Add Border to Image

A border changes how a photo is perceived. A simple white frame makes social posts look clean and gallery-like, a mat gives a print the presence of a framed picture, an instant-photo frame adds nostalgia, and a soft shadow lifts a picture off the page. This tool offers all four styles, scaled to any image size.

Sizes that scale

Border widths are a percentage of the picture’s shorter side, from 0 to 30 percent. A 5 percent border therefore looks the same on a small phone photo and a 40-megapixel scan. That keeps a series of photos consistent even when they come from different cameras.

Solid border

The plain border surrounds the photo with one color. White is the classic clean look; black gives drama and cinematic weight; colors from the photo itself, picked with the Image Color Picker, create harmony. Thin borders of 1 to 3 percent separate a photo from a busy background; wide ones of 8 to 15 percent give a minimalist, gallery feel.

Mat (passe-partout)

The mat style recreates the board that framers place around a print. It adds a wide surround and a fine bevel line at the edge of the window, in a color of your choice, imitating the cut edge of real mat board. Off-white mats with a cream or light gray bevel look most authentic. The style suits portfolio pages, art reproductions and online galleries.

Instant photo

The instant-photo style creates the familiar square frame with a wider bottom strip, like a classic instant camera print. Add a caption in the bottom strip, in a handwritten, sans-serif or serif font, in any color. Names, dates and places written there make great memories for albums, invitations and social posts.

Drop shadow

The shadow style places the photo on a background with a soft shadow beneath it, so it seems to float above the page. It works well for screenshots in documentation, product images on landing pages, and photos placed in slide presentations.

Choosing colors

Match the border to where the image will appear. On a white web page, a white border is invisible, so use a thin gray line or a shadow instead. In dark-mode feeds, black borders blend in while white borders frame strongly.

Preview and download

The preview shows the frame immediately; compare with the original to judge the effect. The download is processed at full resolution. Choose JPG for photos and social media, PNG for maximum quality, WebP for websites.

Framing a series

For a consistent portfolio or feed, use the same style, size and colors for every photo. Because sizes scale with each picture, the frames match even when photos differ in resolution.

Borders for printing

If a lab trims prints slightly, a white border protects the picture from being cut. For framed prints, a mat-style border of 10 to 15 percent printed directly on the paper can stand in for a real mat in simple frames. Keep enough resolution: the border adds pixels, but the photo area still needs about 300 pixels per inch at its printed size.

Related tools

For rounded corners and circles, use Round Corners Image. To add a timestamp in the corner, try Add Timestamp to Photo. For combining framed photos into one layout, the Collage Maker helps.