Photoshop Elements: How to do Out Of Bounds Framing By Christa (CFile) 2/19/19 Accompanying PSE Video found here: Today we are going to use some masks, and create an out of bounds frame effect technique for your scrapbook layouts. (This is an intermediate tutorial and assumes that you know how to open a file and select your photos, papers and elements.) What you will need: A mask of your choice from any of your kits, a photo of interest, some staples, a frame of choice, (or you can make your own), a background paper, and any other supplies or elements to finish your page. Use whatever fonts you wish to add a title, journaling and/or date. I am using PSE15 but this can be done with any photo software program with similar steps. Okay, let’s get started! 1. Start with a new blank workspace, the size you are used to working with. Most people use 12” X 12” (or 3600 X 3600 pixels with a 300dpi.) My page is 600 X 600 pixels with a 72dpi (save for web size) with a white background for this example. The supplies I will be using for my digital layout will be the “Richmond” kit, which is a free newsletter subscriber kit by Lynn Grieveson of the Lily Pad. The fonts are “Aagaz” and “Ambassador Update”. (The staple is one I made. Photo was taken by me, at the Williamsburg Winery 9/28/2018.) (Note: I use the File >Place Embedded to open up files to place in my workspace. There are many ways to bring the files into your workspace. Drop/Drag etc., so please use which way works best for you. In PSE there is a photo bin. If you open your files through PSE, they will be located in the bin at the bottom of your screen. You can then just drag the papers and elements into your layout from the photo bin as you create your page.) 2. Use white as your background layer or choose a paper to your liking from the supplies. Drop/Drag/Place the paper into your new workspace. 3. Choose the photo you would like to use and bring it into your workspace, in the layer above the background layer. (The photo I will be using is a photo I took while I was at the Williamsburg Winery. The photo is of an outdoor hanging light that has a great silhouette edge of trees and in the distance, a beautiful view of the grape vines.) 4. Place your photo on the background where you want it. I have placed mine in the center and to the right on the paper. 5. Choose a mask from your stash that you wish to work with. (It can also be a paint transfer which is what I will be using.) We want to be able to “Clip our photo” to this mask/paint transfer. 6. Place the mask/paint transfer layer under the photo. (In the layer panel, select the mask/paint transfer layer and drag underneath the photo layer.) 7. Clip the photo to the mask/paint transfer. You can do this several different ways: - right click with your mouse on the photo layer. From the menu, choose “Create Clipping Mask”. OR: - Go up to Layer>Create Clipping Mask from the drop down menu. OR: use the shortcut by selecting the photo layer and hold down the ALT+CTRL+G (on PC) / OPT+CMD+G (on MAC) OR: 1 more method: Choose the mask paint transfer in the layer panel and move the cursor to where it is between the photo and the mask/paint transfer. Holding down ALT (PC) or OPT (MAC) until you see a little square with the down arrow… left click with the mouse to set it in place. Your photo should now be clipped to the mask/transfer paint layer, taking on that shape. I am going to resize my mask/paint transfer to have the photo fit better, making it larger or smaller in various areas. I am using the transform boxes and holding down the shift key to resize the height & width for the best fit for the photo. I also used a soft round brush to paint in where I wanted more surface of the photo to show, and then used the eraser tool with the soft round brush on the edges to remove the photo edges. (Before I could paint, I had to simplify the paint transfer layer.) 8. Add a New Layer. Once you have clipped your photo and fixed the mask/painted transfer to the desired surface area, you are now ready to make the frame. We want to add a new layer above the photo layer. Select the photo layer in the layer panel, and click on the “Add New Layer” icon (first icon) above the layer panel. 9. Making the photo edge frame: On the new layer, using the rectangle Marquee tool, draw a rectangle over the portion of your photo that you want to frame, and fill with white using the paint bucket tool. [Note: Make sure your foreground color is set to white. D on your keyboard is the shortcut to making the default colors of black and white. If Black is showing as foreground, hit X on your keyboard, and that will “exchange/flip” the foreground/background colors.] 10. Ctrl/Cmd+D to deselect the marching ants (or go to Select>Deselect on the top tool bar. 11. Using the rectangle marquee tool, inside the white square, draw another rectangle, with only a small edge between them. Once it reflects a photo edge the size you want, change to the mover tool and hit the delete button to remove the inside of the rectangle.
12. Ctrl/Cmd + D to deselect the marching ants (or go to Select>Deselect on the top tool bar). 13. We are going to add a drop shadow to our photo edge we just made. With the layer highlighted choose Style at the bottom of the layer panel... Pick a preferred drop shadow. You can always adjust your settings, by selecting the fx on the layer in the layer panel. It will bring up the style box where you can adjust the settings. So far, so good! Now we are going to add a layer mask to the photo edge layer. We will be masking out the right edge of the frame so it will appear that the masked photo is coming out of the frame for the “Out of Bound” look. (Remember when adding a layer mask – white reveals and black conceals. We want to add a white layer mask as we will paint out what we want to get rid of.) 14. Select the photo edge layer in the layer palette. At the top of the layer panel is a button icon of a rectangle with a circle. That is the layer mask icon. Click on that and it will add a layer mask (reflected as a white square) to the photo edge layer. The white on the mask is indicating it is revealing/showing what is on the layer. If we paint anywhere in the white space of the mask with black, we will be hiding what is there. We want to hide a small part of the right side of the frame. 15. Use a soft round brush, set the foreground color to black. Make sure your mask is selected (white box around mask- what I have marked around) Paint a little on the right side of the photo edge to hide it, so it will appear that the photo is out of bounds. Now you are done with the hard work. All that is left to do is adding various elements, a title, journaling and a date to finish off your page. On my page, in addition to adding elements, I have also added a lens flare to the light to make it look lit to go with my journaling. Here again is the completed page:
Great tutorials @cfile. Really clear how to do this technique and a reminder that you can use all sorts of elements as masks!
