In using the frames in photoshop elements the frames are very thin around the borders. Is there a way to wide the frame effect around the photos? Also is it possible to change the look of the frames ?
CMP, I’m a little mystified by your comment that the frames in Elements are so small. The number of frames that comes with Elements is admittedly very small, but even so you can do a lot with them. Go to Effects>Foreground Color Frame. When you apply this frame it will apply in the Foreground color. It is not at all narrow. After you have it the color you want, there are all sorts of options: applying filters (One nice one is Stylize>Tiles set to 60 which produces a plaid based on the background color), applying patterns, gradients, shapes. You can add a matte to the inside or outside of the frame; the latter acts as a second frame and it can be filtered, etc. too. There are all sorts of possibilities. That having been said, I have personally found that I wanted additional frames which I have acquired on the CDs that come with Richard Lynch’s The Hidden Power of Photoshop Elements 2 and another book, One Click Wow. You might try searching the internet for free Photoshop Elements-compatible frames that can be dowenloaded. Hope this helps.
If you click on my name you will get my email address. I can send you some really cool frames that go into layer styles that were created by Jodi (forum regular). They’re awesome. And these you can scale to the size you want.
There are lots of options for creating frames but I’m too lazy at the moment to go into it.
Once you get beyong the pre packaged here is how to do it.
Frame or Matt
The steps seem many but the process is very repetitive and once done they become second nature. If you have a Mac substitute option key for alt key, and I think Ctrl is called Command (the one that looks like a flower).
Over images
(1) Select background colour using the eyedropper ( I ) (2) Completely select your image with the crop tool ( C ) (3) Holding down Alt + Shift keys and expand the canvas by pulling out one of the corner handles on the crop frame and click anywhere inside the crop frame to commit it. (Shift maintains the aspect ratio) and (Alt move out from the center) (4) Using the Magic Wand setting Tolerance to 1, Contiguous to on select the expanded part of your image (W) (5) Copy and paste this selection. ( In "Ctrl + C " will copy and then "Ctrl + V" will paste. ( In Photoshop with "Ctrl + J" you can do both steps at once.) (6) Using the Layers Styles add bevel and drop shadow to taste. In Elements this is found at >Window >Layer Styles. In PhotoShop click the little "f" at the bottom of the layers pallet.
Under image
(1) Select background colour using the eyedropper ( I ) (2) Completely select your image with the crop tool ( C ) (3) Holding down Alt + Shift keys and expand the canvas by pulling out one of the corner handles on the crop frame and click anywhere inside the crop frame to commit it. (Shift maintains the aspect ratio) and (Alt move out from the center) (4) Using the Magic Wand setting Tolerance to 1, Contiguous to on select the expanded part of your image (W) (5) Invert the selection (Ctrl + Shift + I) (6) Copy and paste this selection. ( In "Ctrl + C " will copy and then "Ctrl + V" will paste. ( In Photoshop with "Ctrl + J" you can do both steps at once.) (7) Using the Layers Styles add bevel and drop shadow to taste. In Elements this is found at >Window >Layer Styles. In Photoshop click the little "f" at the bottom of the layers pallet.
Mat and frame
If you are going to do this you may have to expand your selection to cover the outer edge of the mat >Select >Modify >Expand
Problems that may occur here is the placement of your frame layer must be over the mat layer or you will get 3D conflicts.
CMP, if you’re using the Layer Style frames, they’re resolution-dependent. Go to Image>Resize>Image Size and check the resolution; I’ll bet it’s 72 ppi. With the Resample box UNchecked, change that number to 225 or more, then reapply the frame style. I think you’ll get the wider frame you’re seeking in that way – the higher the resolution, the wider the frame. Again, make certain that resample is unchecked; otherwise, you might get some unintended ‘upsampling’ of your image which isn’t a good thing.
Three cheers for Jodi’s frames!!! I use them extensively. Love them. After giving my sister a gift of Elements 2, the first thing she wanted to know was how she could download Jodi’s frame files 🙂
And I copied all the messages in this Forum thread to a Word file, and plan to try out everyone’s suggestions this weekend. Sounds like fun!
