in this video i want to share three remarkably easy ways to add a border to an image in photoshop
these are great to know if you don't have time to learn advanced editing one of the methods even
works great for producing photos with a standard size the first method is best for adding a simple
black and white or coloured border around an image to apply the border i first need to convert my
background image to a layer i can easily do this by double-clicking the layer in the layers window
this displays a new dialog where i can enter the name of the layer if you have multiple layers in
your image already you can consolidate them into a new layer just use the keyboard shortcut shift
command option and e if you're using a windows pc that shift control alternate now we have our image
converted to a layer we can use the stroke option in the layer effects to add a border you'll find
the layer effects icon at the bottom of the layers window showing an fx symbol click this and choose
the stroke option to open the layer styles dialog the stroke is a thin line and goes around the edge
of the layer we can make the stroke wider using the side slider to create a border if we want to
change the border colour we can click this colour swatch and then pick a new colour it's possible
you might not see the border when you first add it this is usually because you need to set the border
position to be the inside edge of the image if i set the position to be the outside of the image
it hides the border and if i set the position to be the center you see only half of the border
after configuring the border settings click the ok button to apply it to the image a great thing
about this border is that it's non-destructive i can turn it off or on by clicking the eye
icon next to the effect in the layers window let's remove the border now by right-clicking
on the effect and choosing the clear layer styles option the next way to create a border uses the
stroke command but this time from the menu as this is a destructive edit i'm first going to add
a new empty layer to apply the border to i can do this by clicking the new layer icon in the layers
window you can see the new layer then added at the top of the layers window with a check of thumbnail
this shows that the layer is empty and transparent so we can see the other layer below it i now want
to select the entire layer by pressing command a on my keyboard if you're using a windows pc
that's ctrl a when you do this be sure you have the empty layer selected in the layers window
after creating the selection you should see the marching ants appear around the edge of the layer
now i can select the stroke option from the edit menu you probably recognize most of the controls
from the layer styles dialog we looked at earlier after adding a black border to this image i'll
remove the selection using the deselect option in the select menu as the board is on a separate
layer i can turn it off and on as well as adjust the opacity another advantage of having the border
on a separate layer is that we can use it to create a burned edges effect to do this duplicate
the border layer by selecting it in the layers window and pressing command and j on your keyboard
on a windows pc that's ctrl and j with the new copy layer selected then convert it to be a smart
object i'm doing this so that when i apply the blur filter i can continue to adjust the level
of blur next i'll select the filter menu and then in the blur section pick the gaussian blur filter
if i hide the border layer you can see the burned edges effect more clearly to make the effect
stronger though i can duplicate the smart object again and if i double click on the gaussian blur
smart filter i can then change the level of blur i'll now delete these borders because i want to
show you another option this time i'm going to make a square image by changing the canvas size
all images in photoshop sit on a canvas background you can't see this most of the time because it's
usually the same shape and size as the image for this effect i'm going to first duplicate
the layer containing the image you'll see why in a moment now i can resize the image
canvas by clicking the image menu and then the canvas size option if you see the width and size
settings at zero when you open the dialog it's because you have this relative option ticked
click once to turn it off and you should see the width and height of the image displayed i have my
dialog set to display inches but you can use any of the other sizes because i want to make this a
square image i'm going to copy the measurement at the longest side which in this case is the width
i'll then paste the values to the height so that it's the same as the width this produces a square
canvas which the image layer sits on the other important thing when using this dialog is to
set the anchor point this determines which size of the canvas are resized to make the image appear
in the center of the canvas we need to set the anchor point to the center you can change where
this anchor point is by clicking the squares after clicking on the center square click the ok button
now you can see the image in the center of the transparent canvas what i want to do now
is fill the canvas using one of the image layers to do this i'll select the move tool in the tools
palette also make sure that you have the bottom layer selected in layers window now when i click
on one of the grab handles for the layer i can resize it so that it covers the canvas notice as
i'm doing this it enlarges the image of all sizes because i've got the maintain aspect ratio option
selected in the toolbar after resizing the image i can accept the transformation i'm now going
to convert the layer to a smart object as we did before after that i can apply the gaussian
blur filter to the smart object now i can set the level of blur to create a soft background effect
with the other layer i'm going to apply a layer style now to add a one pixel stroke to the image
this is to help it stand out against the blurred background and then i'll also add a drop shadow
effect this is a great way to create a standard sized image using a border as we've been working
through these different examples i'm sure you've noticed that i've made use of smart objects
this is an extremely useful feature in photoshop and if you don't already use it
you need to watch this video next it will introduce you to what smart objects are
and how powerful they can be i hope you found today's video helpful and if you haven't already
don't forget to subscribe thanks for watching and i hope to see you soon for another video