When does a Photoshopped frame work?

Paul Iddon

Some of have used Photoshop to add borders to images in the past, some more successful than others, and I've done some bad 'uns!

Today was a pretty drab day again the sunshine city of Preston (minus the sunshine of course) cos most days its more akin to rainy climes than anything else!

So I went into the garden. The two bees I saw were not hanging around, the daddy long legs the same, and I have done a fair few flies and spiders already, so it was back to plants - or more accurately, grasses.

So I placed two grass stalks in a small bottle and shot them against a neutral background - a hand towel.

This is the one:





So now was the time to try and get a touch of creativity into the image, and using a few filters (Filters Unlimited plug-in) it became this:




Of course the vast majority of what I add to forums has my (almost always) obligatory drop shadow, to help lift them of the forum page a bit more, but I decided to take this all a stage further and add a frame in Photoshop.

This is the part that most people would have already drawn the line at, but bear with me on this and you'll see where I am going.

Let me introduce the frame into the equation:




There you go. That's the frame added and it actually doesn't look that bad does it?

So, to finish it off, perhaps the frame would finally look more in place, if it was in a place where it would look in place, if you get what I mean. So the final result is done by putting it on the wall. In Photoshop.

So I took a photograph of the wall itself (complete with light switch) and proceeded to put the grass framed photo into it. Colour matched the wall to the framed photo, and...

Et voilà




Hope you enjoyed the story and how I did the final image.



Paul.

cletus

Very nice Paul

Dogdots

Your hand towel worked good for a background -- nice photo

Paul Iddon

Cheers folks. The frames are naff, but it was an interesting little experiment.

Paul.

Richard

Paul Iddon wrote:

Cheers folks. The frames are naff, but it was an interesting little experiment.

Paul.

I think the answer to your question ("when do Photoshopped frames work?") depends entirely on what you are planning to do with the image. If it is for display on a Web page, I think it can work fine, and your experiment looks good. But, IMO, you should never, ever include a frame on something to be printed. It will look tacky no matter how well done it is.

Just my .02 €.

Paul Iddon

Agreed Richard. Only for web.

If I need to for a print, the most it would get would be a 5px keyline.


Paul.

marcpro

Cool light switch... from a Canadian perspective.

Paul Iddon

marcpro wrote:

Cool light switch... from a Canadian perspective.

Thanks.


Paul.