Why can't I create an offset path for my PSD Images on Illustrator?

Question

I'm currently in the process of making stickers for my ETSY Shop. I have made all my sheets in Photoshop and decided to transfer one file into Illustrator.

As I was trying to make a cut line for my machine I realized I wasn't seeing any of the points (I don't know what they're called) whenever I hovered over my image. The only thing it would show me was the box surrounding it. I have also noticed that it won't even let me use the "offset path" option and image tracing doesn't do much either because I still cannot create an outline.

Do I need to restart all these sheets completely on illustrator? Any advice would be so helpful.

(i've also tried saving my file as PNG, TIFF, when I was image tracing I made sure it wasn't using the white space, but nothing is working.)

Answer 1

Photoshop files are only accessible as placed/embedded raster images within Illustrator. Illustrator's Offset feature only works on vector path data, not placed/embedded raster images.

You see an box with an X in it to indicate the object is a raster image, not vector content.

If you have vector paths in Photoshop, you can choose the Photoshop menu - File > Export > Paths to Illustrator. That will create an Illustrator document containing all the paths. But they will be unfilled, un stroked paths. So you'll need to switch to outline mode in Illustrator (View > Outline) to select them, then reapply any fills or strokes.

While the two applications do share some common ground, files between them are not immediately the same. The core code to build art is drastically different in many instance.