Rangefinder Magazine
June 2005

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Classic Photoshop Effects by David Cross
Adding a Frame to Your Picture

You Oughta Be in Pictures…
… or at least in a picture frame. We’re going to add an interesting spotlight to an image and highlight a portion of the image. Plus, we’ll do it in a way that offers flexibility to change the position, angle and effect of the frame. What more could you ask for?

For this effect to work, you’ll need a photograph of a picture frame. So use your digital camera, find one in a stock photo collection, create your own from scratch, or NAPP members can download frame.psd from www.photoshopuser.com/nap mem/departments/photoshopuser.html under January/February 2004. (The frame—we separated it from its background—is courtesy of Brand X, www.brandx.com.)

STEP ONE: Open the original photo to which you want to add the picture frame. Next if you’re using your own picture frame image, separate the picture frame from its background using your favorite selection tool (our image is already separated). Choose the Move tool and click-and-drag this selection into your image.

STEP TWO: Command-click (PC: Control-click) on the frame layer to load it as a selection. Then holding down the Shift key, use the Polygonal Lasso to select and add the middle portion (see-through area) of the frame to the selection.

From the Select menu, choose Modify > Contract and in the dialog, type in “4” pixels. Don’t deselect yet.

STEP THREE: Click on the Background layer and then click on the Adjustment Layer icon (the half-black/half-white circle at the bottom of the Layers palette). Choose Hue/Saturation from the pop-up menu, lower the Saturation to 100, and click OK.

At first, the area inside the frame will be desaturated (black-and-white), so press Cmd-I (PC: Ctrl-I) to inverse the mask and desaturate everything except what you see in the frame.

STEP FOUR: Link the frame layer and the Adjustment Layer by clicking in the box to the left of the layers. Now you can move or rotate the frame, and the “contents” of the frame will be in color while the rest of the image is gray.

Add a Drop Shadow
If you’d like to add a Drop Shadow to the outside of the frame, here’s how:

STEP ONE: Cmd-click (Ctrl-click) on the Mask thumbnail in the Adjustment Layer, then press Cmd-Shift-I (Ctrl-Shift-I) to inverse the selection. From the Select menu, choose Modify > Expand. Use the same value you used in Step Three above.

STEP TWO: Create a new layer (click on the icon at the bottom of the Layers palette) and position it below the frame layer. Fill the selection with any color: Opt-Delete (Alt-Backspace).

STEP THREE: Click on the Layer Style icon at the bottom of the Layers palette, click on Drop Shadow in the pop-up menu, and click OK. In the Layers palette, lower the Fill of the Shadow layer to zero percent. Press Cmd-D (Ctrl-D) to deselect.

Bonus: As long as the frame, shadow and Adjustment layers are linked, you can use the Move tool to drag the frame from this image onto a different document, and the bulk of the work is done for you!

Dave Cross is senior developer for education and curriculum for NAPP (National Association of Photoshop Professionals) and co-author of three books: Photoshop 7 & Illustrator 10: Create Great Advanced Graphics, Photoshop 7 Trade Secret, and Adobe Illustrator Killer Tips. Dave is also one of the lead instructors for NAPP’s Adobe Photoshop Seminar Tour.