Set Selection Borders issue

When you create a rectangular selection with the Selection tool, you can 
modify it by setting a border, which can be inside, outside or both.  If 
you select Inside border, everything works fine and you get a nice square 
selection inside the original but smaller than the original by the defined 
number of pixels.

However, if you choose Outside or Both, the outer selection border becomes 
rounded at the corners.  This is, of course, the same thing that happens 
when you start with a rectangular selection and Expand it.  The workaround 
in this latter case (simple Expand) is to then hit the Create Selection 
>From Current Selection, which squares the corners.  But you can't do that 
with a selection that has the border applied.  (Well, you can, but it just 
uses the outer border as the selection to square and loses the inner 
border).

Anybody know if there is a workaround for this so that the outer border 
becomes squared without losing the inner border?

I imagine I could record a script workaround with some fiddling, but it 
would be a lot simpler if someone knows a built-in method.

Regards,

JoeB

JoeB wrote:
> When you create a rectangular selection with the Selection
> tool, you can modify it by setting a border, which can be
> inside, outside or both.  If you select Inside border,
> everything works fine and you get a nice square selection
> inside the original but smaller than the original by the
> defined number of pixels.
>
> However, if you choose Outside or Both, the outer selection
> border becomes rounded at the corners.  This is, of course,
> the same thing that happens when you start with a rectangular
> selection and Expand it.  The workaround in this latter case
> (simple Expand) is to then hit the Create Selection
>> From Current Selection, which squares the corners.  But you
>> can't do that
> with a selection that has the border applied.  (Well, you can,
> but it just uses the outer border as the selection to square
> and loses the inner border).
>
> Anybody know if there is a workaround for this so that the
> outer border becomes squared without losing the inner border?

With "workaround" you imply that the behavior you see is a def*ct. 
No so. Spandex has explained several times that expanding or 
contracting any selection by W pixels moves the selection to the 
locus of all points that are W pixels outside or inside, 
respectively, the starting selection. The points that are W pixels 
from an outside corner form a quarter circle of radius W.

Here you are asking to "square up" the special case of a rectangular 
selection so that the new selection lies further than W pixels from 
the original at the corners. It is not hard. Add one more step to 
what you have so far:

To modify a rectangular selection, creating a hollow rectangular 
selection with its inside edges at the original selection and its 
outside edges a rectangle W pixels outside the original selection:

1. Selections > Modify > Expand by W pixels.

2. Create Selection From Current Selection.

3. Selections > Modify > Select Selection Borders. Choose Inside and 
W pixels.
-- 
Fred Hiltz,  fhiltz at yahoo dot com 

Fred Hiltz wrote:
> JoeB wrote:
>> When you create a rectangular selection with the Selection
>> tool, you can modify it by setting a border, which can be
>> inside, outside or both.  If you select Inside border,
>> everything works fine and you get a nice square selection
>> inside the original but smaller than the original by the
>> defined number of pixels.
>>
>> However, if you choose Outside or Both, the outer selection
>> border becomes rounded at the corners.  This is, of course,
>> the same thing that happens when you start with a rectangular
>> selection and Expand it.  The workaround in this latter case
>> (simple Expand) is to then hit the Create Selection
>>> From Current Selection, which squares the corners.  But you
>>> can't do that
>> with a selection that has the border applied.  (Well, you can,
>> but it just uses the outer border as the selection to square
>> and loses the inner border).
>>
>> Anybody know if there is a workaround for this so that the
>> outer border becomes squared without losing the inner border?
>
> With "workaround" you imply that the behavior you see is a
def*ct.
> No so. Spandex has explained several times that expanding or
> contracting any selection by W pixels moves the selection to the
> locus of all points that are W pixels outside or inside,
> respectively, the starting selection. The points that are W pixels
> from an outside corner form a quarter circle of radius W.
>
> Here you are asking to "square up" the special case of a
rectangular
> selection so that the new selection lies further than W pixels from
> the original at the corners. It is not hard. Add one more step to
> what you have so far:
>
> To modify a rectangular selection, creating a hollow rectangular
> selection with its inside edges at the original selection and its
> outside edges a rectangle W pixels outside the original selection:
>
> 1. Selections > Modify > Expand by W pixels.
>
> 2. Create Selection From Current Selection.
>
> 3. Selections > Modify > Select Selection Borders. Choose Inside and
> W pixels

Just be sure on this last Select Selection Borders that Anti-alias is 
UNchecked.  Suz 

SuzShook wrote:
> Fred Hiltz wrote:
>> JoeB wrote:
>>> ...  the outer selection
>>> border becomes rounded at the corners.
[snip]
>> To modify a rectangular selection, creating a hollow
>> rectangular selection with its inside edges at the original
>> selection and its outside edges a rectangle W pixels outside
>> the original selection:
>>
>> 1. Selections > Modify > Expand by W pixels.
>>
>> 2. Create Selection From Current Selection.
>>
>> 3. Selections > Modify > Select Selection Borders. Choose
>> Inside and W pixels
>
> Just be sure on this last Select Selection Borders that
> Anti-alias is UNchecked.  Suz

Indeed! These steps do what you want, Joe, only on hard-edged 
rectangular selections. No anti-alias and no feather.
-- 
Fred Hiltz,  fhiltz at yahoo dot com 

"Fred Hiltz" <not@home.ca> wrote in news:47bf7911_3@cnews:

> 
> JoeB wrote:
>> When you create a rectangular selection with the Selection
>> tool, you can modify it by setting a border, which can be
>> inside, outside or both.  If you select Inside border,
>> everything works fine and you get a nice square selection
>> inside the original but smaller than the original by the
>> defined number of pixels.
>>
>> However, if you choose Outside or Both, the outer selection
>> border becomes rounded at the corners.  This is, of course,
>> the same thing that happens when you start with a rectangular
>> selection and Expand it.  The workaround in this latter case
>> (simple Expand) is to then hit the Create Selection
>>> From Current Selection, which squares the corners.  But you
>>> can't do that
>> with a selection that has the border applied.  (Well, you can,
>> but it just uses the outer border as the selection to square
>> and loses the inner border).
>>
>> Anybody know if there is a workaround for this so that the
>> outer border becomes squared without losing the inner border?
> 
> With "workaround" you imply that the behavior you see is a
def*ct. 
> No so. Spandex has explained several times that expanding or 
> contracting any selection by W pixels moves the selection to the 
> locus of all points that are W pixels outside or inside, 
> respectively, the starting selection. The points that are W pixels 
> from an outside corner form a quarter circle of radius W.
> 
> Here you are asking to "square up" the special case of a
rectangular 
> selection so that the new selection lies further than W pixels from 
> the original at the corners. It is not hard. Add one more step to 
> what you have so far:
> 
> To modify a rectangular selection, creating a hollow rectangular 
> selection with its inside edges at the original selection and its 
> outside edges a rectangle W pixels outside the original selection:
> 
> 1. Selections > Modify > Expand by W pixels.
> 
> 2. Create Selection From Current Selection.
> 
> 3. Selections > Modify > Select Selection Borders. Choose Inside and

> W pixels.

Thanks Fred and Suz.  It was the extra clicking to have to go back to 
Selection>Select Selections Borders, then enter the amount by which I 
had expanded the selection, that I was hoping to avoid :-)  But it was 
also what I figured might be able to be handled with a script to make it 
bindable if I had to go that route.

And, now knowing I had to go that route, I've created a script that 
starts with a dialogue to input the number of pixels you want the 
outside border to be, and then runs silently to create it with square 
edges, inserting the chosen pixel size in both the expand and inside 
border dialogues.  And because the most common reason for creating a 
selection border is to fill it with something, I've added an interactive 
step to select a foreground color or whatever the user wants, and then 
the selection is automatically filled with it.  So at least I have one-
click (two click if you count selecting the fill material) button to get 
the job done, and it saves drilling through menus, which is something I 
really hate doing :-)

Thanks again to both of our for your input.

Regards,

JoeB