Fading Borders - 1

Original image:

If your image is a GIF, first increase the color depth by choosing:
Colors - Increase Color Depth - 16 Million Colors.

Step 1:
Set the background color to White.
Image - Add Borders. Choose: Symmetric = 10.

Step 2:
Click on the Magic Wand
Choose: RGB Value, Tolerance = 10, Feather = 20.
Click on the white border.

Step 3:
Click on the Flood Fill tool
Choose: RGB Value, Tolerance = 200, Fill Style = Solid Color.
Click with the Flood Fill tool (right mouse button for the background color) in the selected area to fill it with the White color. I did this five times.
Deselect.

If the background is a pattern, you may use the dominating color of the pattern to fill the selected border with or, depending of the type of pattern, fill with the actual pattern. Iīll show you how:

Letīs use this pattern as background.

Go through the previous step 1 and 2.
Open the background image in PSP.
Click on the Flood Fill tool.
Choose: Fill style = Pattern.
Then: Options - New Pattern Resource. Select the background image as pattern resource.
Fill the selected border 4 - 5 times.