Adding a Frame - Part II

This time I'll show how you can create great looking frames for your images in Photoshop. Photoshop is a very powerful and flexible image editing software. Please keep in mind that often less is more! The frame should not end up being so large and gaudy that it swallows up the image contained within. Primarily a border should contain the eye within the constrains of the image, as well as add just a touch of spice to an already great photograph.

1) Just use the “CANVAS SIZE” tool (under Image –> Canvas Size) to create the border. The nice part about the “Canvas Size” tool is that you can set the exact number of pixels in each direction to expand. Additionally, you can have it be “relative” meaning you can tell it how many pixels bigger than it currently is, to draw. What I did in the example above was to set a black background to be relatively 2 pixels larger than my picture (which is 2048*1536). Then I set a white background to be relatively 100 pixels larger. To have enough room for the text, I added another 200 pixels of the white background to the bottom of the picture. To get the outer black frame, I switched back to a black background and set it to be relatively 5 pixels larger. You may need to change the number of pixels based on how large your picture is.

2) To add the text, click the Horizontal Type tool and select a relatively plain font. In my example I used Myriad Pro, black color, 60 pt, all caps, centered. You can adjust the spacing between the font characters if you select the text and then change the properties in the text window. To center the text below the image, select both the text layer and the image layer and choose Layer > Align > Horizontal Centers.

3) If you want to edit a series of photos, you can create an ACTION step in photoshop that can duplicate all these steps for you with one click so you can automate a batch of photos to all have this same frame on them.