Add a Custom Border

Sometimes you want to give a photo a special treatment. In this tutorial, you’re going to learn how to do a million amazing borders to your photo. Well, we’re going to go through a couple. The other 999,998 are up to you to discover!

I’m starting with this photo of roses.

Tools and techniques we’ll use in this tutorial include these:

1. Using Layers
   
2. Using a Layer Mask
   
3. Creating, saving, and using a Brush

I’d call this an “intermediate” tutorial. However, if you’re a beginnner, you should be able to do it. If you’re a more advanced user, you will probably learn something.

1. Open your photo in Photoshop. Rename it at this time. File > Save As… Choose PSD for file type, and put it where you put this kind of thing.

Double-click the photo layer in the Layers Palette to make it a regular (not background) layer. Now Ctrl-click the Create a New Layer icon at the bottom of this palette. This makes a new layer BELOW the previous layer. Label this layer Background.

3. Click on your photo layer to make it active. Then click the Add Layer Mask icon at the bottom of the Layers Palette. It looks like a dark circle on a white rectangle. You should see a white panel clipped to your photo layer now and this is your Layer Mask.

Now let’s experiment. If you know all about Layer Masks, you may skip down to step 4.

Click that mask in the Layers Palette. Notice that black automatically becomes your foreground color in your Toolbar’s Color Picker.

Whatever you paint onto your canvas at this point, you’re really painting on the mask. The mask will hide that part of the image. Notice that it’s not destroying it, as you would do with an Eraser, but it’s just hiding it. You can always bring it back, if you want.

Grab just any brush. Make it big enough to see what you’re doing. This isn’t a place for a 1-pixel brush. Now paint on the canvas. Notice in my image (left) that the Mask in the Layers palette has a ring of black around it. And notice that, on my canvas, my photo’s edge is replaced by white!

Ctrl-Backspace returns your Mask to its original pristine whiteness, and renders your photo completely visible again!

That’s actually a very powerful thing you just learned. Painting black on the mask will hide that part of the image. Painting white on the mask will reveal that part of the image.

4. Let’s make a Brush that creates a bubble effect. Begin with a hard round brush.

Now look at the Brush Options across the top. I want 100% opacity for this, and 100% Flow.
Click the button for Brush Settings, which you find in the vertical column to the right of your canvas. (If it is not there, go to Window > Brush Settings.)

In this panel, you click the WORDS to choose what you’re going to play with. Then you click the check box to activate the effect.

For my Bubble effect, I clicked the words Brush Tip Shape, and chose Spacing of 154%. Then I went into Shape Dynamics and changed Size Jitter to 77%. Under Scattering, I made Scatter 116%, Count 2, and Count Jitter to 7%. At the bottom of this panel, you can see what my brushstroke will look like.

At the top right of this panel, you’ll see a double arrow >> and then a little stack of lines. Click that stack. Choose New Brush Preset and name it. Now click that double arrow and put this panel away.

Where does the new Brush live? Click the arrow beside the brush in the Options Bar. Ta-da! I love when things work!

5. Let’s try it out. We’re going to paint on that Layer Mask you made in Step 3. Click your Mask to make it active. And paint out the edge of your photo, leaving a bubbly wonderland in its wake!

Here’s mine!