Printing Borderless Photos Without a

Borderless Printer
by: myacirkhan@msn.com

Print borderless photographs without a borderless printer by creating a template in

Photoshop. Make sure your printer supports heavyweight paper before attempting this
tutorial. FotoFects and the author of this tutorial are not responsible for any printer
problems you may have.

Create a new document (Ctrl+N) with the

1 following properties:

Width: 8.5 inches

Height: 11 inches
Resolution: 300 pixels/inch
Color Mode: CMYK Color; 16 bit
Background Contents: White
Pixel Aspect Ratio: Square

Click OK.

Create a new layer (Ctrl+Shift+N).

2
 Select the "Rectangular Marquee Tool" (M).
3 Set the "Style" to "Fixed Size" and input the
width and height of the photographs you wish
to print. For this tutorial, I will use a width of
4 inches and a height of 6 inches to print
borderless 4x6 photographs. Fill in the
selection with the colour black.

Contract the current selection (Select>

4 Modify> Contract) by 3 pixels. Click OK.

Delete the selection (Backspace) and deselect

5 the current selection (Ctrl+D).
 Align the current layer to the center of the
6 page. To do this, select the canvas (Ctrl+A),
align to the verticle center (Layer> Align to
Selection> Verticle Centers) and align to the
horizontal center (Layer> Align to Selection>
Horizontal Centers).

Duplicate the current layer (Ctrl+J).

7

With the new layer selected, scale the "Width"

8 and "Height" to "105 percent) using the
"Transform Scale" tool (Ctrl+T). Press Return
when done.
 Using the "Text" tool (T), type in the word
9 "Top" and place it on the top of the outer
rectangle. This will define where the top of the
document is.

Print this document. Do not scale the

10 document to media. If it warns that the
document is larger than the printable area and
clipping will occur, click "Proceed".

After the document is printed, use doublesided

11 tape to tape the photopaper in the inner
rectangular box.
 To print out a photograph, open the image in
12 Photoshop and drag it into the document
you've printed. Set the blending mode of the
photograph to "Difference" and resize it to fit
within the outer rectangle. The area between
the outer rectangle and the inner rectangle will
define the bleeding area; area that will be
printed but may not appear on the paper.

When done, hide all the layers except for the

13 photograph and set the photograph's layer
blending mode to "Normal".

Load the paper with the photo paper taped on

14 it in your printer. Make sure your paper is
loaded in the printer in the right direction.
 Print the current document in Photoshop. Do
15 not scale the document to media. If it warns
that the document is larger than the printable
area and clipping will occur, click "Proceed".

When printing, make sure there are no

16 problems such as a paper jam.

After the print is completed, carefully remove

17 the photograph from the paper it's taped on.
Remove any extended tabs on the photo paper
and your photograph is now printed
borderless. Reuse the Photoshop template and
the printed template for future printing.