Step 3: Add A White Inner Glow

We've created the first part of our photo frame, using the Stroke layer style in Photoshop to add a black border around the inside edges of the photo. This time, let's add a white border just inside the black one. Unfortunately, we can only use a particular layer style once per layer, which means that since we've already used the Stroke layer style to add the black border, we can't use it again unless we create another new layer and apply a completely different set of layer styles to it, which isn't what we want to do. So, since we want to add something that looks like a white stroke, but we can't use the Stroke layer style because we've already used it, we're going to have to get a little creative.

Fortunately, there are other ways to create a stroke effect. One of them is by using the Inner Glow layer style. We'll just need to change a few options. First, with the Layer Style dialog box still open, select the Inner Glow style from over on the left of the dialog box. Make sure you click directly on the words "Inner Glow" and don't just click inside the checkbox. Clicking inside the checkbox will turn the layer style on but won't give us access to any of its options. To access the options, we need to click directly on the layer style's name:

Once you've selected Inner Glow, the middle column of the Layer Style dialog box will change to the Inner Glow options. The default color for the inner glow is yellow and we want to use white, so just as we did for the stroke a moment ago, click on the color swatch which this time is located directly below the word "Noise":

This brings up Photoshop's Color Picker once again. Choose white for the inner glow color. If you need help choosing white, simply enter a value of 255 for the R, G and B options, circled in red. This will select white. Click OK to exit out of the Color Picker when you're done:

With the color now set to white, we have a few options that we need to change in order to make our inner "glow" look more like an inner "stroke". First, near the top of the dialog box, increase the Opacity of the inner glow to a full 100%. Next, in the center of the dialog box, change the Technique option to Precise. Down at the bottom of the list of options, decrease the Range option down to 1%. Finally, back in the center of the dialog box, drag the Size slider to increase the size of the glow, which will now appear as a stroke thanks to the options we've changed. The glow actually begins at the edges of the photo, not the edges of the black stroke that we applied a moment ago, which means that as you drag the Size slider to the right, you won't actually see the white border appearing in the image until you've increased it beyond the size of the black border. If you recall, I set the thickness of my black stroke to 60 pixels, which means I'll need to increase the size of my white inner glow beyond 60 pixels before I'll see it in my image.

I actually want my white border to appear to be the same thickness as my black border, which means I'll need to set the size of my inner glow to twice the size of my black stroke. Since my black stroke is set to 60 px, I'll set the size of my inner glow to 120 px. Again, the value you enter may be different depending on the size of the image you're using:

Your image should now look something like this, with a black border around the edges of the photo and a white border inside the black one:

Let's add one more more layer style to complete the frame, and then we'll see how to save it so we can instantly apply it to a different photo without having to redo any of these steps!

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