Doing Your Own Thing If you’d rather do it yourself, the basics are very easy. I’ll use Photoshop CS for this example, but Photoshop Elements, Jasc Paintshop Pro, Digital Image Pro and most image-editing programs have the same functionality. Photoshop Elements users have a nice library of instant frames available. Dragging a frame onto your image applies the effect. To begin, open your image. If you need to do any image corrections, sizing or sharpening, this should be done before creating the border treatment. For Web use, I typically size images at 600 pixels on the long side. Step 1: Using a solid line—or stroke—around the image is an effective way to add some dimension to the border. For the rainbow image used here, I selected the image, then went to Edit>Stroke and selected 5 pixels, black and inside for the location. Step 2: Next, you need to add space around the image. This new space will become the matte and frame for your image. Select Image>Canvas Size. I usually add 200 pixels to the height and width to start with. If you want to use a color for your matte, select it from the Canvas Extension Color list. I typically use white, but you can select any color you like. Step 3: You can stop here if you like, and your image will be similar to Figure 3. For Web use, I don’t usually add a frame, but I will normally add a signature. I do mine as a custom brush but the text tool works if you’d rather use a font (and looking at my signature, that would probably be a good idea for me). Figure 3: To create your own three-dimensional frame, make a selection that will be filled. Bevels and lighting effects are added through the layer Effects dialog. Step 4: To add a simple frame, repeat the stroke done in Step 1, but change the width to 25 pixels. If you’re thinking, “That’s nice, Jon, but it’s pretty boring. Can’t you do better than that?” Keep reading. You can add some dimension to your frame with a little more work. Let’s replace the original Step 4 with a new technique. To begin, drag out a selection rectangle like the one in Figure 3. Next, choose Select>Inverse. You should now have two sets of “marching ants.” Step 5: Choose Layer>New Fill Layer>Solid Color. This is where you’ll pick the color for your frame. If you move the color dialog, you can see your image update with the different colors as you select them, which is helpful if you want to use a color besides basic black. Step 6: Click on the Layer Style icon (the fancy little “f” at the bottom of the Layers palette), and select Bevel and Emboss. The only changes I’ve made here were to change the bevel size to 10. This is a pretty cool dialog and worth experimenting with. You might want to change the lighting angle or other settings. If you don’t like what you’ve done, just click Cancel and start again. The final image (Figure 4) now has a frame that appears more three-dimensional. Figure 4: This is the final result after creating a 3D frame and adding a signature to the photo. This one is ready for the Web.