creating an outline around a thought bubble

[spressman]

I'm trying to put a black outline around a "thought bubble" created with the custom shape tool. After creating the bubble as a separate layer, however, the "stroke (outline) selection" under Edit is grayed out. So I must be doing something wrong, but can't figure out what. Any suggestions?

thanks,
steve

[momoffduty]

First right click the layer and simplify. The Control & select layer to get the marching ants, then under Edit>Stroke.

[spressman]

Perfect. Thanks so much!

[Bob]

Another way to do it that can be useful is to get the selection of the shape layer (ctrl click in the layers palette), then add a new layer and apply the stroke there. This leaves the shape layer a shape layer and, because it's on a separate layer, you can easily modify the stroke for creative effects -- not so important for a thought bubble, but useful for other purposes.

[momoffduty]

Good tip Bob. One thing that I have been doing lately is to make a duplicate layer of a pic and make adjustments on the new layer to see if I like the effect. If not delete the layer and I still have my original layer intact. Learned the hard way when I painstakingly cutting out an object and then trying different ways to make something black and white. Only later realized that I wish I had a color version of the cut out. Now, I just turn the eye off of the color version and can go back and get it if I need it.