less than one pixel stroke?

[Caravaggio]

I am making some thumbnails for a website. The thumbnails are 40 by 60 pixels. As some of the thumbnails are of products set against a white background I need to separate them from the also white color of the web page they will appear on. I am applying a one pixel black stroke to the outer borders of the thumbnails, but the stroke looks too big. My question is if it is possible to stroke a selection less than one pixel in photoshop? Thanks a lot.

[Der_W]

Less than one pixel would only be 0 pixels.
But you can use a gray value that is lighter than black and therefore recreate the effect of a "semi-pixel".

[Caravaggio]

Thank you, Jonas. Yeah I am lowering the opacity of my black one pixel strokes, but they still look too big. I guess I can spare one pixel for the greyish black border.

[kevinashworth]

caravaggio I wouldn't work directly on thumbnails. Use a full size image, then do what you have to do, then resize to 40x60 when the work is done. Saying this, i dont think gif or png can deal with transparency at such a low resolution. Hmmm... Do the thumbnails really have to be transparent?

[ShadowLight]

how about upsize 200%, apply stoke 1px, downsize to original
or just add shadow instead of a stroke, or maybe outerglow

[kevinashworth]

Starting with a full size image, if you're using photoshop, go image>canvas size, choose percent and type in a percentage you want to reduce to e.g. 10%. If you need to seperate the white background of your thumbnails from the web page background then bear in mind that jpegs do not support transparency.

[Caravaggio]

Kevinasworth, I am not making the images transparent or at least I don't think I am. I am saving them as jpegs using save for web. What you say about making a one pixel border on the original and then resizing for the web makes sense to me as the stroke will probably appear to be smaller.

Shadowlight, if I upsize and then downsize won't the overall quality of the image deteriorate? The black stoke may look good, but the over-all quality of the thumbnail itself will deteriorate? The layer style thing does sound good.

[ShadowLight]

Originally Posted by Caravaggio

Kevinasworth, I am not making the images transparent or at least I don't think I am. I am saving them as jpegs using save for web. What you say about making a one pixel border on the original and then resizing for the web makes sense to me as the stroke will probably appear to be smaller.

Shadowlight, if I upsize and then downsize won't the overall quality of the image deteriorate? The black stoke may look good, but the over-all quality of the thumbnail itself will deteriorate? The layer style thing does sound good.

you can always mask the original back on (do the resize thing on a smart object)
but personally I think the "shadow" or other styling will give you better results.

[Caravaggio]

So the layer style you are suggesting is an inner shadow turned into a smart object?

Thumbnails are all so complicated for me as they usually have a different height to width ratio than the original as usually want to decrease the amount of white background as well as make the product larger in the thumbnail for the sake of visibility. I usually end up doing a copy merged visible of the large original image and then turning it into a smart object. I then create a tiny 40 x 60 pixel new document and drag the copy merged layer over to the thumbnail. I then free transform the dragged over layer so that it looks good as a 40 x 60 pixel image. I guess I will also have to drag over another layer that has the inner shadow layer style applied to it and then free transform it so that it fits in the new document size and then mask out the layer so that only the layer style appears? Does this sound like a good workflow?

[ShadowLight]

you can apply styles directly on the smart object
the attached file has "drop shadow"

[des151]

Caravaggio,
I'm not sure if this is what you need. This is a 1px outer glow, layer style.
Ray

[chillin]

Can you post one of your thumbs?

[Caravaggio]

The attached thumbnail has a one pixel stroke applied to the border. The opacity of the stroke was lowered. The stroke was applied after the image was resized.

[kevinashworth]

Der W is right - Less than one pixel would only be 0 pixels. I've had a play with your thumbnail in PS, tried upsizing it then adding a border then downsizing it but it just came out exactly like yours. It seems it's impossible to split a pixel

[Caravaggio]

Thank you Kevin.

[kevinashworth]

As for your workflow it's about the same way i'd do it if the height width ratios are different. if they were the same i'd just go image>image size and type the new size.

[kevinashworth]

Here's an idea - how about losing the border and using the image to fill up the entire thumbnail?

[Caravaggio]

Thank you Kevin. I do think your thumbnail looks a lot nicer than mine. I was never so creative with my thumbnails as they are so tiny. I will give it a try.

[kevinashworth]

Thanks Caravaggio - i think it's a good way of displaying a thumbnail against any background, and you can read the product label too - if you're working on an e-commerce site this can only be a good thing