and Welcome to PDN.

 

There are two things I can think of to help you:  AA's Assistant (Gaussian Blur at default and then use it).  You could also try - Effects - Photo - Sharpen - as well.

 

Good luck

[Nas]

Hi @Nas and Welcome to PDN.

 

There are two things I can think of to help you:  AA's Assistant (Gaussian Blur at default and then use it).  You could also try - Effects - Photo - Sharpen - as well.

 

Good luck

Thank you for your recommendation. I tried both, but none of them got the result I was looking for. Could you tell me what I specifically need to do in order to make them right?

[BoltBait]

I'm not sure there's a plugin to do what you want. You could try a zoom blur (to get the shape) and manipulate it to be solid using Adjustment > Transparency (from my plugin pack). Or, select with magic wand and fill with white.

Just an idea. I haven't actually tried it.

[Pixey]

There is another option.  You could use the Shapes Tool and draw a triangle on a layer, then draw a parallelogram, or use the line/curve Tool on another layer and erase the bit you don't need, then fill the center with color and place you image over the lines.

 

[Nas]

There is another option.  You could use the Shapes Tool and draw a triangle on a layer, then draw a parallelogram, or use the line/curve Tool on another layer and erase the bit you don't need, then fill the center with color and place you image over the lines.

 

Thanks, that's a good idea. But I'm also wanting to use a sharp outline plugin for everything else as well, such as text.

[Nas]

Apologies for the double post, I forgot to quote both posts.

 

 

I'm not sure there's a plugin to do what you want. You could try a zoom blur (to get the shape) and manipulate it to be solid using Adjustment > Transparency (from my plugin pack). Or, select with magic wand and fill with white.

Just an idea. I haven't actually tried it.

I appreciate your suggestion. Sadly, though, it didn't turn out how I was hoping. This is what it looks like when I follow those steps:

 

[Cc4FuzzyHuggles]

The only thing I can think of is to outline with any outlining plugin, and then for the places you want sharp, use layers and the line/curve tool or shape tools to manually make areas of the outline pointy. And remember, the line/curve tool has changeable end-caps and holding shift while you draw your line draw's the line at locked angles for better straightness.

This idea is fine for pictures like your hockey sample image, where some places look better sharp, but other places, like around the penguin's head, I think look fine rounded. Unfortunately, this idea isn't ideal for all images, nor is it the fastest idea if you have lots and lots of pictures you want to give sharp corners to. At least it could be a starting point though, and the more you do things and practice, the faster the process can become.

[Marktatious]

Deleted

Edited June 16, 2023 by Marktatious

[Ego Eram Reputo]

If you want a sharp drop shadow do it this way without step #4 http://forums.getpaint.net/index.php?/topic/1900-shadow-effect-plugin-like-google-maps/page-3?hl=%2Bgaussian+%2Bblur#entry409822

[MJW]

That would be a useful plugin, but I don't think there's a plugin that does that, and I doubt it would be easy to write one. I can't think of any reasonably simple condition that describes the pixels in the outside border you want. The object outline with rounded corners consists, more or less, of the pixels within a given distance of the object. But what condition describes the pixels in the desired sharp-cornered outline? Since a person can draw such an outline by hand, there must be such a description, but I'm not sure it can be implemented by a fairly simple algorithm. It may be basically the fixed-distance rule, with an added rule that a corner is added to the outline when there's a corner in the object. Doing that in a plugin would probably be difficult.

 

I can't see drop shadows doing the job. Though I don't currently have the drop shadows plugin installed, I assume the offset distance depends on a selected direction. If so, the width of the outline would depend on the slope of the edge, which isn't the desired result.

[Ego Eram Reputo]

Drop Shadow takes parameters: X and Y offset, Widening amount (pixels) and a Blur radius.  I am not able to check this just now, but what happens if you set x=2, y=2 and Blur=0?  A sharp drop shadow?

[Red ochre]

I think the request has changed since the first post?

A sharp drop shadow is easily achieved as E.E.R. describes in post 10 - but the sharp corners described in post 1 would be difficult to achieve, as MJW says.
I can't think of an easy method that doesn't involve cutting and repositioning corners on the shadow/outline layer.
I also think a plugin would be fiendishly difficult.
However the shapes do look similar to the shading patterns within the object in TR's Contour Filler algorithm - perhaps that could be a start?

Squared off corners could be done but sharp corners at odd angles would be tricky in my opinion.

[racerx]

Why not just select the object, enlarge the selection, move the selection to an empty layer below the object and fill with white?

[MJW]

raecerx, that sounds at first like it would work, but it doesn't. For example, consider a U shaped object. Enlarging it increases the size of the "bowl," while producing the desired outline requires reducing the size of the bowl.

[racerx]

You need to adjust in multiple directions.

 

Example:

 

I really don't like that I can't simply add an image attachment..... 

[MJW]

I think there's quite a difference between proposing a simple one-step solution and proposing a multi-step approach that depends on the object. Perhaps the method would work on the original emblem and the text example, but I think it would be a lot of work, and probably more difficult then using the outline plugin and a modifying the corners by hand.

[racerx]

Agreed, however the OP was looking for a solution and I provided one........

 

If you have a better solution, you are free to post it.

[skullbonz]

How about using the Outline Object plugin to add some thickness to the outside of the image and then use TR's Alpha Cutter to cut it down to the thickness you desire and also make the sharp corners? Of course the outer background would have to be transparent or on another layer first.  

Edited January 24, 2015 by skullbonz

[MJW]

I've done a little research  into this matter, and have found that it's (perhaps non-surprisingly) something that's been looked into. It goes by the name "polygon offsetting." Offsets can be positive or negative. For the purpose of this thread, they're positive. "Polygon Offsetting by Computing Winding Numbers" is a interesting paper on the subject. It's all pretty complicated, but I found an open-source library called "Clipper" that includes offsetting.

 

I'm not sure I'll get around to writing anything any time soon, but I'll explain my idea.

 

First, turn the outline into a closed polyline. The easiest way is to just go around the contour, pixel by pixel, adding coordinates. I doubt that's the best method, though; I think the straight edges should probably be represented by a singe line segment. A pretty good method (which I didn't invent, and which may not be the best choice) is to mark certain points as fixed. These would include the extreme points in x and y, and perhaps points where the slope changes a great deal. Then define a tolerance, which might be about a pixel.Connect each adjacent pair of fixed points with a line. If any of the points between the pair of points is farther than the tolerance from the line, split the line at the farthest point from the line (making it a fixed point), and recursively apply the procedure to the two pairs of points. (Actually, the idea can be implemented quite easily as an iterative, rather than recursive, routine; the recursive version is easier to explain.)

 

The polyline can now be passed to the Clipper routine for offsetting (with jtMiter mode set and ML fairly large), and the resulting polyline can be scan converted.

 

I have no experience with Clipper, so I don't know how well that would work.

[MJW]

While using the method I previously described for handling the original case with a single connected region without holes might not be too bad, handling the general case, for region with holes or disconnected regions like the text example, seems quite messy.

[Red ochre]

 

It's all pretty complicated

You're not kidding! - thanks for the link though and good luck.