Part Two - Quick Mask
Adding borders

In the hopes of keeping a very long tutorial as short as possible, I'm just going to show you one example of how to use Quick Mask to make a border. When you've learned to do it this way, you'll see how easy it is to play with the settings to get different borders.

First thing to do, of course, is to open the image you want to add a border to. Do everything to it that you want to do first, then add the border. I'll wait, you go ahead ....

Ready? That was quick! Ok, here is the image I'm going to work with. I think this is a screenshot from a game called "Draken" but I don't think I took this shot.

We are going to add kind of a curvy border to it ... you might say "grungy" even. Use one of your selection tools to make a selection around the picture. Most of the image outside of your selection will be gone, so select carefully. You can use a circle, or a rectangle, you can make it even all around, or off center like I've done here. It's up to you, and what you want the final graphic to look like.

Now click on the "Edit in Quick Mask" mode button that we learned about on the previous part of this tut. You'll get a red border all around the outside of your selection. Like this:

I've decided to put a frosted glass filter effect on the border. Go to Filter > Distort > Glass, then play with the settings til you like how it looks. Mine looked like this:

Once you get it how you want it, click OK. Now it should look something like this:

Now exit Quick Mask mode by clicking that left hand button, and INVERT your selection. That's caps because it is important. Go to Select > Inverse, then press that delete key. Your finished product should look something similar to this:

Pretty cool, huh? All the different filters do different things, so go forth and play! See what you like best. Also, if you make your original selection thicker or thinner you'll get different results.

Next we'll learn how to add a little color to a black and white image. Of course, it's easier to start out with a color image, then remove most of the color, leaving only a bit. There is a tutorial for that HERE. However, that won't help if your image is black and white to begin with. So, let's go figure out how to do that!

Quick Mask Links: Fade to one side | Adding borders | Add color to a black/white photo

Part One: Intro | Part Two: Quick Mask | Part Three: Layer Mask | Part Four: Mask Brushes

Tutorials Index