{"id":241,"date":"2006-09-09T23:26:25","date_gmt":"2006-09-09T14:26:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/2006-09-09\/241"},"modified":"2006-09-09T23:26:25","modified_gmt":"2006-09-09T14:26:25","slug":"adding-borders-to-photos","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/2006-09-09\/241","title":{"rendered":"Adding Borders to Photos"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
<\/a><\/div>\n

\n\nA commenter on my previous post<\/a> asked about\nhow I make<\/span> the borders on the images I post.<\/span> I'll talk a bit<\/span> about that here.\n\n<\/p>

\n\nAt first I thought that it was wasteful of screen real-estate to add a\nborder.<\/span> When printing a picture<\/span> to hang on the wall, I don't<\/span> add borders,\nbut I do<\/b> use colored matting to compliment the picture. That's what\nI've got in mind when adding borders to images that I post.<\/span>\n\n<\/p>

\n\nThe real skill involved -- skill that I don't<\/span> have much of -- is deciding\nwhat<\/b> to do. How<\/b> to do it is much easier.\n\n<\/p>

\n\nI made a Photoshop action which does most of the work:\n<\/p>\n\n

    \n

  1. Set the image's color space to sRGB<\/a>. Normally, I shoot<\/span> in Adobe RGB<\/a>.<\/p>

    sRGB is\na Microsoft color-space standard, and like most of what comes out of\nMicrosoft, it is technically inferior, but more popular, than other\noptions. It's a del<\/span>-facto standard on the web, and while some browsers can\nauto-adjust for a different<\/span> embedded color profile, IE doesn't, so I've got\nto downgrade the color encoding for a general<\/span> audience.<\/p><\/li>\n\n

  2. Make a duplicate copy of the background layer. This copy will become\nthe image actually seen within the border about to be added.<\/p><\/li>\n\n

  3. Change the canvas size: add 30 pixels to both the width and the\nheight.<\/p>

    Most raw images I work with are about 3,000 pixels on a side,<\/span>\nso this adds just a small<\/span> 1% border. I adjust<\/span> the size later, manually, to\nsuit the specific image.<\/p><\/li>\n\n

  4. Add a black, solid-color fill layer between the background and the\ncopy. This renders the background layer irrelevant, with the copy now the\nimage that's seen. The newly-added fill layer is seen only around the\nedges, that is, it's the border. I change<\/span> the color later, manually, to\nsuit the image.<\/p><\/li>\n\n

  5. Change the Layer Style of the background copy by adding a white<\/span>\n“outer glow”. I sometimes<\/span> change this to a\n“stroke,” especially when I intend<\/span> to make small\nversions.<\/p><\/li> <\/ol>\n\n\n\n

    I take the trouble to do steps 2<\/b> and 4<\/b> because it allows\nme to change the border color later on, on the fly. You can set<\/span> the color\nof the newly-expanded canvas when changing the canvas size, but once you do\nthe color is not easy to change. So, I make a<\/span> pre-enlarge copy of the\nimage, which, unlike the background, does not<\/i> expand when enlarging\nthe canvas, and throw a solid<\/span>-color fill layer behind the copy.<\/p>\n\n

    I then manually adjust the border color by adjusting the solid-color\nfill layer, usually by eye-dropping a color<\/span> from the image and working from\nthere. I futz around<\/span> with it a lot<\/span> to get something that just seems to\nwork. I also adjust<\/span> the color of the outer-glow (or stroke) around the main\nimage, to get something subtle.<\/p>\n\n

    If I want to add a title, I'll make the border larger, especially on the\nbottom, then add the text. Title text usually gets a subtle<\/span> outer glow or a\ndrop<\/span> shadow, depending on the colors involved, to highlight it a bit<\/span> from\nthe background. Yet, I often<\/span> do the titles at less than 100% opacity, to\nkeep them a bit<\/span> more subtle. It's all a<\/span> judgement call.<\/p>\n\n

    Even small borders can have a huge effect on an image's feeling. The problem<\/span> I have<\/span> as a geeky<\/span> engineer devoid of even the most basic artistic\nsense, is in picking a border<\/span> that has the right<\/b> effect. It happens<\/span> often that I'll revisit an image I was<\/span> working on before dinner and\nbe totally turned off by the border that I thought<\/span> was so great an hour\nago. I really<\/span> have no clue what I'd doing.<\/p>\n\n

    Here's a copy of yesterday's main image<\/a> with a different<\/span> border:<\/p>\n\n

    <\/a><\/div>\n\n

    I really have no idea which one is better.<\/p>\n\n

    Once the image is done, I use Photoshop<\/span>'s Save for the Web<\/b>\ncommand to write resized copies in the sizes I intend<\/span> to use. At this stage<\/span>\nI doublecheck<\/span> that the text is readable at the resized copy. This\nsave-for-the-web step strips out most of the Exif<\/a> data from the image\n(including embedded thumbnails, which are wasteful of space). I then run<\/span> my\nown little command which reinserts the main Exif data (date, location,\ngeo-data) back into the copies that I'd just saved.\n\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    A commenter on my previous post asked about how I make the borders on the images I post. I'll talk a bit about that here. <\/p>

    At first I thought that it was wasteful of screen real-estate to add a border. When printing a picture to hang on the wall, I don't add borders, but I do<\/b> use colored matting to compliment the picture. That's what I've got in mind when adding borders to images that I post. <\/p>

    The real skill involved -- skill that I don't have much of -- is deciding what<\/b> to do. How<\/b> to [...]","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,6],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/241"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=241"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/241\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=241"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=241"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=241"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}