Due to Ozsalvo's fuzzy border request found here, I thought I would make a quick video on how easy it is to use layer masks to create your own unique image borders. This process involves using the cubism filter, but you can even try using your own unique brushes as well.

(Best viewed full screen)

Very nice effect Mahv.

This is a how-to using some free edge masks,

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4JJVPGF7_MA

a bit on the long side, 12 mins, such is life.

good find rich2005. very informative.
It just shows that there are so many methods to arrive at the same goal using layer masks.

Here is my first stab at Mahv's video tutorial on using masks.

I'm glad Rich posted on the resources and how to use ready-made masks, because I have well over 200 layer masks just for borders. Sometimes ready-made is just faster and less work. I'm all for less work and speed.

Ready made is great but it is still nice to learn how these layer masks were made...and these small tutes help a lot for that.

thanks mahvin & rich2005 those tutes dovetailed perfectly!

... profitable start to my day, those answered many questions for me.

I should also mention that the fuzzy boarder one Mahvin posted is great too, I learned a lot from that one as well.

Nice tutorial, mahvin.

Instead of a solid bg, I used Render / Patterns / Qbist and played around until I came up with one I liked.

Great job, people. The main thing is, as Alex (tstandiford) likes to point out, layer masks are very, very powerful, and should be used as often as possible. They don't damage the image in any way and are easy to use.

The nice thing about doing it this way is that the mask fits. I have a bunch of masks I saved from when I used Paint Shop Pro, but they don't fit. PSP had a way of making them fit but GIMP doesn't.

A custom mask is always nicer imo.

You save masks? How?

The ones I saved from PSP were black and white jpg images.

Here's a link to some of them. http://www.jansdesigns.com/masks.html

Later: Oops, I see they have a .msk extension which gimp does not recognize.

O: It depends on what you mean about "making them fit". I usually make them fit by rescaling, and most turn out very well.

Depends on the mask. I can make something fit but if it's totally out of proportion, it doesn't look good.

Another oops on my part. This had a .msk extension and GIMP opened it. I re-saved it as a png image but it still works nicely as a mask.



I didn't have anything to put inside the mask but here it is used as a mask over a gradient.


I've attached a zip file with some masks.

Nice mask, thanks for posting it.

In regards to proportions, yes, I know what you mean, especially masks that involve having objects in them rather than textures.