Frame It

On Day 22 at Beyond Layers Kim gave us a tutorial with a few examples of how to frame our photos. This wasn't a difficult challenge, as I've been framing my photos for years. I used to create my own frame templates, so that I'd just copy a ready-made frame layer (or layers) from a photoshop document to the picture I was processing, but lately I've mostly been using actions by Jonas M. Rogne. He's got seven different sets of actions for framing, you can find them here. My favourites are the filtered framing actions. The only minor drawback with these actions is that you need to flatten your image before applying them for them to work properly, but I usually make a flattened copy of my image and discard it then after using the frame action and saving for web.

I decided to try out Kim's suggestions, however, since there were some keyboard shortcuts for photoshop I hadn't used before, and you only ever have a chance to remember them if you use them yourself. So here are three images I framed, using each of the methods in the tutorial.

Behind the Gate

This picture I took of our Dandie boy Renny on 2 September, 2010, at our home gate. Here I used the stroke framing technique, although as I used blend mode Saturation, it is very subtle. The other frame, the thin bevelled inner frame, is my own invention, and I used it a lot earlier.  

Resources:
- texture Evolve 2 by Kim Klassen

Sunset on Koli

We visited Koli National Park in Northern Karelia in the east of Finland at the end of May. The landscapes from the wooded hills down to the lakes and woodland are very much a part of Finnish national landscape. The views have been painted by numerous Finnish artists, and whenever anybody in my childhood neighbourhood in Southern Karelia had visitors from abroad or other parts of Finland, Koli National Park was at least recommended to them as a destination or else they'd be taken there (by my father and/or uncle). The sunset that evening was rather spectacular, I wish my picture would do better justice to what we saw then. Used the enlargening canvas method here, and added some layer styles.

Creeping Buttercup

A tiny fly paying a visit to a Creeping Buttercup after some rain on 24 June, 2012. For this image I used the subtle frame technique, which I think suits this image perfectly.

Resources:
- font BlairMdITC TT Medium by Jim Spiece
- font Shardee by Bright Ideas

Dear me. Seems I got carried away, again. It's definitely time to attend to the family, in other words, to feed the doggies. Better Half left for the Terrier Specialty last night with some friends, taking the kiddies to their second show ever, and as I couldn't travel with them because I was working, I am now dog-sitting the older ones. They are beginning to give me certain kind of looks, and Renny will soon start singing. Better act, before their hints turn to demands. Then it might be time to keel over -- waking up last night at two to make breakfast for Better Half and help them pack the car did leave me feeling somewhat groggy, although I managed to snatch some sleep for about three hours before driving to work.