Why film borders?

The process of full-frame printing or overscanning of film negatives historically emerged from contact sheets and proof prints. By opening up the enlarger mask or scanner mask, light passes beyond the intended image gate, revealing the negative’s natural edge and the surrounding unexposed rebate. This results in a dark, irregular border. Today, some film labs still offer overscanning, but only with certain scanner types and usually at a significant cost, reflecting the added time and effort.

Film borders were once common in documentary practices, where it was important to show that nothing had been cropped or otherwise manipulated. Today it’s purely an aesthetic choice that can add a tactile, analog feel to your images. This is what Poserframes is made for.

A note on randomness

Randomness plays a major role in how Poserframes works. These four images were all made with the same preset, but random movement, rotation, and coloring produce slight variations in the final images.

A complete guide to what is possible with Poserframes can be found in the user manual.

Poserframes presets

Poserframes comes with a large number of presets (Photoshop actions) with different scanner mask styles and negative styles for various aspect ratios.

2x3 uncropped

Overscanned look showing the full outline of the modified scanner mask.

2x3 rough crops

Partially cropped versions of the styles above.

2x3 clean crops

Cropped styles with clean, sharp edges.

2x3 film burns

Film burns, both jagged and smooth, can be added to all uncropped, partially cropped and clean cropped styles. There are a number of presets included, with minimal burns added.

4x3 negative styles

For 4x3 images, Poserframes includes negative styles for Pentax 645, Contax 645, and Hasselblad 645. Each mask style listed below is available with all three negative styles.

4x3 uncropped

Overscanned look showing the full outline of the modified scanner mask.

4x3 rough crops

Partially cropped versions of the styles above.

4x3 clean crops

Cropped styles with clean, sharp edges.

4x3 film burns

Film burns, both jagged and smooth, can be added to all uncropped, partially cropped and clean cropped styles. There are a number of presets included, with minimal burns added.

5x4 uncropped

Overscanned look showing the full outline of the modified scanner mask.

5x4 rough crops

Partially cropped versions of the styles above.

5x4 clean crops

Cropped styles with clean, sharp edges.

6x7 uncropped

Overscanned look showing the full outline of the modified scanner mask.

6x7 rough crops

Partially cropped versions of the styles above.

6x7 clean crops

Cropped styles with clean, sharp edges.

6x7 film burns

Film burns, both jagged and smooth, can be added to all uncropped, partially cropped and clean cropped styles.

Square negative styles

For square images, Poserframes includes negative styles for Rollei and Hasselblad. Each mask style listed below is available with both negative styles.