Lines Off set - Parallel in Photoshop

[artearth]

Sorry artearth, just seen this...not sure what you mean! Can you give me an example file to look at? I think I might learn something new here!

Here's a quick and dirty tutorial on it. I'm using Photoshop CS5.

1.) basic photoshop image - background has the blue water, with the land mass on it's own layer
2.) apply a bunch of layer effects. In this case, a drop shadow, outer stroke, bevel/emboss and gradient overlay
3.) In the layer menu, right/control click on the list of effects (not the name of the layer, which brings up a different menu) and select "Create Layers."
4.) Woah! Any layer effect which affects the interior of the layer (so an inner shadow, inner glow, bevel, overlay, inner stroke) will appear above the original layer using the layer as a clipping mask. Any layer effect which is external (outer shadow/glow, outer stroke) will appear as it's own layer below the original layer.
5.) Keep playing - here I added an inside stroke to the original layer (thin black line to the inside) and a new outside stroke to the layer "Layer 1's Outer Stroke" which gives me three strokes in a row, any one or more or which I can disable. The original stroke has been rasterized and is no longer editable. I also created a very subtle effect where I used the new drop shadow layer as a mask revealing a cloud render, which would create a slightly less uniform drop shadow.

Hope that makes sense, and is useful. Here's also a use on a retro t-shirt design for our local brew pub (called Short's Brewing), where multiple strokes came in handy, and gave me a chance to play around with the balance and color before committing too deeply.