Step 6: Select The Brush Tool

Since we're going to be applying brush strokes to our newly created path, we'll first need to select the Brush Tool. Click on the Brush Tool in the Tools panel to select it, or press the letter B on your keyboard to select it with the shortcut:

Step 7: Set Your Foreground Color To White

Photoshop paints with the Brush Tool using the current Foreground color, so before we go choosing a brush, let's set our Foreground color to white. We'll start off using white as our border color, but we'll see how to easily change the color at the end of the tutorial.

The easiest way to set your Foreground color to white is to first press the letter D on your keyboard. This will reset your Foreground and Background colors to their defaults, with black as the Foreground color and white as the Background color. Then, to swap them so white becomes the Foreground color, press the letter X on your keyboard. You'll find the Foreground and Background color swatches near the bottom of the Tools panel. The swatch in the top left (Foreground color) should now be white:

Step 8: Open The Brushes Panel

With the Brush Tool now selected and white as your Foreground color, click on the Brushes panel toggle icon in the Options Bar at the top of the screen. As its name implies, this icon toggles the Brushes panel open and closed:

Step 9: Choose A Brush Preset

This opens Photoshop's Brushes panel, where we can choose from any of the preset brushes that were installed with Photoshop. Make sure the Brush Presets option is selected at the very top of the left column so we can see a preview on the right of all the brushes that are available to us. To choose any of the brushes, simply click on its preview icon. If you have the Show Tool Tips option enabled in Photoshop's Preferences, you'll see the name of the brush appear as you hover your mouse cursor over each icon.

It's not always easy to tell what a brush will look like simply from its little icon, but when you see a brush that looks like it might be interesting, click on it to select it and you'll see a preview appear at the bottom of the panel that gives you a much better idea of how the brush stroke will look. For example, here I've clicked on the Dry Brush 39 px brush, and judging from the preview at the bottom of the panel, it could make an interesting photo border:

Step 10: Stroke The Path With The Brush

Let's see how this brush looks as a photo border. To hide the Brushes panel from view so you can see your document window more easily, click once again on the toggle icon in the Options Bar. Or, for a faster way to open and close the Brushes panel, press the F5 key on your keyboard.

To stroke the path with the brush, make sure the Work Path is selected and highlighted in blue in the Paths panel, since the path has to be active for this to work, otherwise the icons at the bottom of the panel will appear grayed out and unavailable. Then click on the Stroke Path With Brush icon at the bottom of the Paths panel (second icon from the left):

As soon as you click the icon, Photoshop applies the brush stroke all around the edge of the image along the path. To get a better idea of how the border looks, hide the path temporarily by clicking in the Paths panel on any blank gray area below the Work Path. Here's what my first photo border attempt looks like:

Not bad, but let's see what else we can come up with. Much of the process of creating photo borders with brushes involves experimenting, so if you're not happy with the result and want to try again, simply press Ctrl+Z (Win) / Command+Z (Mac) to undo the brush stroke, then open the Brushes panel again by either clicking on the toggle icon in the Options Bar or by pressing the F5 key on your keyboard. This time, I'll try the Rough Round Bristle 100 px brush by clicking on it to select it:

To try again with the new brush, first click on the Work Path in the Paths panel to select it and make it active. Then click once again on the Stroke Path With Brush icon. Click anywhere on a blank gray area below the Work Path in the Paths panel to temporarily hide the path from view, then judge the results in the document window. This time, I get a completely different looking photo border:

If you find that the brush stroke is either too thick or too narrow, undo the brush stroke with Ctrl+Z (Win) / Command+Z (Mac), then change the size of the brush using the left and right bracket keys on your keyboard. Press the left bracket key ( [ ) repeatedly to make the brush smaller, or the right bracket key ( ] ) to make it larger, then click on the Stroke Path With Brush icon to try again. Remember, you'll need to click on the Work Path in the Paths panel first to make the path active before you can click on the icon.

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