Step 11: Add A Solid Color Fill Layer

Click once again on the New Fill Or Adjustment Layer icon at the bottom of the Layers palette and this time, choose a Solid Color fill layer from the top of the list:

This brings up Photoshop's Color Picker, allowing us to select the color that we want to fill the layer with. I'm going to stick with the default color of black, so I'll just click OK to accept black as my fill color and exit out of the dialog box:

Normally, a Solid Color fill layer would fill the entire image with our chosen color, but because we had the border area around our photo selected when we added the fill layer, only the border area was filled with black:

Step 12: Select The Layer Mask

One of the great things about fill and adjustment layers in Photoshop is that they each come with a built-in layer mask. In fact, it's the layer mask for the Solid Color fill layer that's causing the solid black color to appear only in the photo border area. If we look in the Layers palette, we can see that the Solid Color fill layer (which Photoshop has named "Color Fill 1") contains a layer mask preview thumbnail. Notice how the large rectangular area in the center of the thumbnail is filled with black while the area around it is filled with white. The white represents the area in our document window where the fill layer is visible (the photo border). The black represents the area where the fill layer is not visible (the area inside the photo border).

To create our speckled border effect, we'll need to blur the edges of our photo border, which means we'll need to blur the layer mask. To do that, we'll need the layer mask selected, so click directly on the layer mask preview thumbnail in the Layers palette to select it. You'll know it's selected because a white highlight border will appear around the thumbnail:

Step 13: Change The Layer Blend Mode To "Dissolve"

Go back up to the Blend Mode option at the top of the Layers palette and change the blend mode for the Solid Color fill layer from Normal to Dissolve:

Step 14: Apply The "Gaussian Blur" Filter

With the layer mask now selected and the blend mode for the layer set to Dissolve, go up to the Filter menu once again, choose Blur, and then choose Gaussian Blur:

This brings up Photoshop's Gaussian Blur dialog box. Click on the Radius slider at the bottom of the dialog box and drag it towards the right to increase the amount of blurring that's applied to the layer mask, or drag it towards the left to decrease the blur amount. What we're doing here is blurring the edges of our photo border, and because we've set the layer's blend mode to Dissolve, the blurred edges will appear as a random speckled pattern. Keep an eye on your image in the document window as you drag the slider to judge the results. The more blurring you apply, the wider the speckled border will appear. The amount you end up using will depend entirely on your own personal preference. I'm going to set my Radius value to around 16 pixels, but again, your value may be different:

Click OK to exit out of the dialog box and apply the blurring to the layer mask. And with that, you're done! Here is my final result after adding the speckled photo border effect:

Photoshop's Dissolve blend mode may not be the most popular kid on the block, especially when it comes to serious photo editing, but as we've seen with a couple of examples in this tutorial, it does have potential when creating special effects. The next time you're looking for an interesting way to blend layers together, give the Dissolve blend mode a try and see what you come up with! Just remember that Dissolve only works with semi-transparent pixels, so you'll need to either be working with a layer mask as we did here when we created our photo border or you'll need to lower the opacity of the layer before you'll see any results with the Dissolve blend mode.

And there we have it!

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