I LOVE photoshop.  I have only just barely scratched the surface on all of the wonderful things this program can do.  Even thought I only know a tiny bit, I am completely smitten.  Recently my family had our pictures taken by a fantastic photographer, Michelle Tandy.  She does such a great job and is such a talented person.  In fact, she may be the star of an upcoming blog feature showing off her mad crafting skills.

Today I wanted to show you this fun little trick I learned to use on our photos.  A while back I found awesome picture wall by Tara Whitney and I fell in LOVE!  I totally want to do that.

Michelle took some great photos that I am excited to use for my future wall, but one thing that I loved about these pictures is the frame around the photos.  The technique for adding the frames is SO simple, but for some crazy reason, I didn’t know the option to do so even existed.  I have been playing around with a few of the shots she took and I really like how they turned out. 

The technique is so simple and adds such a great effect, I just had to share:).

First things first, I used Adobe Photoshop 6 to create my photos, I am pretty sure it can be done in other versions as well, but 6 is what I happen to have, so that is what this tutorial is going to be based on.

The frames are called ttv frames.  It is an actual setting on fancy pants cameras, but if you don’t have that setting, you can use “fake ttv frame.”  There is a great collection of them here.  Once you find one, or a few, that you like, save it in jpeg format on your computer.  This is the one that I used for most of my photos, but there are lots to choose from.

Once you have your frame and your picture picked out, open both of them in your photoshop program.  You will want to get both images (frame and your picture) in the same file.  I like to simply select File, New…blank file.  If you want your image to be square, set the size accordingly, otherwise, set it for the specifications you want your image to be.  I set mine at 12×12.  Here is one of the images I picked to work on:

It is cute as is, but something about it just whispers “vintage.”

Once you have both of your images open (frame and picture) Select your picture, then click on Layer-, Duplicate Layer-,

then when the duplicate layer box pops up, select your new blank file from the little drop-down menu.  It will probably “untitled 1.” 

Do that for your frame as well.

When you have both of your images in your new file, simply make sure that you have the frame layer selected, and that you can’t see your picture because the frame is in front of it.  Then click on the drop-down menu right below the layers tab on your side bar  and select one of the options.  I tend to lean towards, Darken, Multiply, or Color Burn, but it is totally about what you want your image to look like.

It’s that simple!  Here is the finished product for my little girl’s vintage shot.  I’m really happy with how it turned out!

I also did a black and white version of our family photo:

The steps are still the same, I just desaturated the picture, and picked a frame with a grey undertone.  Have fun and play around, I would love to see what you come up with!