Donna Young's Blog: How to add a Border to an Image in GIMP

How to add a Border to an Image in GIMP

Donna Young @ 24 February 2008
Filed in Categories: Software

http://donnayoung.org

Border an Image with GIMP

1. Open image and do all work to image first.

Set Border Color

Color #2 will be the border color

Increase canvas size

2. File menu: go to : Image > Canvas Size
3. !Important: Press the button that looks like a chain link to break the 'link' between width and height.
4. Increase the width and height by twice the border size that you want. For instance: for a 50 pixel border, add 100 pixels to width and 100 pixels to height.
5. Press Center.
6. Press Resize.

Merge Layers

7. File menu: go to Image > Flatten Image

The image should have a border now.

The image pictured below has a 50 pixel border.

flower

If you want the top border and side borders to be the same and the bottom border wider, adjust your border width numbers by making the height larger by the amount of pixels that you want the bottom border to be. Then in Offset, press center.
Then adjust Y to equal X.
Press Resize, then continue as described above under Merge Layers.

If you always want a border that is even on all sides, use this menu item: Filters->Decor >Add Border.

Software,

Click Here to Leave a Comment

Ginger · Feb 24, 05:29 PM · #

Your instructions are much easier to understand then some of the other sites I looked at. Thank you so much for figuring it out for me..... I am going to try this out when I get home.
Donna Young · Feb 24, 06:14 PM · #

You are welcome Ginger.
Appliejuice · Feb 24, 07:01 PM · #

Cool! Thanks for the instructions.
Krys · Mar 4, 03:08 AM · #

Thanks so much! I`ve been searching forever for a tutorial like this but they all have something to do with script-fu and I have. no. idea. what that is. Thanks again!
Donna Young · Mar 4, 10:54 PM · #

You are welcome Krys.

Appliejuice, you are welcome too. I did not know you had GIMP installed. I did not, I installed it temporarily to help Ginger.
Scott Barnard · Nov 14, 06:00 PM · #

Thanks for the write up!

How do you add a border and retain the original canvas size and shrink (not crop) the image to fit?
Donna Young · Nov 15, 06:46 PM · #

Scott, I do not know how to do that.