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Create your own Photo Frames!
Techniques: Making Photo Frames
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1.
MYO Frames
Ah, just look at this beautiful photo of Mr.& Mrs. Photoshop. And what more stunning is that awesome frame. But guess what? The frame's not real!
Yep, that's right as amazingly convincing as that rosewood frame looks, it is simply a Photoshop creation. It's really quite easy and I'll show you how. |
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2.
Let's Begin
I'm going to start out making a very simple frame using this photo of the ski guy. If your image is on the background layer, make duplicate that layer before proceeding. You'll find that command in the Layer Menu.
Next, I'm going to change the size of the file window. I have to make room for the frame I'm going to make. Choose Image: Canvas Size... and you'll see the dialog box at left.
My image was a paltry 100 x 146 pixels, and I wanted a big wide frame so I just added 40 pixels onto each dimension. Make sure you leave that Anchor: option just like you see it because you'll want your photo horizontally and vertically centered within the image window. The "new" image space will be filled with your background color. Mine was white, so after clicking OK, you can see to the left what my image looked like. |
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3.
Filling The Frame
Now it's time to choose a color and fill the newest area of our image window with it. First we need to load a selection of that area that will be the frame. One way to do this is to Select: All (puts a marquee around the entire image) and then subtract from that selection. Hold down the Option/Alt key (this will subtract) and the Command/Control key (this will load a selection) and click on the background copy layer in your Layers Palette.
Your image should then look like the one at the left-top (the area we see as white is selected.) We're going to need a new layer for this so click the Create a new layer icon on the bottom of the Layers Palette. It looks like a piece of paper with the corner folded (second from right). To pick a fill color for my frame I clicked on my Foreground Color and up popped the Color Picker dialog. I ignored that and clicked within the image (your cursor becomes an eyedropper) on the ski dude's shoulder. This gave me a decent red-orange for my new Foreground Color and I filled my selected area with it. (See the Fill... command in the Edit Menu.) |
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4.
Beveling The Frame
This one requires almost no effort from you if your have a version of Photoshop that has Layer Effects or Layer Styles. We're going to make that patch of color I just laid down look three-dimensional, and it almost makes me feel guilty how much Photoshop is going to do the work for us. I just double click the frame layer on the Layers Palette and the Layer Styles dialog box pops up. Check the box next to Bevel and Emboss and instantly you'll see a result as Photoshop displays its default Bevel and Emboss settings. You can see the options controls for Bevel and Emboss over there on the left. Play around with them until you get the look you want. (I changed the Style, the Size and the Gloss Contour on mine. If you'd like to learn more about these controls read my tutorial, Layer Styles Explained.) Since we've got space here, I want to tell you about a button on the right side of the Layer Style Dialog Box that says  . This can be great, because after spending hours debating over some of these options that the styles have, you can save your settings. Just hit this button, and give your custom style a name and it's yours forever, to re-use
anytime.
Here's what that portion of my Layers Palette looks like now and you can see how my layer style is present by the "f" symbol and the list of Effects below the frame's layer. You can see how my image looks so far over there at left. It's pretty cool, but we've got just one more step before we're done. |
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5.
Shading The Photo
Now we're going to make it look like a shadow from our pseudo 3-D frame is falling onto the photograph. To begin, select the copied layer of your photo (it should be highlighted in blue like my image at left.) Then I double clicked that layer and once again visited the Layer Styles dialog box pops up. This time I want to check the box next to Inner Shadow:
I just left the default settings for this one. Just make sure if you did any adjusting to the Angle that it matches that used by the Bevel and Emboss effect, so the lighting looks right. There's my frame over there and considering the work I did it looks amazing. Now you can do the same. |
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6.
But Wait... There's More
We've just seen the tip of the iceberg. You've learned a simple cool technique, but what more can you do with it? What variations can you think of. Let me show you a couple. If you haven't gotten familiar with your Actions Palette, do so. Once you decide on a type of frame you like you could actually record all your steps as an Action, then simply play back that Action to put your frame on as many photos as you like. See my tutorial about recording your own Actions and save yourself some time. >There are Actions for creating textures, too. I used one of Adobe's called Wood - Rosewood 2 to make the frame you see here. After filling the frame area with the texture I just applied the same layer effects as I did on the ski guy above. Nice, huh?
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7.
Dealing With Textures
There's one more step you'll need to take with most Texture Actions like that Rosewood one I used above. If you try to fill the selected area exactly like we did in Step 3 when we filled with that orange color, the texture may not come out just right. You've got to fill the entire area first, then delete the center. In my image of the boy & dog there to the left, I've enlarged the canvas as usual. Then I create a new layer and fill the entire space with the texture (by pressing play on the Actions Palette.) In my second image, you can see the entire new layer filled with the texture. Then I loaded the selection of my photo by holding down Command/Control and clicking on the layer with my photo. All I have to do is hit the Delete/Backspace key and the inner portion of the texture disappears. Then apply the Bevels & Shadows as normal. In this example, the texture I used was one that you can download from this site. It's called Arctic Water. Here's a close-up of the detail on a corner:
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8.
Another Team Texture
If you've got Photoshop 6.0 or newer you can download a ton of cool textures I've created from this site. Just look for the Team Actions. If you're looking for variety in your frames, filling the space with textures really makes the possibilities limitless. In this one I've used one called Embossed Stripes for my frame and went about it the same way as above. Here's a detail:
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9.
Yet Another
It's really hard for me to stop once I get started on something that has so many possibilities. Here I've done the same thing as above with another Team Texture called Red Chains.
When I was doing this, I recorded an action that applied my Layer Styles for me. But each texture required a few tweaks to the effect to bring out its best appearance. To modify an effect once it's in place, just double-click on the word Effects you should see right below your layer (you may need to click the triangle next to the "f" icon if you can't see your effects listed.) Or you could double-click on the name of the effect.In either case you'll be taken right to the option controls for the effect in question, and you'll see them exactly as you left them when you last clicked OK. |
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10.
Clear Frame
What else can you think of to try? For this one, rather than expand my canvas, I selected the outer portion of my photo and Cut and Pasted it onto it's own layer. Then apply the Bevel and Emboss effect to that section, and the Inner Shadow to the inner part of the photo.
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11.
Multi-Layer Frame
Just one more variation and I'll let you go. Can you guess what I did here? I took the Rosewood frame you saw in Step 6 and selected a middle portion of the frame. Then I Cut and Pasted that section onto it's own layer. At the top left (and in the full photo) you can see how it looks right after I pasted it. With the outer and inner portions of the frame looking beveled, the part I pasted looks recessed. How cool. I thought it looked best that way, but I had to see what it would look like if I applied the same Bevel and Emboss effect to the new section and that's what you see in the detail of the third image at left and in the section of my Layers Palette below:
This opens up a lot of possible frame shapes and cuts if you're willing to do some selecting. I think you're ready to go out on your own now and exceed my instruction. Have fun! |
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If you have any questions or comments regarding this tutorial please post it in this thread
http://forum.teamphotoshop.com/showthread.php?t=24687
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