Photo Edges: Two Ways

Here are two different ways to create artistic or rough photo edges.

Photoshop Only

1. Open your image in Photoshop.
   
2. Make a rectangular selection and click on the add layer mask button at the bottom of the layers palette.
3. Click on the layer mask (important!) and apply Filter > Brush Strokes > Spatter. For this example I used the values spray radius: 18, smoothness: 11.
4. To smooth the bitmapped edge, go to Select > Refine Edge. My values for this example were radius: 1, contrast: 20%, smooth: 3, feather: 0, contract: 0.

Illustrator and Photoshop Combined

1. Draw a rectangle on a blank page in Illustrator.
2. Add a black fill and 1.5 pt black stroke. Apply Effect > Stylize > Round Corners and use amount: 2 pt.
3. Open the Artistic_ChalkCharcoalPencil brush library and apply the Chalk - Scribble brush to the stroke.
4. Select the rectangle, copy it and paste a copy in front (Cmd-F). Rotate the copied rectangle 180 degrees. (This step fills in any empty corners. Often a brush stroke will get too thin or disappear in one corner.)
5. Select all (Cmd-A) and choose Object > Expand Appearance. Select all again and copy the rectangle to the clipboard.
6. Switch to Photoshop and open your image file.
7. Paste the rectangle as a shape layer with a black fill. Scale up or down as necessary.
8. On the shape layer, Cmd-click on the vector mask to load a selection of that mask.
9. On the photo layer, click the add layer mask button at the bottom of the layers palette. Hide the shape layer.

Thanks to stock.xchng user theo1krie for the photo.