You can now create your own frame designs (based on your own styles and techniques), upload them to the Frame Gallery and make them available to your friends, social networks and the entire Photo Frame Show community!

With the help of your favorite graphics software (i.e. Photoshop, Illustrator, FireWorks, CorelDraw, 3D Studio MAX etc.), you can easily create your own and original frames.

When you download a frame to our Desktop Application, you actually save an LFS file which is the proprietary file format used by the Photo Frame Show application.

The LFS file is not an image file format. However most of its information comes from images you can create. The source file for a frame can be created in any application that produces bitmap or vector graphics as long as this application has the functionality to maintain the frame graphic objects in separate layers or in any form that makes any future update easier (i.e. Photoshop, Illustrator, FireWorks, CorelDraw, 3D Studio MAX etc.).

In this guide we will work in Adobe Photoshop since it is the most appropriate application for the frame creation process.

We have to set the canvas for the new psd file at no more than 550x550px. That doesn't mean it has to be a rectangular image but the larger dimension should not exceed 550px in width. For example, it can be 400x550px or 550x500px and so on. This depends on the graphic's orientation (portait or landscape). Of course a perfect circle will use the most effective while a very wide image will force the frame height to be relatively small.

Then we have to create a NEW LAYER and draw our frame graphic. In this example we create a circle:

Note: ALL selections, fills and any other actions should result in smooth shapes. Anti-Alias must be always enabled unless the designer wants to create an "imperfect" shape on purpose.

Of course our layer is still empty, so we use a tool (in our case the gradient fill) and ...

As you can see, we also created a smaller selection over the "sunset" circle. This is the place where a cut will be performed. This is iimportant since the user's photos will be visible through this hole.

We delete the selection to create the photo "placeholder" and we also created a new layer to write some text over the frame graphic:

Note: In many cases, text changes may be needed in the future. For this reason, the text layer should be kept editable in the frame source file. Even if a filter or effect requires the text to be rasterized, a copy of it should be stored in a separate layer.

Now, our source file is ready for the next step, the files export.

The files required per FRAME are 3, and since they will be exported from the same source file, they should have the same dimensions:

TIFF File:
Must consist of only 1 layer and should include (or be saved with) transparency. When you "flatten" all layers, the file "background" should be deleted unless the designer wants to include it on purpose. In addition, the file "Channels" should include ONLY the R,G,B, Layers and no other "alpha" information.

For Photoshop, the specifications are: Image Compression: none – Byte Order: IBM PC – Save Transparency – Layer Compression: RLE (performed by Save As Tiff command)

Filename example: myframe.tiff (no special characters, accents and spaces are allowed)

JPEG File:
Same image as the one used in TIFF but instead of transparency, you should replace the transparent area with a black color. In other words, you should create a black colored layer UNDER the layer that the frame has, then merge them again. The quality of the JPG has to be between 60-70% (the greatest quality possible with the smallest file size possible).

For Photoshop, the specifications are: JPEG Compression: 60-70% – Progressive - Blur: 0 (perfomed by Save for Web & Devices command)

Filename example: myframe.jpg (no special characters, accents and spaces are allowed) - filename should be exactly the same as the tiff filename.

PNG File (also known as "Frame Mask"):
Refers to a black and white based file where the white area is the area where the image/picture used by the Photo Frame Show user will be shown/added. This white area always overlaps the corresponding "photo placeholder" area of the picture/image in the TIFF file. In our example, all we need is just a totally black layer and a white circle, slightly bigger than the frame's hole.

For Photoshop, the file is exported as PNG-8 with 8 colors (perfomed by Save for Web & Devices command)

Filename example: myframe_mask.png (no special characters, accents and spaces are allowed) - first part of filename should be exactly the same as the tiff filename.

While the graphic files required per FRAME are 3 there is also 1 text file that you should create.

This file will have information about yourself (enter your "username"), along with the frame category, subcategory and tags suggestions. In case any of the frame artwork element(s) is not originally created by the frame designer, a copyright notice about the element(s) license status should be included. For example, if a license-free brush is used but the original brush designer requires notification, the owner's original artwork location (e.g. URL) should be given.

TXT File:
Refers to plain text file where the information mentioned above, should be included like the example below:

User: pfsuser1

Category: Just to say

Subcategory: Hello

Tags: Circle, Red, Orange, funny, bright, warm

Note: If you think there is no category or subcategory for your frame, then you can just put a name suggestion instead.

Filename example: myframe.txt (no special characters, accents and spaces are allowed) - first part of filename should be exactly the same as the tiff filename.

Finally, just zip these 4 files and submit the ZIP file at support@frameshow.com for review, adaptation and upload of the frame to our Online Frame Gallery.

Important information:

* The frames you send us need to be Copyright free.
* We reserve the right to upload, or not, the frames to the Online Frame Gallery.

The final LFS frame graphic comes from the JPEG source. That is why it is important to save the JPEG file in small but good quality. The TIFF file graphic is NOT visible anywhere but its “transparency” information is used to cut-off the “black” areas in the JPEG file. The B/W mask file has a white placeholder which is always larger than any inner cut and smaller than frame’s outer edges. If the white area was exactly the same as the opening in the files shown above it, it would result in bad frame quality and visible photo distortion when the frame is rotated. We want these artifacts to be kept hidden under the frame graphic and this can be achieved if the photo “mask” is larger (even 3-4 pixels would suffice for this).