Anybody know Serif Photoplus?

It's a free download photograph editing program. Quite simple, but does pretty much all I ever want to use it for with my cheapo Kodak digital camera.

One thing I would like to do with it, but can't seem to find an easy way to, is to put a neat border or frame around a photograph. At the moment, I'm creating a background layer, colouring the entire layer black (for instance), then pasting the picture in as a new layer on top. Then I manually try to centre the image on the background to get an even border.

The problem is, I can never get it exactly centred. It may look centred at one zoom level, bu not at another. I need a way to postion the image exactly, but can't find any way to do it.

Years ago I had a magazine cut-down version of Photoshop which had an 'add border' function. You got a window in which you could just enter the width in pixels that you wanted, and that was that.

No such luck with Photoplus, sadly.:(

 

hi louis, I haven't used photoplus myself although I do have a copy gathering dust on a cd somewhere! you don't say what version of photoplus you have, but from a quick google it seems from version 8 there is a add border option. I assume yours is an older version.

below is an extract from version 5 companion, maybe it will be of some help?

The last step is to add a simple frame.
On the Color tab, define black as the background color, either by
right-clicking in the spectrum or clicking the background swatch
and setting its RGB value to “0,0,0.”
Choose Canvas Size... from the Image menu.
Add 40 to each value shown in the Width and
Height boxes. Click the center Anchor point so
that the existing image will be centered with
respect to the edge pixels being added. Click OK.
The result? A black border around the sepia-toned photo. If the results
don’t look quite right to you, feel free to retrace your steps using Undo,
and try new toning values, transparency, or canvas adjustments.
The last step is to add a simple frame.
On the Color tab, define black as the background color, either by
right-clicking in the spectrum or clicking the background swatch
and setting its RGB value to “0,0,0.”
Choose Canvas Size... from the Image menu.
Add 40 to each value shown in the Width and
Height boxes. Click the center Anchor point so
that the existing image will be centered with
respect to the edge pixels being added. Click OK.
The result? A black border around the sepia-toned photo. If the results
don’t look quite right to you, feel free to retrace your steps using Undo,
and try new toning values, transparency, or canvas adjustments.
The last step is to add a simple frame.On the Color tab, define black as the background color, either by right-clicking in the spectrum or clicking the background swatch and setting its RGB value to “0,0,0.”Choose Canvas Size... from the Image menu. Add 40 to each value shown in the Width and Height boxes. Click the center Anchor point so that the existing image will be centered with respect to the edge pixels being added. Click OK. The result? A black border around the sepia-toned photo. If the results don’t look quite right to you, feel free to retrace your steps using Undo,and try new toning values, transparency, or canvas adjustments.

the entire companion is in pdf form here

http://64.233.183.104/search?q=cach...photoplus+add+border&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=4&gl=uk


What I do recall from years ago when I got my copy from serif is that the used to do a money back offer. You order the software from them and if within 28 days your not happy, you phone up to return it. Then the sales team offer to reduce the cost of the software. If you hold your nerve, they will usually reduce the cost a few times, to well below half the original price!! Maybe you could try that if you fancy the newest version??

 

glenw, you're a star.

I'm a dabbler in picture editing software, and I'd never known what to do with 'canvas size'. I followed the instructions you copied and it works. Huzzah!

The version I have incidentally is Version 6 which is what they offer as a free download. the program is fully functional and you can save your images, so for my purposes it's fine for the moment.

Thanks for your help. Much appreciated :thumb:

 

Two other freebies worth looking at The GIMP, IIRC originally developed as the Linux answer to Photoshop, now available for Windoze, and Picasa from Google.

Picasa

has the easiest tool for straightening wonky horizons I've yet found.

 

Hi Louis,

For my first post on this forum it is my pleasure to link you to a freebie which has a framing facility. It's quite good at other editing features too.

http://photoscape.en.softonic.com/