Creating Border For Your Photo in Photoshop

Not many of us buy picture frame anymore. Most of the things are digital these days. So, it's only natural for me to write this tutorial on how to create a simple border or frame for your digital photo. Everybody posted pictures in Facebook or blogs but not many posted pictures with borders and frames as cool as what I'm about to show you later. So, why not be different (or if your prefer to call it unique) and separate yourselves from the plain masses. With the downtrend economy, nothing much we can do about it but sure we'll have plenty of time to sit in front of the computer and do something fun for a change.

Preview





We're gonna start with a simple border..a white border (or whatever color you decide to choose) and a transparent border.



1. To create a white border, first, open your image in Photoshop.

2. Next, what we're gonna do is create a new Fill Layer underneath our image. Go to Layer > New Fill Layer > Solid Color. Choose the color you want as a border. I'll choose white. Make sure you move this new created layer underneath your image layer.

3. Go to Layer > New > Layer. Name it whatever you want. I'm gonna call it "BorderLayer". This new layer should be on top of your image layer.

4. Click on the BorderLayer on your layer palette, go to Select > All.

5. Choose Rectangular Marquee Tool on your Toolbox (or hit M on your keyboard)

6. Right click on your image to bring up the available function. Choose Stroke. A small window will open, set the width and the color of your border. Leave everything else to its default setting. Hit the OK button.

And you got yourself a nice white border. (or whatever color you decided to choose for your border).

If you want a transparent border like our 2nd preview image, just lower the opacity of the "BorderLayer" to like 60% or less.

Okay, that's simple right? Now, I'm gonna extend above tutorial and show you how to do a polaroid-like border.



1. First, follow step 1-6 above until you got a nice white border around the image.

2. Next, choose a Rectangular Tool on your Toolbox. Create a rectangular shape at the bottom of your picture to mimic the polaroid empty area. Set the shape color to white.

That's about it. There's actually several ways to create a polaroid border. This is just one of them.

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Thank you for visiting Best Photoshop Tutorials for this border tips. The next kind of border I'm gonna show you will utilize the Filters we have in Photoshop. We'll start with the Halftone Border Effect.



1. Open your image in Photoshop.

2. Now, what we're gonna do is create a new Fill Layer underneath your image. Go to Layer > New Fill Layer > Solid Color. Choose the color you want as a border. I'll choose white. Make sure you move this new created layer underneath your image layer.

3. Next, on the layer palette, click on your image layer. Go to Select > All. Then, go to Select > Modify > Border. Set how wide you want the border to be. Mine is set at 15 pixels.

4. On your toolbox, choose Edit in Quick Mask Mode (or hit Q on your keyboard).

5. Now, go to Filter > Pixelate > Color Halftone. On the small window that appears, set the radius you want. The larger the image, the larger your radius should be.
Experiment with some radius setting to get what's best for your photo. I choose 8 pixels as my radius. Hit OK button.

6. On your Toolbox, choose Edit in Standard Mode (or hit Q on your keyboard).

7. You'll see there's some selection made around your photo. Hit the DELETE key on your keyboard and deselect everything. Voila, (if all goes well) you got yourself a halftone border. It's cool, isn't it.

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Now, I'm gonna show you how to get the crystallize border above.

Follow step 1 until 7 above. BUT, replace step 5 with 5a asf:

5a. Go to Filter > Pixelate > Crystallize. Set the cell size. Again, experiment with the value until you get the best for your image. Mine is set to 10. Hit the OK button.

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To get sort of mosaic border above, follow step 1 until 7, BUT replace step 5 with step 5b below:

5b. Go to Filter > Pixelate > Mosaic. Set the cell size. Mine is 8.

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For the final border effect, it is a little bit special because you got the tiles all over the picture. To get the effect, again follow step 1-7 BUT replace step 5 with step 5c below:

5c. Go to Filter > Stylize > Tiles. Set the Number of Tiles you want on your image. I set it to 5 tiles (meaning I'll have 5 rows of tiles). Then I set the maximum offset to 5%. Leave everything else to it default setting.

P/S: If you must know how I got the retro color on my preview image above..I ran a cross-processing action file on my image after I was done with the border. You can find the action file @ DreamBig Action: Vol 1 and DreamBig Action: Vol 2.

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