Thrift-Store Picture Frames Tutorial!

Hi! I've had many people emailing me over the past couple months asking about how to recolor the picture frames from the Thrift-Store Picture Frames Kit. I've finally worked up a tutorial on how to do this. And a special thank you to Amanda Haynes for filling me in on a quick and easy way to do this. There are multiple ways to do this, but here is one way. I'm also working up another tutorial on how to recolor them using Dutones, which is a method I like using. It gives a slightly different look, but still a fun way to recolor these frames.

With this first method, you're basically "filling" the frame with a new color.

Open your frame file.

 

Create a new layer in your Layers Palette. To open your Layers Palette go to your "Windows" menu at the top, and click "Layers".

Then you will create a new "Layer" on top of your frame layer. Click on the little arrow-in-a-circle icon at the top right corner of your Layers Palette Window. This will open a drop-down menu where you will select "New Layer".

 

A new Layer will appear above your frame layer in your Layers Palette.

Go to your Tools Palette (Window>Tools) and click on your foreground color (the top square towards the bottom of your Tools Palette, mine is already pink as seen below):

This will open the "Color Picker" window. Here you can choose what color you want to make your frame. I chose pink. Then hit "OK".

Now you want to "fill" the new layer that you already created, with the color that you've chosen. Make sure "Layer 1" is selected in your Layer's Palette. Go to Edit>Fill...

and then make sure "Foreground Color" is selected and "100%" opacity is selected. Blending mode "Normal".

 

Hit "Ok". Your "Layer 1" is now filled with your chosen color.

Now hover your cursor in between your "Layer 1" and "Layer 0" in your Layers Palette and hold the "Alt" key. Your cursor arrow will turn into a little icon that looks like a black pot with a handle. I do not know the proper name for this icon.. lol! And i wasn't able to get a screenshot of the icon (still working out these tutorial kinks), but this is essentially what it looks like: a black pot with a handle. ;-) So, you're holding the "Alt" key and now click your mouse. It will fill only your frame with the color, and essentially deletes all of the color AROUND your frame. This is what it will look like: 

 

Now, to see the details of the frame underneath, you will (making sure your "Layer 1" is still selected) go to the drop-down menu in your Layers Palette where it currently says "Normal", then scroll down with your arrow and select "Multiply".

 

Now you can see the details of your frame.

 

Now go to the arrow-in-a-circle icon at the top right corner of your Layers Palette again and scroll down to "Merge Visible". This will merge your frame layer and your color-fill layer together.

 

You can now drag your newly colored picture frame to whatever digital project you are working on, or print it out for your paper projects.

ON ANOTHER NOTE: If you would like for your frame to match more closely to the color you chose, you might want to make your frame grayscale first, instead of keeping the original gold color, because that will affect your end result as well. Here is what I mean.

For the frame on the right, I changed my image to grayscale first (Image>Mode>Grayscale) and then changed the image back to RGB (Image>Mode>RGB), and then continued the steps I provided above to recolor. As you'll noticed, the frame on the right that was changed to grayscale first, more closely matches the color pink that I chose in my tool palette:

 

The frame on the left has a much more red quality because of the gold tones that were already present in the original frame file. Make sense?

I'll have another tutorial coming today on how to recolor the frames using Duotones, which allows you to control the tones in your frames even more. I will also be creating a tutorial on how to add a photo to your frame which will hopefully be finished in the next day or two. :-) Let me know if anyone has any questions on this tutorial! 

Comments

[Ez]

Wow! This was such an amazing tutorial! Thank you so much Danielle!
xox
Ez

[Malinda L]

excellent tutorial! thanks!