I want to give my shots a slight retro look by adding a border to them. Is there a quick and easy way to do this to a group of images?
Question: I want to give my shots a slight retro look by adding a border to them. Is there a quick and easy way to do this to a group of images?
Michael Pendleton
Answer: In days of old you would crop a printed shot so that it had a white border. This was in order to protect the edges of the image from wear and tear. Digital pictures, however, are lucky if they ever see life as a handheld print – but we can easily create a border using techniques which can be stored as an action.
Step 1:
Go to Window and open the Actions palette. Click the Create New Action icon at the bottom of the palette. Label it ‘Border’ and click Record. Go to Select> All. The ‘marching ants’ selection marquee will appear around the edge of your shot.
Step 2:
Go to Edit> Stroke. In the Stroke dialog type in a value of 100 pixels. Click the colour icon, choose a colour for your border and hit OK. A border will appear around the edge of the shot. Click the Stop button in the Actions palette to complete the action.
Step 3:
To apply a border to another shot, open the source file. Select the Border action in the Actions palette and click the Play button. Photoshop will select edges of the shot and stroke the inside of the selection with white to create an instant border.
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Nice and quick; but what if you wanted to edit the boarder: make double boarder, change the thickness of it. Something like looking as if it had a matt effect to it. Do you think that could be added, in some quick fashion as well?
Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed these instructions very much and I find it very useful. But, you’ve started my creatives juices flowing, and I’m now more curious.
Thank you very much for this.
lol
Billy
This process as it laid out here is a destructive process. As a new convert to never do anything to your images that is destructive way of working, I suggest making the first step of your new action to click on the create a new layer icon at the bottom of the layers pallet. This will also let you edit the border or add blending options to it without effecting your image.
Keep in mind that a 100px boarder on a 300dpi image will be much different in appearance to a 100px boarder on a 72 dpi image.
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Kenton Smith, YourArtDirector