You may freely distribute this software (with this read-me file). If you decide to keep the Frame plug-in in your PhotoShop folder, you should register by sending $5 with your name and address to:
Kas Thomas
P.O. Box 625
Old Greenwich, CT 06870
Or send your Visa/MC account no. (with expire date) via private e-mail to me at "ecurrent@aol.com" (ECURRENT on America On-Line).
It goes without saying that if enough people register, I will be motivated to release a faster, more powerful version of Frame.
Frame is a plug-in for PhotoShop 2.x which has been thoroughly tested on an LC with 10 megs of RAM running System 6.0.7 and 7.1; no claims are made for other platforms. (In the unlikely event that incompatibilities are noted, please e-mail news of same to the above address and I will set about correcting any problems.) If you have PhotoShop 2.5 or above, just drag the plug-in to your Plug-Ins folder, reboot PhotoShop, and you're all set.
What it does: It creates borders around pictures and/or selection areas. Not just solid borders, but borders of user-definable thickness and user-specified pixel washout values (both positive and negative).
The dialog box will ask you for a border width (in pixels), a pixel-brightness offset/adjustment (degree of lightening/darkening in the border area), and whether or not you want a gradient border.
1. Border width.
Technically speaking, this must be a whole number between 1 and half the horizontal or vertical dimension (in pixels) of the image, whichever is less. That is, if the image is 50 by 100 pixels, the border thickness must be between 1 and 25 (half of 50; 50 is the "smaller" dimension). Don't worry; you don't have to do any math! Just enter whatever value you like. In fact: To learn the size of your image, just enter an impossibly large value; the program will automatically find the height and width of the image, and insert a frame-width value one-half the width, or one-half the height, whichever is smaller. The plug-in will keep you from trying to create an impossibly large frame. (Tip: With the "Gradient" button checked, you can achieve artistic fade-from-center effects by setting the border width to a very high value.)
2. Brightness.
Enter any whole number between minus-254 and plus-255. Negative numbers will darken the frame (border) area, while positive numbers will enlighten all the pixels in the border zone. Color images will be appropriately adjusted in all color planes. (Tip: With "Gradient" turned OFF, and border thickness set to a maximal value, the entire image can be brightness-adjusted in a very precise manner.)
3. Gradient.
Aha! Now we come to the really good stuff. If you check the "Gradient" ballot-box, your pixel brightness adjustment will "fade in" towards the edge (periphery) of the image. Example: Set brightness to +255 and check the "Gradient" box. Your image will go from normal density to completely white at the edges, in a zone whose thickness is dependent on what you entered for the "border width" -- AND on how bright the edge-zone pixels are in the original image. (This is great for creating those feathery-soft shadow-edge borders for photos.) Conversely, if you set brightness to -254, the image will gradually "dense up" toward the edges (the outermost edge will, in fact, be solid black).
Tip: Think recursively. Apply different Frames over and over again to the same image with minute adjustments in between iterations. Each time you use the plug-in, it adjusts all border pixels AGAIN. You can create some fantastic effects with multiple framing. (Try overlapping a smaller fade-to-black gradient over a larger fade-to-white gradient.)
Tip: Set the Border Width to 1 and brightness to -254. You have just created the thinnest possible black hairline rule around your image, without letting any air in the picture (and without cropping out pixels). If you've ever spent time trying to properly "trap" a TIFF image in a hairline box in PageMaker, you'll appreciate this feature.
You can probably discover other useful tricks yourself. I hope you'll agree that this is one plug-in that's actually worth the nominal ($5) registration fee. Have fun!
