Mat & Frame Action

I've been working on an easy way to "mat & frame" digital images. I've tried lots of free actions on the internet, but none really did both a mat and a frame the way I wanted. I wanted a simple white mat, with a hint of texture and thin black frame with some depth.

The image above used a procedure I came up with in PS that is pretty easy. To make it even easier, I recorded it into an action. It takes just a few seconds to do its thing.

I'd like feedback on the mat and frame appearance here and if you think it looks good. If you are interested, you can download the action to try for yourself here http://www.ryandesjardins.com/download.htm

This was recorded in CS3, but I think it will work with previous versions (at least CS and CS2) because it doesn't use any new tool that what already existed.

If you try the action, please e-mail me with what you think and where it might be improved. I haven't shared any of my actions before, so I don't know how it will work on someone else's setup.

The action should be run on images that are prepared are sized for web display, and then saved for the web after the mat and frame are done.

Feel free to e-mail me with any questions.

I've tried a few I found on the internet too Ryan, never really happy. I like the look of this. I tried it as you suggested and it turned out very nice, worked perfectly. I really can think of anything to add

this is great.

i would like to have the option of a second mat, of all the photoshop i know, i don't have much of a clue how to do this.

Thanks for sharing this with all of us Ryan! I have played with one program before that I did not care for it that much so I have gone without doing any matting for web images. I really like the action you did though and I can see myself using it. Not sure what else I would change with it. I have CS2 and it ran fine.

It looks great, Ryan. When I click on the link at the download page I get transfered to a page with a bunch of text.

Michael, I was working on a double mat action last night. I'll let you know when I finish it. Making the double mat look good has turned out to be a little more difficult.

Mark, I'm not sure why the download page isn't working for you. I'll check the html to see if something is odd. It appears others have been able to get it.

I know nothing of the sorts of how to do this but I will check out your actions and see what I can come up with...this is a nice presentation....

ok so I downloaded it...it opened with CS3...now what do I do with it.....I have no idea what actions are!!!

This is nice. I have been using Fred Miranda actions for framing. Yours is nicer.

Darren, I will send you an e-mail with instructions shortly.

Mark found a flaw with the action when running it with an image that has white areas along the outside edges. I'll work on a solution to that. I have one in mind. Please let me know if any other flaws are found so I can fix them up. I believe I have a solution for the problem Mark found, but I won't be able to work on it until later today. My wife's taking me out to lunch and a movie for my birthday

Thanks so much.

those of you having download issues, you can right click (ctrl click on mac) and save as... usually.

in safari it comes in as atn.txt just remove .txt and you're fine.

Thank you to those who have tried the first action out. I'm working on a newer one that I think will be better. I solved the issue Mark had, but I'm developing it further before I have a new one available for download. I'll post a thread when its ready.

I found the flaw with white edges too, when I run into the problem, I just add a 3 pixel black canvas to the picture then run the action.

I can't wait to get the final version, it's pretty slick as it is, and when it's fixed, it'll be way nice.
Happy Birthday, BTW.

Thanks Mark, it was a really good day.

Thanks, Ryan - this is a really nice, all-purpose mat & frame. I agree that too much of what's out there is useless. I've done test drives of both the double and single, with great results! BTW, I'm a Mac user, and had no problems with downloading or loading into my Photoshop actions list.

Tom