Adding borders to your work/watermarking.

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Amnesia180

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Hey all...

Once again, I've created another post. They're all newb questions and I have done searches before I actually post.

But I'm looking for something a little more "in depth".

Do you guys all create your own borders? Or are there programs out there that add a border around the outisde of your pictures?

Also, do you ever overwrite the original, or do you have the original... untouched - then do your think in photoshop (like all the post processing some people do) then save it as a seperate file.

I.e:
PIC_001.jpg
PIC_001-1.jpg
PIC_002.jpg
PIC_002-1.jpg

Also, do you "sign" everything? And again, how is this done? Do you create a seperate file that you overlay... or is there a program that can save a template and apply it to the photos you want to "showcase"

Thanks :)
Amnesia
 
On of the easiest ways to add a simple border in Photoshop is to increase the canvas size by your chosen amount and fill the new area with white or black or any other colour you fancy :)

I always save the original RAW file, the processed Photoshop file (with all layers intact), a high res TIFF and a low res JPG of all my shots. If I subsequently chose to add a border I do that to the TIFF and save it with the word bordered at the end of the file name.
 
Grendel said:
On of the easiest ways to add a simple border in Photoshop is to increase the canvas size by your chosen amount and fill the new area with white or black or any other colour you fancy :)
Click to expand...

ie.......GREEN in Ven's case and PINK in sawman's !!! :D :lol:
 
rofl3.gif
@ J ... :D








animo21.gif

 
there are "fancy" borders as well, for example digial photo gave away a load of them on one of their cds a couple of months ago.

Personally i followed the tutorial for putting them on, on one photo then went back to creating them with canvas sizes.

i favour a thin white border and a thicker black one (or ocasionally the other way around)
 
Thanks guys, I'll mess around with these later tonight.

Another final question.... If I came up with a shot, and cropped it... do you have any set sizes that you would resize it to?

I'm only thinking of this because if I ever wanted to get prints of my finished shots... if they aren't standard sizes, I couldn't do it... right?
 
depends really on what you want to do with the image
if for example it is purly for the net, then 800x600 is usually recomended

if you know that you are goign to prnt the image, then it is probably best to crop it to slightly bigger (so you have room for a border) than the print size

you should be able to set your crop tool to crop at designated sizes (6x4 / 7x5 for example)
 
Grendel said:
On of the easiest ways to add a simple border in Photoshop is to increase the canvas size by your chosen amount and fill the new area with white or black or any other colour you fancy :)

I always save the original RAW file, the processed Photoshop file (with all layers intact), a high res TIFF and a low res JPG of all my shots. If I subsequently chose to add a border I do that to the TIFF and save it with the word bordered at the end of the file name.
Click to expand...

So you shoot in RAW.
PP it in Photoshop (and save the PP file).
Then a HIGH res TIFF and a low res JPG of the finished article.

Where do you keep all of these files?

I.e:
Code: 
2007
  June
    Family Event
      Picture1.raw
      Picture1.psd
      Picture1.tiff
      Picture1.jpg
      Picture1border.tiff
      Picture2.raw
      Picture2.psd
      Picture2.tiff
      Picture2.jpg
      Picture2border.tiff
OR
Code: 
2007
 June
    Family Event
       RAW
          Picture1.raw
          Picture2.raw
       PSD
          Picture1.psd
          Picture2.psd 
      TIFF
           Picture1.tiff
           Picture1border.tiff
           Picture2.tiff
           Picture2border.tiff
       JPG
           Picture1.jpg
           Picture2.jpg
OR!!
Code: 
RAW
   2007
      June
PSD
   2007
      June
TIFF
    2007
       June
JPG
    2007
       June
 
Sorry.... not very helpful there was I. But a digital workflow creates large files if you are not too careful. I have just invested in Lightroom and it works in my structure where I keep one "shoot" is a dated folder and create subfolders where my jpegs for web are , etc.
Borders are best added as you need them as it is a pain to strip out of a good flattened TIFF.
 
Ive created a photoshop action that does the following-

-resizes the image to the required imagesize less the width of the border
-adds a 1.5pixel pinstripe around the image in white
-adds a 24pixel border in black around it to border it
-adds my username on the border
-saves the file into a seperate folder inside the original imagefolder


and results in this-
citedetechnologie.jpg
 
whitewash said:
Ive created a photoshop action that does the following-

-resizes the image to the required imagesize less the width of the border
-adds a 1.5pixel pinstripe around the image in white
-adds a 24pixel border in black around it to border it
-adds my username on the border
-saves the file into a seperate folder inside the original imagefolder


and results in this-
citedetechnologie.jpg
Click to expand...

What if you shoot in portrait mode? Do you have another action for that?

I am going to set up an action that adds a border, drop shadow and signature for portrait and landscape ..... Keep putting it off. :D
 
yes sorry ive got a seperate one for portrait shots


its important to note that when adding text the text size will differ between 300dpi tiff and 72dpi jpeg files, it'll be teeny wheeny on a jpeg compared to the tiff file
 
Firstly I always leave the original file untouched, though as I shoot in raw that decision is made for me anyway!

If I need or want to crop then I always do so to maintain the 3:2 ratio. In Photoshop I do this by making sure the background layer is converted to a normal layer, then use the crop tool for a size of "3 in" by "2 in" with the dpi setting left blank. This way you can use the tool as normal but it will be fixed it to the required ratio. Also I use hide mode rather than delete (this is why you need to convert background layers or this option is not available) which means as it says, when you crop the edges are just hidden in the file can can be recovered.

Although there are various standard print sizes they do not have the same ratio. A 6x4" or 12x8" would be 3:2 but a 10x8" is 5:4 and a 12x10" is 6:5 for example.

I always work on and save the file at its maximum resolution as this can be then resized as appropriate for different output needs. This is where using hide mode in cropping can help as to change to a different ratio you might want to recover some of the discard space above or below the image than having to discard too much from the sides when switching to a squarer frame.

For frames I have created template files at standard sizes that I use, though I plan on writing javascript actions to automate this at some point.

My standard web size is 600x400 for landscape and 500x333 for portrait, and for frames I use a white background for light shots (usually meaning day time) and a black one for dark ones (night time). These were created using the canvas size technique.

To create them I do the following: create a new image sized 602x402 filled in black (this will leave a one pixel black border around the image when it is copied into the frame), then resize the canvas to 620x420 with the fill colour set to white.

Then I resize the canvas again to 630x420 with the anchor point set to the top and keeping the fill colour as white. This gives the extra space at the bottom for a caption. As this is a template just use some dummy text and position it so it vertically centred in the bottom white area and left aligned just inside the black area where the image will go. Then finally resize the canvas back to 620x420 and when it warns clipping will occur accept this and save it as a template file.

When I have an image you have processed, resized for the web, and sharpened I then flatten it, load my template frame, and duplicate the flattened layer into the frame. This is why I resized it back to 620x420, as the new layer is only 600x400 it will automatically be centred in the frame exactly where I wanted it. Had I left it at 630x420 then it would have been vertically centred overlapping the caption.

So all I need to do then is resize the canvas back to 630x420 with it anchored at the top making sure I have the fill colour set at white, edit the caption, then do a save for web.

The above example was for a white frame in landscape mode, I make the others in the same way (though to make the black ones I just load a white one and invert the colours). Obviously if you do not want captions or wish to align them differently (centred, on top etc.) then you can use the same principle in making the template. You can also include a watermark as a layer in the template, I originally created one but have never used it so left the layer turned off. Once I have a web site I will probably have one with the URL.

For filing I use a different partition on external hard disk for processing (called PHOTOS_OUT) as I do for the original shots (PHOTOS_IN) and I organize it like this:

20070614 Elvis on the Moon
.....Images
..........Web
..........6x4 Prints
.....Web
.....6x4 Prints

Main folder has the date (of the shots) and a description. Under this is an "Images" folder where all the full resolution TIFF files go.

When I resize my photos I save the final version of the TIFF files after sharpening in separate folders under this based on their output purpose. I have recently started keeping these so I can always recreate the output file if I ever wanted to change the frame or caption else I might change in the future. I used to just start from the full resolution version and resize again, but then spent ages trying redoing the "what is best sharpening" step I thought it worth the disk space to save time. Though that is in part because I am useless at sharpening!

The final output file, which will nearly always be a JPG, if saved in a similarly named folder directly under the main one.

Michael.
 
I'm sure you know this already but if you are cropping and want to maintain the same aspect ratio e.g. 3:2 format, hold the shift key whilst dragging in one of the corner points when cropping, this will ensure the final image stays at the correct ratio.

Personally I don't use Bridge or any other system to sort my files. In the 'My Pictures' folder I have sub-folders broken down into different categories - Weddings, Portraits, Equestrian, Holidays, Macro, Landscapes, Kids etc and each new shoot is assigned a new folder within the appropriate section. RAW files are at the top of the tree, any shots that are processed are saved as TIFFS and there are subfolders from there like this:

My Pictures
Weddings
Name of B&G
Processed
A shots
B shots
Finals

Anything I want to save for the web (i.e. here) or my website goes into seperate folders.

HTH.
 
mij - Thanks for that indepth explanation of what you do! It will really help me out when playing around some more tonight!
Also, when you say 6x4 - I take it 6x4 is in inches right? And would that be for a print?

The reason I ask... is because say (for instance) I wanted this printed... Would I have to print it off in a standard size format?
Or... would you go back to the original, and re-create the file (because I have made that one rather small... about 500px I think).


Hacker - I thought that holding the shift key just makes a square everytime in Photoshop?
 
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