Deckle edges give old photos a wonderful vintage feel and are from a specific time period in the 20th century. Scanning them with a black background makes it easier to select the photo and deckle edges from the background. I used to do it by hand but now I get a selection with the click of a button using one of my deckle actions.

Let’s give it a whirl on this practice image with only one photo. The image is called “Border-DECKLE-Single.jpg.” It’s in the folder called Heritage-Practice-Photos in your class downloads.

Open the Actions panel but don’t select the Crop & Straighten action because that will cut off most of the nice deckle edges leaving just a few ugly nubs and we don’t want to do that!

Instead click on the action called “Select DECKLE Photo-Single.” When you click the action play button it won’t look like anything happened, but if you look at the Layers panel you’ll see a second layer. If you hide the Background layer you’ll see that the top layer has been selected from the background, including the wonderful deckle edges! You can now save this as a layered PSD.

Selecting multiple deckle photos in one scan is just as easy. We’ll use the practice photo called “Borders-DECKLE-Multiple.jpg.” and use the action called “Select DECKLE Photos-Multiple.” Click the Play button to run the action.

When it’s done you get a dialog box with a message that says:

To save each deckle photo as a separate file get the Rectangular Marquee tool or Polygonal Lasso tool and put a selection outline around a photo. Then run the action “Save DECKLE SELECTION As PSD.”

So let’s do that. Get the Rectangular Marquee tool. Open Tool Options and click on the New Selection icon. Feather should be 0 and Aspect should be Normal.

Click and drag an outline around one of the photos. Then run the action called “Save DECKLE SELECTION As PSD.”

When the dialog box comes up you can choose where to save it and what to call it. I’m just going to cancel, but you can see that I now have one of my deckle images in a separate file, ready to be saved. Do that with each deckle image.

Remember, Since the Deckle actions don’t straighten the photos you may want to do that yourself using the Transform tool before saving the image as a PSD.

So that’s how to select and save scanned deckle images whether you have one or several on a single scan.

Deckle edges give old photos a wonderful vintage feel and are from a specific time period in the 20th century. Scanning them with a black background makes it easier to select the photo and deckle edges from the background. I used to do it by hand but now I get a selection with the click of a button using one of my deckle actions.

Let’s give it a whirl on this practice image with only one photo. The image is called “Border-DECKLE-Single.jpg.” It’s in the folder called Heritage-Practice-Photos in your class downloads.

Open the Actions panel but don’t select the Crop & Straighten action because that will cut off most of the nice deckle edges leaving just a few ugly nubs and we don’t want to do that!

Instead click on the action called “Select DECKLE Photo-Single.” When you click the action play button it won’t look like anything happened, but if you look at the Layers panel you’ll see a second layer. If you hide the Background layer you’ll see that the top layer has been selected from the background, including the wonderful deckle edges!

You can now save this as a layered PSD.

Selecting multiple deckle photos in one scan is just as easy. We’ll use the practice photo called “Borders-DECKLE-Multiple.jpg.” and use the action called “Select DECKLE Photos-Multiple.” Click the Play button to run the action.

When it’s done you get a dialog box with a message that says: To save each deckle photo as a separate file get the Rectangular Marquee tool or Polygonal Lasso tool and put a selection outline around a photo. Then run the action “Save DECKLE SELECTION As PSD.”

So let’s do that. Get the Rectangular Marquee tool. In Tool Options click on the New Selection icon. Feather should be 0 and Style should be Normal. Click and drag an outline around one of the photos. Then run the action called “Save DECKLE SELECTION As PSD.”

When the dialog box comes up you can choose where to save it and what to call it. I’m just going to cancel, but you can see that I now have one of my deckle images in a separate file, ready to be saved. Do that with each deckle image.

Remember, since the Deckle actions don’t straighten the photos you may want to do that yourself using the Transform tool before saving the image as a PSD.

So that’s how to select and save scanned deckle images whether you have one or several on a single scan.