Giving a photograph a border

[Septimus]

I've followed 2 videos on this subject and created a border by the method shown but the problem appears to be that:

a) I cannot resize the border. I can change the crop of the photograph to change the amount of border showing but I dont want to alter the edited photograph or cover any of it.

b) I cannot find a way to add a second colour border. I like to - for example- have a thin black line around the image and then a wider grey border.

 

I have seen a previous query raising this and it seemed from the answers there that it wasn't possible although it is a simple operation in photoshop.

 

Hope someone can help.

 

Thanks

[Alfred]

I can change the crop of the photograph to change the amount of border showing but I dont want to alter the edited photograph or cover any of it.

 

Use the Crop Tool to crop the image to a size which is larger than the existing canvas. You can then add a new pixel layer below the image and flood fill it with black to get the black line; repeat the procedure, increasing the crop size and flood filling with grey to achieve a wider grey border.

[jer]

Use the Crop Tool to crop the image to a size which is larger than the existing canvas. You can then add a new pixel layer below the image and flood fill it with black to get the black line; repeat the procedure, increasing the crop size and flood filling with grey to achieve a wider grey border.

 

Alfred, I'm trying your suggestion but the Crop tool frustrates me. How do you get the Crop tool to, say, add 20 pixels all around? The CTRL, SHIFT, ALT modifiers seem not to work with the Crop tool, making it a trial and error eye-ball to the nth degree. Nor do the context toolbar buttons allow anything helpful that I can see. I have better success with the Document > Resize Canvas method as you can enter specific values and indicate what corner existing content should be placed. But I would like to get better with the AP Crop tool. Can you step-by-step this example for me?

[LilleG]

Adding one border is doable, if not simple, using these steps.

 

1. Duplicate the background layer

2. Select the background layer

3. Under Document in the Menu Bar, select Resize Canvas

4. Click on the lock to unlock it

5. Click just to the right of px in the left size bar and add +20 (0r however many pixels you want to add)

6. Do the same thing in the right size bar

7. Click on the center of the Anchor

8. Click on Resize

9. Fill the blank area with the desired color

 

However, repeating those steps to add a second border is not workable.  The canvas resizes as desired but two sides are empty as they should be but the other two sides fill with the previous color.  Resize is something I have been fighting with since the first release of Affinity.  I don't know if it will ever be fixed.  If I need to do more than one border, I just dig out that old copy of Photoshop and zip right through it.

[jer]

Adding one border is doable, if not simple, using these steps.

 

1. Duplicate the background layer

2. Select the background layer

3. Under Document in the Menu Bar, select Resize Canvas

4. Click on the lock to unlock it

5. Click just to the right of px in the left size bar and add +20 (0r however many pixels you want to add)

6. Do the same thing in the right size bar

7. Click on the center of the Anchor

8. Click on Resize

9. Fill the blank area with the desired color

 

However, repeating those steps to add a second border is not workable.  The canvas resizes as desired but two sides are empty as they should be but the other two sides fill with the previous color.  Resize is something I have been fighting with since the first release of Affinity.  I don't know if it will ever be fixed.  If I need to do more than one border, I just dig out that old copy of Photoshop and zip right through it.

 

Yes, this is the way I could see to do it per my post above. I'm still hoping Alfred will respond with more detail on his Crop tool method.

[Alfred]

How do you get the Crop tool to, say, add 20 pixels all around?

 

Try these steps, jer:

 

1. Load the image and choose the Crop Tool

2. On the Context toolbar, set the mode to 'Absolute Dimensions'

3. Drag the top left-hand corner up and to the left to add 20px to each dimension

4. Drag the bottom right-hand corner down and to the right to add 20px to each dimension

5. Press 'Apply' to apply the crop

[jer]

Try these steps, jer:...

 

Alfred, that does work. Thanks for the tip.

[LilleG]

Well, the crop method sounded good.  And it works great for the first border but...on my system, running RC1.5 on El Capitan, the second border mis-behaves just like it does using my method.  The bottom and right-side expansion is empty like you would expect it to be but the top and left-side expansion fills with the previous color.  Maybe it's a glitch in my system somewhere but it drives me nuts trying to work around it.

[jer]

@ LilleG & @Septimus:

 

Attached is a two-border example .afphoto and a jpg screen capture showing a 6-step method:

1. Duplicate photo layer

2. Use Crop or Document Resize to increase document dimensions

3. Insert new pixel layer under duplicated photo layer and fill with black for border 1

4. Repeat step 2

5.  Insert new pixel layer under black fill layer and fill with blue for border 2

6. Save document before you get confused again. 

 

Seems like you could add many borders this way.    :D

 

 border x2.afphoto

[R C-R]

There are probably half a dozen different ways to do this, but for the first step of resizing the canvas, I prefer a variation of LilleG's method: just begin at her step 3 & in the Resize Canvas dialog click on the lock to unlock proportional resizing, click on the center anchor point, & add the two "+20" (or whatever you want for the total border size) values to the width & height numbers.

 

You don't have to duplicate or select anything, or even enter the values in pixels. Resizing the canvas is global for the document so nothing is resized except the canvas itself.

 

Once that is done, I lock the original photo layer (just to prevent any accidental changes to it). To create the border I either add a new fill layer as a base for a simple one color border or add rectangle shapes sized as appropriate for multiple border effects, moving the photo layer to the top of the layer stack so the border shapes don't obscure it.

 

For symmetrical border effects I use the Arrange options to make sure all the rectangles are aligned on the same center. I also sometimes use various stroke widths & colors on the rectangles to create more color variations. For even more variations, I use the gradient tool on one or more of the rectangles, setting the type to bitmap & using one of the dozens of jpg, tiff, bmp, or other raster texture raster images I have collected over the years as the fill pattern.

 

Attached is a very crude, horribly unartistic example of what is possible. There are only 4 layers in the original, the photo & three rectangles arranged below it. The innermost rectangle is a simple un-stroked one filled with a red color sampled from the image & the other two have bitmap textures applied & strokes in different colors.

[raveen]

Step by step

1. Take a new layer
2. and select to images
3. and go to select menu
4. and then click to modify
5. and then click to border

[Alfred]

Well, the crop method sounded good.  And it works great for the first border but...on my system, running RC1.5 on El Capitan, the second border mis-behaves just like it does using my method.  The bottom and right-side expansion is empty like you would expect it to be but the top and left-side expansion fills with the previous color.  Maybe it's a glitch in my system somewhere but it drives me nuts trying to work around it.

 

I found that I have to 'Merge Visible' to create a new copy if I want to add another border.

[Alfred]

@ LilleG & @Septimus:

 

Attached is a two-border example .afphoto and a jpg screen capture showing a 6-step method:

1. Duplicate photo layer

2. Use Crop or Document Resize to increase document dimensions

3. Insert new pixel layer under duplicated photo layer and fill with black for border 1

4. Repeat step 2

5.  Insert new pixel layer under black fill layer and fill with blue for border 2

6. Save document before you get confused again. 

 

Seems like you could add many borders this way.    :D

 

 border x2.afphotoborder x2.jpg

 

That's pretty much the method I described earlier: adding a new pixel layer below the image and flood filling it with the colour you want for the border. And yes, you could easily get confused! :lol:

[Septimus]

@ LilleG & @Septimus:

 

Attached is a two-border example .afphoto and a jpg screen capture showing a 6-step method:

1. Duplicate photo layer

2. Use Crop or Document Resize to increase document dimensions

3. Insert new pixel layer under duplicated photo layer and fill with black for border 1

4. Repeat step 2

5.  Insert new pixel layer under black fill layer and fill with blue for border 2

6. Save document before you get confused again. 

 

Seems like you could add many borders this way.    :D

 

 border x2.afphotoborder x2.jpg

Thanks, I've tried this method and it seems to work although I have to merge the layers before step 4 is that right?

[jer]

By Alfred: I found that I have to 'Merge Visible' to create a new copy if I want to add another border.

By Septimus: Thanks, I've tried this method and it seems to work although I have to merge the layers before step 4 is that right?

 

I did not merge any layers as you can see in the .afphoto file I attached to my post above.

 

I'm using the current beta version of AP on Win 10. So there must be a diff somewhere in your installs and mine.

[carl123]

Another way to do this is....

 

After the steps needed to resize the canvas, creating the new layer, repositioning, and filling with a colour to create a border...

 

 

...you can then use the effects panel to add an Outline (use Alignment = Inside) to add another colour to the border layer

[jer]

Another way to do this is....

 

After the steps needed to resize the canvas, creating the new layer, repositioning, and filling with a colour to create a border...

 

 

...you can then use the effects panel to add an Outline (use Alignment = Inside) to add another colour to the border layer

 

Yes, this still fulfills Septimus' requirement to not affect any of the photo original pixels since the outline is being added to the resized portion of the canvas.

[Septimus]

Another way to do this is....

 

After the steps needed to resize the canvas, creating the new layer, repositioning, and filling with a colour to create a border...

 

 

...you can then use the effects panel to add an Outline (use Alignment = Inside) to add another colour to the border layer

Yes that works although it seems simpler to/for me to do it the other way round ie add the outline and then resize.

 

Thanks everyone for your quick and knowledgeable support

[LilleG]

Old Photoshop habits die hard!  My problem was in trying to resize the background layer, fill with a color, then resize it again and add another color.  That worked in PS.  What works here...and thanks to whoever's suggestion it was...is to add the fill layers below while continuing to resize the background (or image) layer for additional borders.  Most of what I do is photo editing...so thanks to everyone for the elimination of a major frustration for me!

[raveen]

Select the all over image corners and background and you can make border on image. This is simple way for image border.