Apple Aperture Workflow: How to add borders in Aperture

Sometimes I like to add a border to my photographs when I export them for uploading to the web. Some people like to add a border to their images when they print. Either way, I hadn’t found an easy way to add a border without going to an image editing application like Photoshop.

Now that I’m using Apple’s Aperture for most of my workflow, I wanted to find a way to do this without having to leave the application. Unfortunately this functionality isn’t available in Aperture as far as I know. So after some searching, I found a pretty cool export plugin called BorderFX that does just that. And it’s quite flexible in what you can do with the borders. And it’s free! Although the author asks for a donation if you find the plug-in useful.

BorderFX lets you:

1. Add borders to your images on export. You can even add strokes and drop shadows.
2. Add text from either your IPTC data (such as caption, copyright, EXIF info, version name, etc.) or free text.
3. Add a watermark. Similar to the way Aperture lets you do it.
4. Save border settings as presets.

I’m sure Apple will eventually build this functionality into Aperture, but until that happens this is a pretty cool plug-in that does what it promises very well. If you like to add borders to your photographs I suggest you download it and give it a try. The image at the top of this post was exported using BorderFX.

You can get it from:

• Aperture BorderFX Official Site
• Apple downloads site. (old version for Aperture 2)

UPDATE May 2010: BorderFX has just been updated to be compatible with Aperture 3 with 64-bit support. It's even better than it used to be. Definitely recommended.

Comments

[Kalsoom]

The recently released BorderFX 64-Bit plug-in for Aperture 3 is not only useful for adding borders but it also adds tiles to the images. I have found it better than ACDSee and Adobe Photoshop.

We can drag the pin on the map across the street or across the country. The GPS data associated with the photo updates automatically, so we know where our photos are at all times.