How to take off white background and add white outline

[mariannam12780327]

I'm trying to figure out how to take an image and remove the white background and then add a white outline.   Like above.  I'm trying to go from the left to the right.

[gener7 · Accepted solution]

Click on the lock in the Layers panel to make it a Floating Layer.

Go to Image > Canvas Size, checkmark Relative and enter 5 in both fields to give you extra space.

Use the Magic Wand set at a Tolerance of 50 and press Delete to remove the white outside the logo to where you see the checkerboard.

Now lets go to Edit > Stroke to apply a 4 pixel Outside stroke (So it doesn't cover the red part of the image). Save the image as a png.

[gener7]

As a bonus, here you go.

[Trevor.Dennis]

Note:  Gene posted while I was rebuilding the logo, so there is going to be overlap.  Sorry Gene.

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OK, when we open up your Lowes logo in Photoshop, it looks like this

We can use the Pen tool or Lasso tool to select the white area above the logo and delete it, leaving transparency.

To add a white outline we need to give it some space, so we increase the Canvas size.  We don't know how wide you want the white border to be, so I have checked Relative, and added 20 pixels to width and height.

If we Ctrl click the logo to load it as a selection, we can go Edit > Stroke, and chose Outside with the required pixel value, but that gives us rounded corners.  Unfortunately, there is no simple way to avoid this

It is not that easy to overcome the rounded stroke, but with logos like this, it is nearly always best to rebuild as a vector graphic.  The font is Design System A900 R which costs $20, so I built the text with the pen toll and help from Guides.  The small text is Arial Bold, and the ® symbol is ASCII code 0174

This is 1000 pixels, but it will scale to any size.  PM me your email address if you want the PSD file.

[gener7]

Not a problem Trevor. It's a team effort here and better ideas are welcomed.

I just decided not to clean up and rebuild the artwork. If she is doing this as paying work, always insist on quality images.

Gene

[mariannam12780327]

First of all, Thank you so much for your time and assistance!   

Second, I get stalled at the first step.   Nothing allows me to delete the white background.  Whether I select it with the wand or the pen.  I select and press delete and nothing happens.   I see you actually doing it above, LOL!   So I'm sure it's user error on this end!

[gener7]

The Background layer (the one with the padlock) is locked and must be converted to a floating layer (Layer 0) in order for you to see the white erased.

Click on the Background Layer padlock and it should change to Layer 0.

[mariannam12780327]

Well, I tried again the recommendation from Gener7.      It worked, other than, when I take the png file and try to place in Illustrator it places it with a white frame.  LOL!   Can't win! 

[Trevor.Dennis]

You are still going about it wrong.  Are you grabbing logos at random to practice the selection, or do you have a particular end goal?  If you need a nice clean version of the logo, start from scratch and build it again.  Even if you are just practicing to expand your Photoshop skills, building logos would be a better way to spend your time.  With the Office DEPOT logo, Rockwell Bold is very close.

Always look for the biggest version of the logo you can find.  Setting Google image search to 'Large' found a 4724 x 1979 pixel version of that logo as the third hit!

You can often find vector versions of popular logos with transparency by adding 'PDF' to your search criteria.

In the above example, it is an EPS file which does not work well with Photoshop, but you can still open it with transparency in Photoshop, and can edit the vector file if you have Illustrator.

If you could give us a clear idea of what your goals are, I feel we could be of more help to you.