Borders

[OZAmateur]

I've noticed that with 99% of border techniques you build a border from your pictures outer edge inwards.
Is there a way to do a border (any type...being a simple white border with drop shadow or artistic brush stroke border) that you can build out from the edge of your picture.
I ask only because its silly spending time and effort lining up your photo for that perfect composition, and then having to factor in a border that will eat in an inch or so from your pictures edge.

[infl3xion]

what's wrong with building a border edge outwards?

[ricktas]

What software? In Photoshop it is easy to create a single shade/colour border:

* Open your photo
* On the menu : Image > Canvas Size
* Pick a colour using the 'canvas extension colour' box
* Look at the current dimensions and make them bigger, so say your photo is 36cm wide and 24cm high, make it 36.5cm and 24.5cm to add a 0.5cm border right around.
* Click OK

[William]

If your still having problems , have a look in the Tutorial Thread, I've posted a Tutorial on Framing and drop shadow using PS

[OZAmateur]

thanks guys....my problem was centered around the fact that i wanted a border bigger than my photo and not built in from my photos edge...i never thought to start with a canvas and simply make the canvas size larger than the photo by however big i wanted the border.....brain dead after too much work

[ameerat42]

Gee, only after too much work? You're lucky. However, note that IF you do enlarge your border AND you want to keep the image dimensions constant, then use a percentage enlargement. Then your result will have the same dimensions as your original image, say 3:2 or 4:5 or 7:6, etc. The only thing is that your border will not be the same width horizontally and vertically. For low dimension ratios it is not very noticeable, but for 6:4 and 16:9 it will be.

(But who says you must have equal width borders anyway?)
Am.

[Analog6]

William's tutorial is very good, your image will come out like this (minus the black frame, I added that with a second Canvas operation, as described by Rick, after the drop shadow steps):

http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1080/5100984677_d9f8c2819f_m.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/odille/5100984677/)
Magical Marmaduke the Mystery Cat (http://www.flickr.com/photos/odille/5100984677/) by Photography by Odille (http://www.flickr.com/people/odille/), on Flickr

[Wakaleo]

There is a filter in GIMP that creates a border without chewing into your image i.e. it adds the border to your image. You can manipulate the x and y border size and its colour. This method changes the image dimensions much the same as enlarging the canvas would.

I would have thought PS would have this capability too but since I haven't used it for years I wouldn't know any more (It was a copy of a friend's PS3 and I felt so guilty using pirated software that I gave it up after a couple of weeks!). :D