torn edges

Hello,

In Photoshop will you let me know how to make the photo look as though it has torn edges all the way around it, please?

Thanks.

dioptic

New layer, overlay, and some template overlay or other. If my aux hard drive wasn't such an unreliable pos..

Good question, dioptic. Here's how I do it. I have photoshop CS, but this should work for CS2 as well as older versions of photoshop. This way allows me to customize the torn edges. There may be a more automated way, but I like this one because I'm in control, not the pre-set in the software.

With a copy of the image up on the screen in PS, select the marquee tool (the square in the upper left hand corner of the vertical toolbar).

Then, where it says "feather" across the toolbar above that, try 20 pixels for a start (you can experment. The larger the pixel value, the coarser the torn edges.)

Then draw in the marquee as though you're cropping the photo, leaving a quarter inch or however big a border you want. You'll see that you will end up losing whatever part of the image is in that border, as well as a bit more,so figure for that.

Then go to "select" and drag down and click "inverse."

Then simply use the mouse to drag the tool around and eliminate the image in the bordered box around the outside, bleeding it into the image itself as you go.

It goes without saying that you should be using a copy of the original image, not the original itself.

Hope this helps.

Excellent explanation Steve - I might try that advice myself.

Steve PM'd me thinking I could help, but I'm really terrible with the "creative" stuff. But, I wonder if a scan of an actual dog-eared print could be used to create a template for this.

A scan could be used, but you'd then lose the control over the coarse/fine degree of feathering in the tearing.

And here's how I do it if the image can't afford to lose that much around the edges. Sometimes you just can't give up that stuff!

Open and completely tone a COPY of the original photo. Then drag down under file to "open new" or whatever the exact language is. Those blessed with Macs can hit "command-N." What you're doing is opening a template on which you'll place the photo. Make the template a half inch bigger than the image on each side, but not so big that you can't fit it on the paper in your printer. Then click on the "move" tool, with is the box on the upper right hand corner of the photoshop toolbar. You'll then click on the image and move it onto the template. When it's centered where you want it and all looks good, drag down from "image" and select "flatten image." Once that's done, you have a tiff or psd of the saved template with the document on it.

Then repeat the original directions, and draw with the marquee tool so the border just reaches or stops short of the image itself, and go to town!

Those of us tormented by PCs can substitute "Ctrl" for the heralded Mac's "Command" button.

And yet another way to do it without eating up much of the image is to open and tone the image, go to "image" in the top horizontal toobar, drag down to "canvas size," and add an inch to horizontal and vertical dimensions. PS will automatically add space around the image, centering the image on the new canvas size. A little less rigamarole that way.

Steve these are great ideas you have posted. Do you have some examples that you could post? I'm not a "visual learner" per se, but a mixed media presentation may help drive these techniques home.

Here's one. Pardon the poor toning of the color. My supplemental hard drive carrying all my custom cards burned to the ground, so to speak, several months ago, and I had all my images backed up on CD but not these cards, so this is a hasty digital shot of one that I had printed. It's here more for the example of torn edges than the color toning. I printed this on Epson heavyweight matte paper on my R300.

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Pretty cool. Thanks.

Steve,

Thanks for the detailed instructions but......

I may not be as bright as some of the others in this forum. When you say
"Then simply use the mouse to drag the tool around and eliminate the image in the bordered box around the outside, bleeding it into the image itself as you go."---what tool are you talking about? Do you mean the marquee tool?

Feel free to treat me like a third grader.

Thanks.

dioptic

dioptic: When you've followed the steps outlined and put your cursor into the highlighted border around the print, you'll see the tool pop up there for you to drag around. You click it, hold the click and move it where you want to take it. You'll see . .