Add a border

Put a frame around a photo — never uploaded.

How it works

Three steps, and nothing leaves your device.

  1. 1

    Drop in the photo

    Any common format. The file is read into the page and goes nowhere else.

  2. 2

    Pick width and colour

    The border is added around the image, so nothing is cropped.

  3. 3

    Download the framed image

    The canvas grows by twice the border width on each axis.

Borders that do something

  • A border stops a photo bleeding into the page. A picture with a pale edge placed on a pale background loses its outline, and the eye cannot tell where the image stops. A thin border in a contrasting tone fixes that with less visual weight than a shadow.
  • It changes the aspect ratio. Adding an equal border on all four sides makes a square out of nothing only if the image was already square. If you need an exact final size — a fixed thumbnail, say — resize after adding the border, not before.
  • White borders are the safe choice for print. A white margin gives a printer somewhere to trim and stops the image running off the edge. For screens, matching the border to the page background is what makes it read as a frame rather than as part of the picture.
  • Nothing is cropped. This grows the canvas rather than drawing over the photo, so no part of the original is covered or lost.

Frequently asked questions

Does adding a border crop my photo?

No. The canvas grows around it; every pixel of the original is kept.

What size will the result be?

The original plus twice the border width in each direction — a 24px border on an 800×600 photo produces 848×648.

Can I use a transparent border?

Not directly; the border is a solid colour. Save as PNG and the surrounding area can be recoloured afterwards in an editor.