Question on borders

There is a difference between what looks good in a print viewed by ambient light and what looks good when projected onto a screen or viewed on a monitor. A further consideration is the ambient light when viewing on a screen.

White or a light colour is the biggest offender as the large expanse of it dazzles the eye and affects one's appreciation of the image itself. This doesn't happen normally with a print viewed by ambient light but projected the white is the brightest thing the eye can see and unless strictly controlled is bad.

My rule of thumb for an image of about 800 pixels wide is a white border of 4 or 5 pixels, when I first started organising for projected images I was warned that a one pixel border could get 'lost' by the projector. Since I use the 'dark' option here at CiC I tend to forget that others may not and images need a border as say at PhotoNet or elsewhere with white screens.

White is a prefered colour for mounted prints, though my preference and use is a mid grey mount with perhaps a white border occasionally, and this and the rules for using it seem to unfortunately been transfered to digital

As for drop shadows .... YUK :) as well as some of the 'pretty' presentations that are inflicted on the viewer.

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Originally Posted by jcuknz

There is a difference between what looks good in a print viewed by ambient light and what looks good when projected onto a screen or viewed on a monitor. A further consideration is the ambient light when viewing on a screen.

White or a light colour is the biggest offender as the large expanse of it dazzles the eye and affects one's appreciation of the image itself. This doesn't happen normally with a print viewed by ambient light but projected the white is the brightest thing the eye can see and unless strictly controlled is bad.

My rule of thumb for an image of about 800 pixels wide is a white border of 4 or 5 pixels, when I first started organising for projected images I was warned that a one pixel border could get 'lost' by the projector. Since I use the 'dark' option here at CiC I tend to forget that others may not and images need a border as say at PhotoNet or elsewhere with white screens.

White is a prefered colour for mounted prints, though my preference and use is a mid grey mount with perhaps a white border occasionally, and this and the rules for using it seem to unfortunately been transfered to digital

As for drop shadows .... YUK :) as well as some of the 'pretty' presentations that are inflicted on the viewer.

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Reading Steinmueller's "Fine Art Printing for Photographers" he suggests inspecting images under Daylight 50 lighting. Borders are used for handling purposes and also mounting.

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Originally Posted by Colin Southern

... to me, that's like a chef in a cooking competition just scooping up the food and going "splat" on the plate.

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That reminds me of a story Graham Kerr, later to become the TV Chef, told me of his time when catering advisor for the RNZAF .... A Flight Sgt apparently said "what does it matter, it all ends up mixed up in one's guts" :)

On 'what colour?' occasionally it can be nice if one picks a colour from the picture and uses it as a small border but it is in danger of being rather "twee"

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Originally Posted by rtbaum

I have been thinking about border on my shots; I used to know how in photoshop, but haven't in quite a while. Any one wanna nudge an old, tired guy's brain cells of the technique necessary in CS4 :rolleyes:

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Randy
I think a rather convoluted way is to make a new image slightly larger than the photo, copy it and paste as a new layer with the photo [ change the photo from 'background' to Raster '1,a double click on the background name in the layer palette should start this for you ... ] and move the background to below the photo, finally 'merge layers'

It is a long time since I used PS, and only PS CS, and with PSP we have two useful tools 'Canvas size"
" and "add border" with options to vary the position of the photo on the background and the colour of the b/g which makes life very easy.

Another thought! NIK Software and Photoshop Elements have border presets that a photographer can use. However, the NIK Software (and I strongly suspect, PSE also) forms the borders from within the image rather than outside the image.

As an example if I made an 8x10 inch image using NIK or PSE, the image would remain 8x10 inches but, the border would intrude into the image. O.K. for some shots; but poison for others, especially when you have cropped the image quite closely.

Using Photoshop and adding borders using Image> Canvas Size; your original image is retained because the borders are added "outside" the image area. I most often like this technique but, one needs to remember that the total image size (including border) will be larger when adding a boder in this manner. That might or might not be a problem...

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Originally Posted by rpcrowe

Another thought! NIK Software and Photoshop Elements have border presets that a photographer can use. However, the NIK Software (and I strongly suspect, PSE also) forms the borders from within the image rather than outside the image.

As an example if I made an 8x10 inch image using NIK or PSE, the image would remain 8x10 inches but, the border would intrude into the image. O.K. for some shots; but poison for others, especially when you have cropped the image quite closely.

Using Photoshop and adding borders using Image> Canvas Size; your original image is retained because the borders are added "outside" the image area. I most often like this technique but, one needs to remember that the total image size (including border) will be larger when adding a boder in this manner. That might or might not be a problem...

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When I sent my photo to printer the described large format was stated as 20" x30". The photo I received was exactly 20" x 29" and had a 1/4" border within. Not sure if the printer uses a tolerance on format sizes. I didn't bother measuring the 24" x 36" image, I just popped it into a frame and called it a day.

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Originally Posted by Shadowman

When I sent my photo to printer the described large format was stated as 20" x30". The photo I received was exactly 20" x 29" and had a 1/4" border within. Not sure if the printer uses a tolerance on format sizes. I didn't bother measuring the 24" x 36" image, I just popped it into a frame and called it a day.

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Normally it'll print exactly the size it's told to, although there are a couple of options that's scale the image to fit the media. Normally if you want to print an image that's 24" wide on 24" media, you have to select options for what called "full bleed" to print right to the edge of the paper.

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Originally Posted by Colin Southern

Normally it'll print exactly the size it's told to, although there are a couple of options that's scale the image to fit the media. Normally if you want to print an image that's 24" wide on 24" media, you have to select options for what called "full bleed" to print right to the edge of the paper.

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i'll look into that.

Thanks