Edache's photoshop tutorial #1: Borders

[edache]

OK people, so well this is the first of a series of tutorials I’ll be doing, on photoshop. I’ll close my GUI shop soon , but I hope that with these tutorials, you’ll be able to do good looking GUIs and images by your own.
Also many of these techniques can be used in GIMP or the like, so even if you don't have photoshop these might proove usefull.
This first one is regarding borders; I’ve seen a lot of signatures and avatars that would do well with a nice border. So hopefully with this you’ll learn how to make your own.
(Note: some borders don’t go along with some images, but which borders go better with which images, is up to you to learn.)
Well, on to the tutorial then.

Border 1: Simple border.
This is quite a simple border, but that doesn’t mean it’s not useful.
Well I’ve created some random Background to use as an example; you’d use the image you’ve just created.

The first thing we’ll do is create a new layer… (Remember to use layers, there is a limited amount of “CTRL+z”, if you screw up you can just erase the layer.)

Now that we have a new layer, with the rectangular marquee tool, we’ll make a selection of the entire image.

We zoom in, and holding the key “alt”, with the rectangular marquee tool, we “select” a couple of pixels from the selection in any of the sides. What this does is deselect that area. 

Do the same with all sides. Make sure the distance from the border to your selection remains even in all of them.

We do a right click with the mouse, and click on “select inverse.

What was selected is now deselected, and what was deselected is now selected.

Now using the paint bucket tool, we’ll color that black.

Do “Ctrl+D” to deselect. And you have your border.


You can do a couple of variations of this.

Another color:

White:

White + Layer style


Its up to you, with each of this borders, you can come up with your own styles, there are endless possibilities…

And well that was a simple border.

[edache]

Sorry for the double post, but this tutorial is to big, I decided to separate it in sections.  :icon_crap:

Now for a second type of border, lets use the white variation of this one I’ve just shown to you.

And now, using the wand tool, well select that white border we have.

Now create a new layer.

Then go to Select>Modify>Expand. And give it a value of “1”

This will make the selection bigger.
And now on that new layer we’ve just made, using the paint bucket we’ll fill the selection with black.

Now click “CTRL+D” and drag that layer underneath the white border layer we had before.
You should have something like this.

Once again you can play with the settings a bit to come up with different styles.

[edache]

On to border style # 3:
We’ll start from that white border step we used to start in the previous style.

Once again we select that white border with the magic wand and create a new layer.

Go to Select>Modify> Expand, but this time give it a value of 3.

Now go to Select>Feather

And give it a value of 5

Now once again, with the paint bucket we fill that selection with black. It should look somewhat blurry.

We do “CTRL+D” and drag that layer under the white border layer.
We should end up with this

[edache]

Now what if we want to create a border, that doesn’t affect any part of our image, lets say that surrounds it.
Well what you have to do is this.
Make sure your image is not the background image; you can either duplicate it or double click it, and then turn it into a layer. I’ll turn mine into a layer.
You double click on your background image. This box (or something similar) should come up:


Click OK
Now go to Image>Resize>Canvas size

Now making sure the size is on pixels we increase the original size by lets say 7 pixels.

And click OK. You should end up with something like this.

Now create a new layer. And fill it with any color you want your border to be.

Drag that layer under your image layer…
And you have your border.

Well that’s it for now, there are many ways of creating borders, but I think these are the basic ones and the most useful.
Hope you liked the tutorial since it took me a while to make =P.

[Alpha]

Haha, nice job! I'm sure this'll help other people!

-Alpha

[LIlCheatah]

Wow, I'm imspressed.. Nice!

[L0lz]

Really? All you really need to do is Alt+A, and do an Edit > Stroke, click here and there and done. Then on to the Blending options. Too many steps. 6/10 QQ.

[xeross]

Ye you could just fill a layer with a random color, then change fill to 0% add a inner stroke and inner glow

Regards, Xeross

[LIlCheatah]

Xeross, 1 thing you're awesome with photoshop XD and some are not..

[edache]

@l0lz!:

> Really? All you really need to do is Alt+A, and do an Edit > Stroke, click here and there and done. Then on to the Blending options. Too many steps. 6/10 QQ.

Well I'm not sure if you noticed lolz but I'm using photoshop Elements 5… which is kinda basic (REALLY basic). 
I'd do a tutorial using blending options and such, but I don't have that possibility, since I don't have photoshop CS or higher (which are the ones that include all that), this tutorial can be used with any version of photoshop, your method, can not...

[xeross]

No sorry, i did not notice.

Regards, Xeross

[L0lz]

@Edache:

> Well I'm not sure if you noticed lolz but I'm using photoshop Elements 5… which is kinda basic (REALLY basic). 
> I'd do a tutorial using blending options and such, but I don't have that possibility, since I don't have photoshop CS or higher (which are the ones that include all that), this tutorial can be used with any version of photoshop, your method, can not...

I'm pretty sure you can do an Edit > Stroke In Elements. It was in Elements 4 which is just one version below yours. Same with Blending Options.

[edache]

You're right with the stroke, but not the blending options, Elements doesn't have the dialogue box, so you're pretty much left really basic ones. Regarding these I've used what I had.
I agree I could have used the stroke option, but that is just the first out of the four examples of borders I made. The other don't involve this. And well the method I used doesn't take that much time either, you can edit each side's size individually, as well as people can learn how to use select inverse and how to substract from a selection. This being a tutorial, I really don't see that much of a problem with using that method.

[azkanan]

There's actually a "border" option to do your border selection thing.

1\. Select all (Ctrl + A).
2\. Select –> Modify --> Border.

:)

[Alpha]

It's in GIMP 2.6 as well, just tested it.

But thanks for the tip Azk.

-Alpha

[The GodFather]

@Azkanan:

> There's actually a "border" option to do your border selection thing.
>
> 1\. Select all (Ctrl + A).
> 2\. Select –> Modify --> Border.
>
> :)

I've never used "Border" in photoshop, i rather make my own.

[edache]

Yeah the thing is that there are tons of methods of getting one same product in photoshop. Each has their own advantages or disadvantages, its for you to decide whether you use one or the other.

You could for example use the rectangle tool and then subsctract from shape area (also using the rectangle tool).
The line tool, give it a certain weight and holding shift to keep lines straight, making four lines surroundind your image
Or maybe even using an inner ridge bevel in a plain color and then putting your image on top and then resizing it so it fits inside the bevel…

[The GodFather]

I've never used the line tool.. Thanks for the tutorial btw.

[zach4873]

thanks for the tut never knew their was so many ways to get a border lol

btw the tag in the tut is EPIC

[L0lz]

^ Yeah, there's a million ways to do the same thing in photoshop, 3ds max, etc.