In this guide, we’re going to be discussing how you can make an outline of a sticker in Photoshop. This is a useful skill to know if you’re wanting to create your own stickers, or if you need to edit an existing image to make it fit a certain space. The process is actually quite simple once you know what you’re doing, and we’ll walk you through it step-by-step so that you can follow along.
First things first, open up Photoshop and create a new document. You’ll want to make sure that the document is the same size as the sticker that you’re wanting to create an outline for.
Once you have your document set up, go ahead and upload the image that you want to use. Make sure that the image is high resolution so that it looks good when printed.
Once the image is uploaded, go to the “Layer” menu and duplicate the layer that the image is on. This is important because we’re going to be working on the copy layer and not the original layer.
Next, go ahead and click on the “Create new fill or adjustment layer” icon at the bottom of the “Layers” panel and select “Threshold. ”
A new window will pop up and this is where we’re going to adjust our threshold levels. The goal here is to turn our image into a black and white image with as few shades of gray as possible.
This will make it easier to create an outline around our sticker later on. For this particular image, I moved the slider all the way to the right until there were no more shades of gray. But depending on your image, you may need to experiment with this setting until you find what works best.
Once you have your threshold level set, hit “OK” and then go back to the “Layer” menu and select “Duplicate Layer.” We’re going to do this one more time so that we have three total copies of our original layer. Now go back to the topmost layer and click on the “Add Layer Mask” icon at the bottom of the “Layers” panel.
A new window will pop up asking how you want to initialize your layer mask. For this particular project, we want to select “White (Full Opacity).” This will add a white layer mask over our topmost layer.
Now we’re going to grab our paintbrush tool and start painting over our image with black paint. As we do this, we’ll see our image start to disappear because we’re essentially painting over it with a black layer mask. But don’t worry, we’ll get it back in just a minute.
Keep painting until your entire image is covered with a black layer mask. Once you’re finished, go back to the “Layer” menu and select “Merge Down.” This will merge your topmost layer with the one below it.
Now repeat this process for your second-to-topmost layer. When you’re finished merging down, you should only have two layers left – your original image layer and your threshold layer. And if everything went according to plan, your threshold layer should now be at the bottom of your “Layers” panel.
Now we’re going to invert our colors so that our black areas become white and our white areas become black. To do this, go back to the “Layer” menu and select “Invert.”
Your Image Should Now Be Inverted
If everything looks good at this point, go ahead an flatten your layers by selecting “Flatten Image” from the “Layer” menu.
