I’ve searched high and low for a Photoshop tutorial to simulate a photograph that includes the enlarged negative carrier or negative frame for an interesting border, similar to what can be seen in this traditional film print using an enlarger in the darkroom: Filed-Down Negative Carrier

Unfortunately, I was not able to find one, so I made one myself, and decided to share it with you.  For those lazy people out there, you can download the Photoshop action here: oversized_negative_carrier.atn.  Put it into your actions folder (Adobe > Adobe Photoshop CS* > Presets > Actions) and then restart Photoshop.  This action/tutorial works best with images around 3900 pixels by 2600 pixels (it was designed around an image taken directly off a Canon 40D); if your image is smaller or larger, you may want to tweak the suggested values.

For those of you who’d like to follow the tutorial on how to create this yourself, please read on…

1.  Open the image in Photoshop and duplicate the background layer ( right-click on the background layer > dublicate layer…) and call the new layer ‘topimage‘.

2. Enlarge the image’s canvas size horizontally and vertically by 300 pixels (image > canvas size…).  Make sure Relative tickbox is selected:

3.  Select the background layer and fill it with black (edit > fill… use: black):

4.  Select the topimage layer and make a selection mask from it (hold down control [PC] / command [Mac] while hovering your mouse pointer over the icon of the topimage layer, – you’ll notice the mouse pointer change – and click the left mouse button once).  Now you should see the ‘marching ants‘ selection around the topimage layer.

5. Contract the selection by 10 pixels (select > modify > contract…):

6. Enter quick mask mode. (to do this click on this icon at the bottom of the toolbar):

7.  Blur the mask (visible as a red border in quick mask mode) by 4 pixels (filter > blur > gaussian blur…).  Invert the mask (control [PC] / command [Mac] + I or image > adjustments > invert):

8. Exit quick mask mode back into ‘marching ants’ mode.

9.  Make sure you’ve still got the topimage layer selected and cut away the edge (control/command + X  or  edit > cut) to give it a blurry edge.

10.  Make a new layer on top of the other layers, name it outerborder, and fill it with white (layer > new > layer…; edit > fill > use: white)

11. For some reason Photoshop won’t let selection masks be contracted if they’re right on the edge of the artboard, so we’ll have to jump through some hoops now to get around this…Duplicate the background layer again and name the new layer bordersize.  Make a selection mask from the bordersize layer (see step 4 on how to do this). Create a border of 1px out of the new selection (select > modify > border…) and, making sure you’ve got the bordersize layer selected, cut it (edit > cut).

12.  Now make a selection mask from the bordersize layer (see step 4) and contract it (select > modify > contract…) by 70px.

13.  Now select the white outerborder layer that should be on top of all the other layers. Enter quick mask mode (see step 6) and gaussian blur the mask (see step 7) by 23px. Now exit quick mask mode and fill the selection with black.

14.  Now remove the mask (control/command+D) and apply the glass filter (filter > distort > glass) on the outerborder layer, using the values and options shown below:

Click okay.

15.  Now apply the plastic wrap filter (filter > artistic > plastic wrap) at the values shown below:

Click okay.

16.  You’ll notice a white ‘halo’ in the middle of the layer, which we’ll have to get rid of.  Make a selection mask from the topimage layer.  Make sure the outerborder layer is selected and then fill the selection with black. Remove the selection mask.

17.  In levels (image > adjustments > levels…) apply the values as show below:

18. Shape blur the outerborder layer by 5pix using the box shape at the bottom:

19.  Now select the screen blending mode for the outerborder layer:

20.  Now you should have something that looks like this:

If you do, well done!  You’ve managed to create an oversized negative carrier effect, without going near a darkroom, an enlarger or any film!

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