Photo Effects: Painted Edges Photo Border Effect

Step 5: Add A Layer Mask To The "White Background" Layer

We're going to start painting with our brush to create our painted edges effect, but we're not going to paint directly on the image itself. We're going to paint on a layer mask, and before we can paint on it, we need to create it, so let's do that. Make sure the "white background" layer is selected in the Layers palette, then click on the Add Layer Mask icon at the bottom of the palette:

This will add a layer mask to the "white background" layer. You can see it in the Layers palette directly to the right of the layer's thumbnail preview area:

Using our 111-pixel Flat Bristle brush that we've already selected, and with black already set as our foreground color from when we reset the foreground and background colors to their defaults a moment ago, we're going to paint with black on this layer mask, and as we paint, the photo on the Background layer will begin to re-appear through this solid white layer.

Step 6: Begin Painting From Side To Side On The Layer Mask

Make sure that the layer mask is selected and not the layer itself. You can see the highlight box around the layer mask thumbnail in the screenshot above, which means it's selected. Click on it to select it if it isn't selected for some reason. Then, with the mask selected, begin painting strokes from left to right inside the document window. Because we're painting on the layer mask with black, any areas we paint over will become transparent, revealing the layer below, which in this case is our Background layer containing our photo. You can see the painted edges effect beginning to take shape as you paint with the brush:

The Flat Bristle brush we're using does a nice job of giving us a painted look and feel, not only around the edges but also inside the area we're painting, since it leaves occasional white gaps in the brush stroke which add to the illusion that we really are painting this photo with a dry brush.

You can see in the Layers palette that the areas we're painting over in the document window are showing up as black in the layer mask thumbnail preview area:

Continue painting with your brush until you're happy with how it looks. If you paint a stroke and it doesn't look right to you, simply undo it with Ctrl+Z (Win) / Command+Z (Mac) and then re-paint the stroke. Here's my result:

We're going to switch to the other 111-pixel brush we loaded and touch up the edges next.