Exactly
See, the more you experiment with Photoshop, the less you have to rely on these expensive plug-ins.
To be honest; there are only a few plug-ins that do things that can't easily be done in Photoshop, but people who are new to Photoshop need don't see that right away, because it takes time

Exactly
See, the more you experiment with Photoshop, the less you have to rely on these expensive plug-ins.
To be honest; there are only a few plug-ins that do things that can't easily be done in Photoshop, but people who are new to Photoshop need don't see that right away, because it takes time

Exactly
See, the more you experiment with Photoshop, the less you have to rely on these expensive plug-ins.
To be honest; there are only a few plug-ins that do things that can't easily be done in Photoshop, but people who are new to Photoshop need don't see that right away, because it takes time

Exactly
See, the more you experiment with Photoshop, the less you have to rely on these expensive plug-ins.
To be honest; there are only a few plug-ins that do things that can't easily be done in Photoshop, but people who are new to Photoshop need don't see that right away, because it takes time

Exactly
See, the more you experiment with Photoshop, the less you have to rely on these expensive plug-ins.
To be honest; there are only a few plug-ins that do things that can't easily be done in Photoshop, but people who are new to Photoshop need don't see that right away, because it takes time

Exactly
See, the more you experiment with Photoshop, the less you have to rely on these expensive plug-ins.
To be honest; there are only a few plug-ins that do things that can't easily be done in Photoshop, but people who are new to Photoshop need don't see that right away, because it takes time

Exactly
See, the more you experiment with Photoshop, the less you have to rely on these expensive plug-ins.
To be honest; there are only a few plug-ins that do things that can't easily be done in Photoshop, but people who are new to Photoshop need don't see that right away, because it takes time

Exactly
See, the more you experiment with Photoshop, the less you have to rely on these expensive plug-ins.
To be honest; there are only a few plug-ins that do things that can't easily be done in Photoshop, but people who are new to Photoshop need don't see that right away, because it takes time

Exactly
See, the more you experiment with Photoshop, the less you have to rely on these expensive plug-ins.
To be honest; there are only a few plug-ins that do things that can't easily be done in Photoshop, but people who are new to Photoshop need don't see that right away, because it takes time

Exactly
See, the more you experiment with Photoshop, the less you have to rely on these expensive plug-ins.
To be honest; there are only a few plug-ins that do things that can't easily be done in Photoshop, but people who are new to Photoshop need don't see that right away, because it takes time

Exactly
See, the more you experiment with Photoshop, the less you have to rely on these expensive plug-ins.
To be honest; there are only a few plug-ins that do things that can't easily be done in Photoshop, but people who are new to Photoshop need don't see that right away, because it takes time

Joy Foraker

actually, I use PhotoFrame because its fast and I can consider new ideas, try different frames and put on a separate layer to rework in PS if necessary. I agree with everyone, wonderful frames can be made in ps without a separate application. But I always seem to fall back on PhotoFrame. Here's an example. It probably detracts from the picture, I just made it quickly using the first one that poped up. With a little tinkering, a more simpatico frame would evolve I am sure.

MsOz

Fabulous effect, Joy!

To do some of those effects 'by hand' in PS takes a long time, with a lot of trial and error.

Gotta admit, if it wasn't as expensive as photo shop to only give me edges, I'd be drooling for that plug in!

As is, the reason I mentioned it was the 30 free trial. It's a fun way to try different apps, including the ones most people can only dream of having...

theKeeper

Oh Joy... oh Joy!

This took a couple minutes to make.

BTW... i HAVE the Extensis PhotoFrame plugin. It's good for what it does, i won't argue that. Only thing i ever really use it for though is to get some visual ideas for my own custom frames.

Joy Foraker

oh Mark oh Mark -- Nice! probably the half-tone filter?

Yes, all their frames can me made in ps. The advantage for me with PhotoFrame, I can quickly test several frames when I don't have a clue which is best.

Another feature I lean on is I can quickly pile many frames on the art, using different settings, colors and opacity for a more involved look.

theKeeper

Ya i agree Joy. The plugin is good for that. The only way to match that functionality would be to take a day in PS and create a bunch of your own borders, then convert them to Vector Shapes and make a custom library out of them.

That's what i'd do.

Joy Foraker

..and you forgot to mention, save about $250.00 doing it that way -- [excited] [excited] [excited]

I do have a custom frame that PhotoFrame does not offer and that's the curly edge frame and I learned how to make here. I think Stu tought me. I use it many times. I guess I could load it into PhotoFrame but its so handy to grab from separate file.

Aside: I guess we worked this subject to its death, right Mark?

Welles

Personally, I prefer a more traditional frame... %} (Sorry, I couldn't help myself!)

For many years I purchased frames from a wholesale framer and good friend who would do custom work for artists because he himself was an artist in moldings. When he finally went digital a couple of years ago, I helped him with Photoshop Elements and couldn't help myself but started framing attachments to him in classic frames as a joke. They come from a cheap Human Software plug-in called, appropriately, Classic Frames and I still use them occasionally as a spoof of 'fine art."

Joy Foraker

Welles - that's a beauty! good job on the gold, looks real to me. Reminds me of a challenge we had on PST where a wallpaper guy wanted to know the trick to make gold look real on his online wallpaper samples. He had bit of gold running through the paper.

Worked out that the best looking golds online didn't print out well for him. }
Kinda interesting project. I don't rem the final solution for print and online. [saywhat]

Joyful

Welles

Joy,

I'll agree it looks pretty realistic but I can't take much credit for it, other than buying the plug-in and knowing how to tweak the settings a bit along with a little post plug-in editing.

The Classic Frame plug-ins themselves have one fatal flaw in my estimation. When a square image is framed you can get all four sides to be approximately equal widths but when the proportions become rectangular, while the opposite sides are equal widths, adjacent ones are mis-matched having one wider than the other.

I suggested to the developers that they try to do something to eliminate that issue as it subtracted from the verisimilitude of the effects but there must be a distinct limitation in how the software is written for that was never addressed although they did send me a second version of the software which did attempt a work around by having landscape and portrait frames and were a bit better than the first version.

There is an additional flaw. When the frames are rendered there are generally 1-3 pixel lines, which are still the original image, residing outside the newly rendered frame. That results in a bit more post plug-in editing and the single pixel marquees come in handy!

However, even though the software is cheap, I can't endorse it without noting the fairly serious flaws because most plug-in users just presume you can click and play, so to speak.

Oh well...