Out of Border (Exclusive Tutorial)

Each day we are bombarded with a multitude of images, so, to make some impression, an image should not look trivial or amateurish. I'm sure you've seen many sites filled with just plain square, and you've thought to yourself: how boring! Well, your site, or leaflet, or advertisement, should not look that way! Here is just one small, but very efficient, trick to add an interesting detail to your pictures, make them stand out. Literally – stand out of the border. Here's how to do it.

Let's take this picture and make it look more 3-dimensional:

Duplicate the background layer; hide one of the layers and using the Extract tool, "cut out" the horse's front legs.

Unhide the layer with the whole picture; select the layer as well as the area around the horse and rider, leaving the animal's legs unselected.

Invert the selection and then apply 2 px Feather and press Del a few times.

Add Drop Shadow for the layer with the horse's legs.

Here' s what I got :

Now create a new layer, place it Backward and fill it with white. After that, make a selection encompassing almost the whole picture, and add Stroke.

It seems to be done. Now you can add text to fill the empty space.

Here's one more example of applying the same effect: