Outline Woes

(Sorry about that! I didn't mean to scare you off. I was just trying to impress upon you the importance of making sure that your outline is ONE CONTINUOUS LINE.)

I know that you've heard many descriptions of the perfect outline to begin with. I've worked with a lot of outlines, and I'm here to tell you that it doesn't matter how many pixels thick your lines are. What matters is that the line be of a uniform thickness throughout. If you import a graphic with lines 8 pixels wide it will convert nicely, as long as the line is 8 pixels thick everywhere. Whatever graphics program you're using, magnify enough so that you can check the evenness of the lines. At first glance, this little bear looks like a pretty good graphic. A closer look reveals that the lines vary in width from one pixel to 10 or 12. This graphic needs much more work in its present state than I'm willing to give it. If I really wanted to use this picture, I'd trace it with a Sharpie Ultra Thin pen and scan the trace. Here's what you'd get when you went from Stage 2 to Stage 3. Talk about a pile of sticks!

Magnifying this drawing shows that although the lines are thick they are very uniform. Lets see what we get when we go from Stage 2 to Stage 3 using the default settings:

Not bad! this is an outline we can work with and finish before the turn of the century. Before we get to work, however, we want to make sure that the OUTLINE IS ONE CONTINUOUS LINE. With Version 2,  you can click anywhere on the outline with your Selection Tool.  The unbroken area(s) will turn blue.  With Version 1, Go immediately to Stage 4. Select the second button in your tool box, the one that sets the attributes for the entire outline. Change the color to red. Click on any part of the outline. If the entire outline turns red, you know for sure that it's ONE CONTINUOUS LINE.

What if the entire outline doesn't turn blue (or red) with just one click? Is it "back to the drawing board? Not necessarily. Not counting the nose, which isn't expected to be part of the continuous outline, this break in the outline is easily fixed. (With Version 1,  Click on Edit>Undo to restore the outline to its original color. Now go back to Stage 3. Remember where the breaks were.)

Now, using your node tool, click on the part of the line right next to one of the line breaks. A node with a dark outline will appear at the exact point of the line break. Now click right next to that node to add a new node. This will be your "anchor". Pull the line out and away from the broken area. Adding nodes and pulling on the line, duplicate the offending unattached portion of the line. Continue in this manner until the entire unattached portion of the outline is duplicated. Leave a little space between the old and the new line so you'll be able to click on the partial line in order to delete it when you're finished. Now delete the partial line. Do the same for any other similar areas. Click on the outline with your Selection Tool (Version 1,  go back to Stage four and click on the outline). The entire outline should now turn blue (or red). Version 1, Click on Edit>Undo, go back to Stage 3 and do whatever other fixing up is necessary. Version 2, now you're ready to complete your point editing.

It's up to you how much of this kind of line healing you want to do . If the outline is broken into many parts I usually go back to my graphics program and thicken up the thin spots on the line that caused the line breaks. If you zoom in (in your graphics program) on the part of the line where the line breaks occurred you will usually find this: Although the line seemed solid. there was a spot where the only connection was corner to corner on 2 pixels. When the program was "thinning" (finding the center of the line) it read this spot as a break in the line. It's an easy matter to fill in the spaces. After I scan in an image I usually magnify to 600% and do a quick examination of the lines to see if there are any of these hidden line breaks. If I find any I fill them in. Conversely, if I find any really thick black areas, I take that opportunity to thin them out. It takes only a few minutes and avoids a lot of aggravation later. The thick black areas will probably result in those little boxes in the lines that you sometimes see in Stage 3. Believe it or not, I actually chose to fix the design below rather than take it back to PhotoPaint! You get rid of those pesky boxes the same way you get rid of the unattached portion of an outline. Click on the line to make yourself an anchor, duplicate the path of the offending part of the line and then delete all the little boxes. I've included this PEM on your seminar diskette so you can have fun practicing duplicating and then deleting portions of lines. This shows the line duplicated before the boxes are deleted.

This article looks like it is referring to PE-Design or Palette software.  For creating your own graphics it will depend on what you like to do but I like CorelDraw.  I do recommend taking a class to learn the basics no matter what program you choose.