Photoshop Funky Photo Edges :

by Angie Svoboda

Screen shot with Window PC in Photoshop CS2

This tutorial will show you how to make a funky photo edge which can be saved and used over and over again. We will make a 5x7 photo edge in this example, you can use this tutorial and make all sizes (example 4x6 and 8x10).

Open up a picture in Photoshop you want to work with. Crop the photo to a 5x7 200dpi size.

Create a copy of your layer by dragging it into the new layers tool on the bottom of your layers palette. (or on just click on Cntr J )

With the top layer selected (in blue) change our canvas size. Click on: Image > Canvas Size

Add 1 inch to the canvas to both the width and height, then click ok. You will notice that the bottom layer (background layer) will have 1 inch of white added to it, but if you look at the copied layer it will have 1 inch of transparent around it (grey/white checks).

Now load our duplicate layer as a selection by click on the thumbnail at the same time you hold the cntr key, this will put marching ants around the selection.

Create a new layer.

add a stroke to this selection on the new layer: Edit > Stroke

Change the setting to something similar to what I have. Make sure the stoke is on the inside (this give a nice square edge). Then click ok.

You now have a stroke on its own layer.

Add a new layer. Next load the stoke layer as a selection. Hold cntr and click on the thumbnail in the layers palette. This will put matching ants around the stroke.

Hide the stroke layer by clicking on the eye.

Click back on the new layer to work with it and then click on the mask in the tool bar, this will allow us to edit in quick mask mode.

The pink color is all the area masked out that will not be affected. The area you can see in grey is the area that will be affected by the filter I am about to use on it.

Click on Filter > Brush Stoke > Spatter

You can change the amount of spatter by adjusting the sliders. Click OK when you are done.

You can see how the filter affected the selection. Click out of the quick mask mode.

Fill this layer will black (or the color you want to work with)

Hide your other layers (click on the eye), you can now see the funky photo edge for a 5x7 size photo.

To save this as a PNG file- File > Save As, name your file and click on the PNG format, then save.

You can do lots of things to this, distort it, recolor it, add more texture to it, change the opacity of it, change the blending mode.... have fun.