Image Frame
Add a Polaroid, Instagram, vintage, classic, or drop-shadow frame to any photo. Configurable padding, color, and caption. Runs in your browser.
Drop an image to add a frame
Polaroid, Instagram, Vintage, Classic, Shadow — never uploaded
How to add a frame to a photo online
Drop your photo. Pick a frame style — Polaroid (extra space below for a caption), Instagram (clean white border), Vintage (cream with a subtle inner edge), Classic (thin dark border), or Shadow (white border with a soft drop shadow). Adjust padding (% of image dimensions, so the frame is proportional across sizes), frame color, and — for Polaroid — your caption. Live preview updates as you tune. Click Download PNG.
Why a local frame tool matters
Photos that get frames added are usually personal: family pictures, travel memories, friends, kids. Uploading them to a third-party online frame tool for a purely aesthetic edit is a needless privacy cost. ToolChop runs the framing entirely in your browser — the photo never leaves your device, and the output is a clean PNG with no watermark or signup wall.
What you can do
- Five frame styles covering the most popular looks
- Padding as a percentage of image dimensions, so frames stay proportional
- Custom frame color via color picker
- Handwritten-style caption for the Polaroid style
- Configurable shadow blur for the Shadow style
- PNG output, lossless
Frequently asked questions
How do I add a Polaroid or vintage frame to a photo online for free?
Drop your photo. Pick a frame style (Polaroid, Instagram, Vintage, Classic, Shadow). Adjust padding, frame color, and — for Polaroid — the bottom caption. Click Download PNG. No account, no upload, no daily limit.
Does ToolChop upload my photo?
No. The image is decoded into a canvas in your browser, the frame is rendered locally, and the result is exported as PNG. The file never leaves your device.
Why does privacy matter for a photo-frame tool?
The photos you put frames on are usually personal: family pictures, travel memories, friends, kids. Uploading them to a third-party 'photo frame' tool for a simple aesthetic operation is a needless privacy cost. ToolChop runs the framing entirely in your browser.
What does each frame style look like?
Polaroid — equal padding around the image with a wider bottom section for a caption (handwritten-style font). Instagram — clean white border with equal padding. Vintage — cream-colored border with a subtle dark inner-edge line. Classic — thin black border (or any color). Shadow — white border with a soft drop shadow.
Can I add a custom caption to the Polaroid?
Yes. When Polaroid style is selected, a caption text field appears. Type any short message — 'Summer ‘25', a name, a date. The caption renders in a handwritten-style font in the bottom panel of the frame.
Why is the padding 'percentage' instead of pixels?
So the frame looks proportional across different image sizes. A 30% padding on a 1000px image is 300px; on a 2000px image it's 600px — the frame is visually equivalent in both cases. Pixel-based padding would make small images look over-framed and large images look under-framed.
Can I change the frame background color?
Yes. Each style has a sensible default — white for Polaroid/Instagram/Shadow, cream for Vintage, dark for Classic — but the color picker lets you override. Useful for matching the frame to a brand or to the surrounding page where the framed image will appear.
Does it preserve transparency in the input?
Yes for non-frame regions of the image. The frame itself is opaque (it's a colored background). If your input has transparency you want to keep visible, pick a frame color that contrasts — the transparent areas will be filled with the frame color.
What format is the output?
PNG — preserves the exact rendering. If you need a smaller file, run the PNG through our Compress Image.
Will the Polaroid caption use a real handwritten font?
It uses a handwritten-style fallback chain (Patrick Hand → Comic Sans → system sans-serif). If your system has any of those, you get the handwritten look. Otherwise it falls back to system sans-serif — still readable, just more 'typed' looking.
Why is my downloaded image so much larger than the input?
Because PNG is lossless and the canvas adds the frame area on top of the original image dimensions. A 1MB JPG input can produce a 4MB PNG output. Use Compress Image afterwards if size matters.
Why use ToolChop instead of an online photo-frame tool that uploads my photo?
Privacy. Personal photos should not casually travel to third-party servers just to apply a Polaroid look. ToolChop runs entirely in your browser. You can verify in DevTools → Network that no request fires when you drop a file.