EasyFrame - Add artistic frames to images
Mar 30, '05 09:45:00AM
Contributed by: robg
The macosxhints Rating:

[Score: 8 out of 10]
EasyFrame is one of those cool little apps that just seems to work, and fills a niche. In this case, that niche is applying various artistic frames to images. As seen at left (click the picture for the large version), you work in a simple interface. The drawer holds all of the various frame types, sorted into categories, a simple toolbar offers fast access to often-used pictures, and the image area shows the frame applied to your image.
To use EasyFrame, you just drag an image into it from the Finder, iPhoto, etc. When you've created the frame you'd like to use, just drag the image back out again -- directly to Mail, iPhoto, the Finder, wherever. You control the output format, too, even during a drag-to-save: the settings at the bottom of the image window for image type, quality, and background, are used when you drag. So you can easily add a frame with a transparent background to an image, then set the type to TIFF and drag the image and its new frame into iPhoto. Using this technique, you can make some very impressive iPhoto slideshows.
Sure, you can do all of this in Photoshop (and/or Photoshop Elements), but unless you're a real expert, it's going to take a lot longer, and you can't use drag-and-drop to easily move your finished image around. EasyFrame is, well, really easy to use.
The one thing I wanted to do that doesn't seem to be possible is to position the image behind the frame; the frame is always applied with the photo centered behind it. It'd be great if there were a way to drag the image around behind the frame, much like the way iWork's masking feature functions. This also isn't the tool to use if you want to add the same frame to 250 images; you have to do each image one at a time. For a large operation like that, a tool like Photoshop would be the better option.
I probably won't use EasyFrame every day, but for adding a custom touch to iMovie and iDVD projects, it seems like the perfect tool for the job...
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