I am just about ready to put up a new batch of pictures to my site. Before doing so I have been cleaning up a few things and reconsidering a few things. One of those things is the use of picture borders.

A lot of people use a border when posting to a forum such as this, as it just seems to give it a little something 'extra'. I have been using borders on my relatively new website for the same reason. I generally use a triple border similar to a picture framing; very thin inside line, larger matt and a little smaller 'frame'. My matt colour is driven by the picture content; frequently by using the colour sampler to select a colour out of the picture (sometimes tweaking the colour).

I did a quick sampling of some sites. Some use a thick white border while some use a very thin white border. Some use black instead. Some use a thin grey/thick black border. Some use no border at all. Quite a wide range of styles.

I would be interested to know what people's thoughts are on use of borders for web sites. Specifically:

a) what do you think of use of borders?
b) if you like borders, do you prefer a standard look across all pictures or do you like it more when it is optimized/customized for each picture?
c) if you like borders, do you prefer the simple look of a single border or one that is composite (two or more)?

I am at the point right now where it would be a bit of work to redo borders, but could still be done. Over the next three months I anticipate adding a lot of pictures, after which point it would an awful lot of work to change the borders.

My site is naturebydesignphotography.com.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts!

Bump (I really need to figure this out soon and I would really appreciate hearing from others on this topic).

Borders are useful to help pull a viewer into a photo and hold their attention there, but the border should be cooperate not compete with the dominant tone of the background.

The knee jerk reaction is to add a white border to mimic the look of a photo print. White borders became the norm because of the way the easel held the paper under the enlarger. But when a white border is put around a dark photo looking at it is like driving on a two-lane road at night into the high beams an oncoming car. The white border will cause the loss of perception of the shadow detail.

Perception "anchors" on the darkest in lightest tones in our field of vision. If the photo has an overall dark background a dark mat or border will help guide and pull the eye to the contrasting center. Here's a shot where I changed the wall and clothing in Photoshop, but kept the face the same. Note how the background tone affects perception of highlight and shadow detail..

Chuck, thank you for the fantastic post! It really gives some strong points to consider and an idea of what I would like to try.

This is one of the most constructive posts I have ever received on FM. Again, thanks!

When in doubt try different color mats on a photo.

What I do is sample a color in the foreground subject for the rule, then a deep shadow from the photo tone for the mat. I select all and stoke the rule (1-2 px depending on photo size) then expand the canvas which adds the mat using the background color. I'll then use the magic wand to select the just the mat then open Hue/Saturation and try different hues and values until I get the balance I think works best. Usually the mat on a dark photo winds up slightly darker that the deepest shadow detail.