I was getting some photos of my kids ready for development and made a nice faded frame for one of them. I am doing these myself mainly because I don't want to pay a photographer to do them and have the needed equipment to take the photos anyway.

Here is how I did it...

- Open your photo in PhotoShop

- The photo opens as a background. Double click the background and rename it to something,

- Using the elliptical tool left click in the top left corner and drag down to the bottom left corner approximately the same distance from the corner as you started. (You can move this around with your arrow keys to move it around if needed)

- From the layers palette click on Add Layer Mask. Make sure the Layer mask is selected in the Layer Palette.

- The go to Filter, then blur, then gaussian blur. It will be a lot easier if you have the preview option enabled. Adjust the radius until you get the effect you are looking for or the amount of fade you want and click ok.

NOTE: If you want the background fade to be a different color then create a new layer, fill with the color you want and then drag that layer to the bottom of the layers in the layer palette.


Enjoy!

Can we see what your final result looks like?

Originally posted by wicked_gal00
Can we see what your final result looks like?
Yeah, some before/after pics would be cool.

I am not sure how long I will leave thse up but here you go. They have been reduced just a bit but you get the idea.

This is the original photo
Original Photo (http://www.hybricom.com/test/jay_pose_reduc_orig.jpg)

This is after following the tutorial
The final product (http://www.hybricom.com/test/jay_pose_reduc_bdr.jpg)

Nice.

That kid is cute and, in that pose, devilishly sexy! :evil:

Best way to frame in general is to download some actions for PS. They can frame a photo in seconds with essentially no work.

Lemme know if you would like some links to some free actions.

Chris

WorldBuilder, I am very interested in a better way to do this. I like putting photos like this together for family.
Thanks!

What do you want to know?

Basically, actions are scripts that run a "program" inside PS that execute certain functions. Framing actions do all the work, you just specify a few parameters along the way. Very simple, very neat.

There's lots of them, try a Google search.

Here's one I frequently use:

http://www.photozo.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=227#227

HTH,

Chris