How are fancy borders added to digital images?

[skipd]

I see many of the photos posted on this and other boards that have

borders added. Some are simple black lines around the image, and

others are really fancy looking. What I'm interested in is comments

regarding what software and techniques are used by folks who do this.

 

I have just started trying to learn how to do things in Photoshop 7

beyond the normal color tweaks and retouching images. I haven't seen

anything about doing the kinds of borders I have been seeing, though.

 

Any and all comments would be appreciated.

[jim_a]

1. Open your image and get your height and width. Let's say it's 500 pixels x 300 pixels...

 

 

2. Make certain the foreground and background colors are set to default (B&W), then switch them so black is the background color. I'm in the bottom of the left tool panel now.

 

 

3. Make a new image in Photoshop. Make this image 2 pixels wider and deeper than the image you want the border around. In our case we'll make our blank image 502p by 302p. Make certain that "Background color" is selected under "contents." Click "OK."

 

 

4. Go back your your image and do a "select > all" (apple-a on a mac) and then copy the image.

 

 

5. Go to the new "black image" you created and paste your image into it.

 

 

You should now have a nice 1 pixel border around your image.

[jim schwaiger]

For a simple border, just increase the canvas size with the color you desire as the background color. Multiple cancas size increases can give you a thin white line and then a larger black area or vice-versa.

 

For some images, the borders help, but I try to avoid them here. The background is white anyway, so I never do a white border, but I have done a few simple black ones.

 

Unless you are a pro already, I'd spend my time learning better techniques and such. Putting a neat frame around a mediocre image looks bad and great images rarely need more than a simple frame. Just don't get too carried away with framing.

[tim_smith3]

Depends on if you are cropping. I print all my b&w work full frame. For this I took a file to the inside edges of my negative carrier leaving enough of the plastic to hold each side of the negative whilst revealing the edge of the negative outside the image area (the lab I use calls this the keyline, not sure if this is a correct technical term?). then when scanning (I use viewscan) I increase the scan area to maximum. This will give you a black border on all sides of the print and as the neg carrier was filed out it also produces rough edges. I have a couple of my early test scans posted on phot.net if you want to see the effect?

 

I've printed full frame for a long time now and am a great fan of the discipline, but also as a side note it was really handy when I was transferring to the digital darkroom as I knew that I would be printing the full size of my scanned images rather than having to crop an lose resolution.

 

If you are going to crop I have seen that sometimes on the disks they include on the front of magazines they include a variety different negative border images whereby you will get straight black lines, borders that show the film sprocket, negs with rough, bruised edges, that sort of thing and as I understand it you can cut and paste it over you original crop (but I guess have to have the crop at the 35mm dimensions).

 

Cheers

[skipd]

Many thanks for the tips, folks. It's Photoshop that I am new at learning, not photography itself. Been at it pretty seriously for nearly 40 years. It's just the new tools that I want to get a jump-start on.

 

Thanks again.

[paul_sharratt]

For a thin black line around an image, here's my way:

 

Select>all [before doing next step make sure black is selected for background color on the lower portion of the toolbox]

Edit>stroke

pixel width 8-12 on a 6x9 print

i choose interior as an 8-12 pixel crop does not usually effect an image [if it does then I go the more tedious route of increasing image size described in the other responses]

Apply

Select>deselect

 

all theses steps now take me under a minute including the time it takes photoshop to apply it to a 54MB file. For fancier framing ideas you can create actions or purchase software that does it for you. Also try a search on this board for other responses to framing questions.

[jim_a]

Jim Schwaiger's border trick is better than mine. Very slick, fast and fewer steps!

[john_luke]

There are border CDs available with hundreds of choices on them. I use one from http://www.autofx.com

[adam_macneil]

<html>

<body>

Down at the bottom of <a href="http://www.photo.net/photodb/

photo?photo_id=1041664">this</a> thread there is a pdf file by Doug

Burgess where he explains how he does his borders.

</body>

</html>

[steve_bingham]

1- select all

2- select, modify, border, 2 pixels

3- edit, fill, white

4- image, canvas size, add 50 pixels to each dimension. Make SURE black is your background color before you start step 4.

 

Pretty simple!!!

[steve_bingham]

1- select all

 

2- select, modify, border, 2 pixels

 

3- edit, fill, white

 

4- image, canvas size, add 50 pixels to each dimension. Make SURE black is your background color before you start step 4.

 

Pretty simple!!!

[www.graemehird.com]

Skip,<p>Email me and I'll send you a photoshop action which puts a 2mm white and a 15mm black border around the image, as seen in the image <a href= http://www.photo.net/photo/1142782&size=lg>here</a>. (It has been resized, so it's smaller, but you'll get the idea). Now it actually adds a further 2mm of black to the bottom to give the image a better "optical weighting".<p>

Regards,<p>Graeme