Removing Frames

[rpcrowe]

I have a lot of JPEG images which I have posted on my smugmug site with borders around them.

I would like to remove the borders in order to assemble them in a photo book. I wish that I had saved the post processed images without the frames in addition to those with the frames. We are talking about a thousand or more images.

Sure I have the RAW files but, I have done a lot of work on these images and don't want to repeat the post production.

It is a simple, but tedious process to simply crop the borders from these images. The problem with the repetitious use of the mouse, my arthritic hand begins to hurt.

Is there any Photoshop action which I could use to automate the process: The images are not all the same size.

[jiro]

Richard, you could try this set of commands and then save it as an action.

Open Document (This doesn't have to be a part of the action procedure.

Activate the action command by pressing the RECORD button.
1. use the magic wand (set the tolerance not less than 33%) and click on the white border.
2. Press Select > Inverse (to invert the selection).
3. Press Image > Crop (this will erase the white borders).
4. Press CTRL + S (this will save the document).
Close the action command by pressing the STOP button.

I tried it just now and in less than 1 second, my image is already without border. Try it and let me know if it works for you. The way to activate the action window is by pressing ALT + F9. Hope this helps.

[rob marshall]

Richard

You coud create a simple PS action to reduce the 'canvas size', by a percentage.But that would be predicated on the assumption that the border you want to lose is always going to be the same relative size to the area of photo that you wish to retain, for every shot. It would also need to be an even size all the way around. You could still do it if it were uneven, but that might make it more complicated.

Can you post one of the images so we can see the problem?

You can run it in batch mode from Bridge. And you could copy all the shots first in case it failed to work correctly.

[rob marshall]

Richard, you could try this set of commands and then save it as an action.

Open Document (This doesn't have to be a part of the action procedure.

1. use the magic wand (set the tolerance not less than 33%) and click on the white border.
2. Inverse the selection
3. Crop
4. Save the document.

I tried it just now and in less than 1 second, my image is already without border. Try it and let me know if it works for you. The way to activate the action window is by pressing ALT + F9. Hope this helps.

That might not work if the border colour matched some of the shot content at the edges. You'd end up deleting part of the image.

[jiro]

Well, I was assuming that the border was set to white to distinguish it from the image frame area. If that's the case the way to work around it is to lower the tolerance level of the magic wand command to about 15%.

[rob marshall]

Well, I was assuming that the border was set to white to distinguish it from the image frame area. If that's the case the way to work around it is to lower the tolerance level of the magic wand command to about 15%.

I think Richard want to automate it (in an action) How would you specifically place the wand tool?

[jiro]

I think Richard want to automate it (in an action) How would you specifically place the wand tool?

You don't have to, Rob. Once you record the commands to an action, the magic wand tool will automatically look for the white areas. Try the set of commands that I did and it will work.

This is how the action would look like: