Anyone know how I can use Photoshop to put a thin line around the edge of my picture? Not a border or a frame, but rather a thin line indented maybe a half inch or so, so that you can still see the picture under it, both inside of it and outside of it. Thanks!

you could draw a path in the shape of the frame you want - pick the colour you want in the palette, pick the paint brush at the size you want and then stroke the path using the stroke icon in the path menu.

Did some fiddling around... you can use "Inner glow" with the second contour selected (in the "Quaity" section) to acheive this effect. I set Technique to "Precise" and choke to 90%. "Size" will dictate the indentation and "Range" will determine how thick the line is and how sharp it is. There might be better ways, I only experimented for 30 seconds or so.

OK...I guess I don't know enough about PS to fully understand the instructions above, however, I found a method much simpler for me. I showed gridlines, and used the pencil tool. If you hold down shift while using pencil, you can draw perfectly straight lines easily. Thanks anyway for your help...really appreciate it.

Super Easy Newbie Method:

1) make a selection of the area you want the border (line) to go around
2) go under the edit menu and chose "stroke…"
…from in there you can choose the width & color of the stroke.


Slightly More Complicated Novice Method:

1) use the PEN tool to make a path around the area you wish to draw the line around. (Holding down the SHIFT key here will also contrain you to straight lines.)
2) go to the path menu. with your path highlighted (it will say "work path" unless you save and name it), select "stroke path".
…here you can select to use the pen or brush tool to stroke your image. You have to set your color, pen and brush tool settings from their icons on your Tool menu for this.

Why the novice method is worth mastering: Because you can easily adjust your path and have a starting point to go back to if you look @ what you've done and decide you'd like to use the handy dandy History palette to back up a few steps and try it a different way. 8•)

whatever method works for you .. but .. here's a tip

If this is something that you may do on a regular basis .. create an image (black with a white line) .. and drag that over to your future projects and change the blend mode to "lighten" and the black will drop out

this will benefit you if you create more intricate styles than just a thin line (corner circles .. etc) .. label them appropriately based on how far from the edge and thickness .. etc

Great tips everyone. Thanks so much. I really appreciate the "super newbie method"!