Make a Frame

page three
I hope you will try creating your own custom gradients to make your own, original frames. Here are a few tips on how the gradient tones work.
     A light, dark, light sequence of color stops, with a moderate distance between stops makes a rounded contour. A very light stop, right next to a very dark stop makes a corner, or abrupt edge. Two stops of the same color, next to each other make a flat surface. Moving the color midpoint (the little diamond that appears on either side of a selected color stop) will change where the gradient transition primarily occurs. Pushing the midpoint very close to the stop on its right will make a long swooping contour with an abrupt up or down turn after the midpoint.
     If you have a digital camera, or can scan photos from a regular camera, you can make close-up photos of real frames and open them in Photoshop. Then choose Image > Adjust > Desaturate. If the frame contours are not very clear, try using Image > Adjust > Brightness/Contrast and up the contrast. Enlarge a section of the frame edge. You also can drag guides to help you define the contours. To add guides, choose View > Show Rulers. Click on a ruler, and drag onto the image - a guide will be dragged with your pointer, and you can put it where you want it. Here's an example of a frame section with guides.

Next, click on the gradient tool in the toolbox, and then click on the gradient thumbnail as we did at the start of this tutorial. Select a color stop. Move your cursor out of the dialog box. It will become an eyedropper. Go to the gray frame image you have made, and click on the left most tone. The selected gradient color stop will become that color. Proceed across your new gradient by adding new color stops, and then clicking on the gray frame image tones. Try and add stops wherever there are distinct tonal transitions, or, to make a flat area, where you want the tones to remain the same. Drag the stops to reposition them along the bottom of the gradient bar. Drag the color midpoints, also. Don't forget to save your custom gradients in the Preset Manager.

Here are some snapshots of real frames to give you some ideas.


If you are a true perfectionist, you should probably try and darken the bottom of the frame, under its most prominent ridge in much the same way we lightened the top of the frame. However, I tried doing this, and it really didn't look that much better. I also tried various techniques for adding texture, or wood grain to the frame, and I didn't like the results at all. You may have better results than I did.
     Last, you don't have to be realistic. You can make a frame from any gradient at all. You might want to try adding color stops at random in the gradient editor, and just see what you come up with, by accident.
Have fun.

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If you would like to download a zipped pdf file of this tutorial, please click on the link below, and save it to your hard drive.
Make a Frame pdf
191 KB

I made a tutorial about a month before I made this one that tells you how to add a frame, plus a beveled mat to your image. It also includes instruction on how to make a much quicker, but plainer frame than those created in this tutorial. It is available as a pdf file, only. If you would like to download it, right click on the link below and save it to your hard drive. (not zipped)
Frames pdf
247 KB

  below Here is the frame we made

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Copyright © 2000 by Jay Arraich.
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jay@arraich.com