1 Reply Latest reply: Jun 10, 2012 12:43 PM by Geoff the kiwi RSS

    How to add a border around images posted to Facebook?

    DVDmike Community Member

      I am using LR 4.1, also usis PS CS5.

       

      Anyone who uses Facebook to showcase image galleries knows that Facebook changes how images are displayed from time to time.  One month it will be on a black background and the next on a white background.  And then they put overlay's on top of your images and they change things around whenever they wish.  There is not rock solid consistency from Facebook on how they display your images across devices or over time.

       

      What I am trying to do is to add some consistency to how my images are displayed by adding my own border to my images.  I need some ideas on how to best do this.  The way that I have been doing it does not appear to be ideal and I think someone must have a better way.

       

      Ideally, I would want Lightroom to add a border for me based on some setting under the export manager.  But as far I know there is no setting to do this?  (Why doesn't lightroom have any border options anywhere yet for anything it exports?  This would be relatively simple I think.)

       

      Here is the only way I know how to solve my issue.

       

      First, my other considerations:

      I want to keep my original images in my catalog in tact and as is w/o a border and with layers if it is a .psd file.  I do NOT want to destructively add a border to the catalog images, only the images that end up on Facebook.  I also want to add my watermark image to the final image so that it is done as the last step so that the bottom part of my watermark shows my web site address over the white border on the bottom of the image.  Using a droplet and the watermark in the same step does not work properly because it applies the watermark before it runs the action, not after.

       

      I have created an action to add a x pixel white border by:

      1. Merging (flatten) all layers
      2. Creating a new unlocked background "image" layer
      3. Expanding the canvas by x pixels.
      4. Creating a new white filled layer and moving it to the bottom of the layer's pallet.
      5. Adding a 2 pixel black inside stroke to my image layer and adding a drop shadow.

       

      I created a droplet from this action and put it in the droplet folder for LR.

       

      Now for the repeated steps that I am going through...

       

      1. Select the images that I want to write to Facebook.
      2. Export these images to a new folder using the droplet.
      3. Import the folder of all of these images back into Lightroom.
      4. Move the new images with borders on them into the correct LR FB publish service.
      5. Publish the photos using the sharpening and watermark settings.
      6. Delete the .psd files created in Step #2

       

      The steps that I would like to avoid are #2, #3, #6

       

      Or maybe I am going about this all wrong?  Anybody have any better ideas?