Photoshop Tutorial: Creating a Frame

Creating a simple frame in Photoshop is very easy to do. The results can look very professional even when it only requires a few basic steps. In this tutorial, I am going to show you a very basic black and white frame to add onto your photos to make them look extra special. To start with, you will need to open Photoshop and load in the photo you want to use. Go to File, Open and then browse for the photo you want. Once you have the picture opened, we can begin making our frame.

We are going to be using layers to create the black and white frame effect, so make sure that your layer palette is open. To open it, go to Window (up top) and select the Layers tab. Select the Rectangular Marquee tool from the left tool bar. Click and drag the mouse across the photo to create a squared selection of the area that will be inside of the frame (see picture: 1).

Right click inside of the layer and choose Layer Via Copy. This will create a second layer of just the square that we selected. On your layer palette, click on the background layer to highlight it. Select your brush tool with a fairly wide setting and choose the black color to paint with (if you want your frame to be another color, you can choose any color you like). Paint the entire background black (you will notice that the top layer of the photo still shows through). Now we have our black frame.

We are now going to add the white part of the frame. Go back to the layer palette and click the top layer. Click on the Layer tab at the top, go to Layer Style and select Stroke. Change the color from the red to white (or whatever color you choose). You can play with the settings until it looks right. For this picture, I used a 4 pixel setting and checked the "inside" box (see picture: 2).

Once everything looks good, you need to merge your layers so that you can save it. Go to Layer at the top and choose Flatten Image. Once you flatten the image and save it, you can not go back to the individual layers to work on them so make sure everything looks good. Once you have flattened the image you can save your photo, but make sure to save it as a new name so that you do not lose your original.

And there you have it, a black and white frame wrapped around your photo. Creating elegant looking frames for your pictures does not require a lot of complicated steps; and most frames are actually very simple to do. Once you get the hang of working with layers, you can even play with the different layer styles to create special effects for your frames. You don't have to be a professional to make your pictures come alive with nice frames and elegant touches.