Technique 21. Defining a Threshold Border

Technique #21. Defining a Threshold Border

This time, you'll use a textured photo and the Threshold command to select areas to use as borders. (Use a textured photo that's at least as large, or larger than, the photo to which you'll add the border.)

key concepts:

threshold

free transform

quick mask

blend modes

filters

layer masks

layer styles

Step One.	Open your textured photo and from the Image menu, choose Adjustments>Threshold. Move the slider until you get an interesting black-and-white texture (refer to Key Concepts for more details).
Step Two.	With the Rectangular Marquee tool (M), make a selection that's at least as wide as (or wider than) your destination photo. Press Q to enter Quick Mask mode to help isolate your selection and see what kind of border you'll get.
Step Three.	As an optional step, while in Quick Mask mode, you can apply a distortion filter such as Brush Strokes>Spatter to create a more randomized edge. After applying the filter, press Q again to return to Standard mode and then press Command-C (PC: Control-C) to Copy the selection.
Step Four.	Switch to your photo and press Command-J (PC: Control-J) to duplicate the Background layer. Then use the Image>Canvas Size command, or press Command-Option-C (PC: Control-Alt-C), to add 1 inch of canvas (with the Relative checkbox turned on) to both the width and height. To add a bit more depth to the image, I also added a drop shadow by clicking on the Add a Layer Style icon at the bottom of the Layers palette and choosing Drop Shadow.
Step Five.	Press Command-V (PC: Control-V) to Paste the selected area from the textured photo. Press Command-T (PC: Control-T) to go into Free Transform mode, and scale the texture layer down to make it slightly larger than your photo. Return to the textured photo and repeat Steps Two, Three, and Five to make additional selections and paste them into the photo (of course, you'll end up making two horizontal and two vertical selections).
Step Six.	Change the blend mode of each of the border layers to Multiply to remove the white pixels in the borders. Hint: Command-click (PC: Control-click) on each of the border layers to select them and then from the Layers palette's flyout menu, choose New Group from Layers. That will create a Group (folder) that contains the four border layers.
Step Seven.	If you want the borders to only appear on the photo (with a sharp edge at the edges of the photo), Command-click (PC: Control-click) on the photo layer thumbnail. Then click on the Group layer to activate it and click on the Add Layer Mask icon at the bottom of the Layers palette to add a layer mask to the Group.

Variations

Choose Filter>Other>Maximum to make the white area of the layer mask slightly larger, allowing more of the borders to show.

Variation 1: Maximum filter

Apply a filter to the layer mask to create a more random edge to the border layers (here I used Distort>Glass).

Variation 2: Glass filter