Adding and Saving a Border Around a UIImage with Core Graphics

less than 1 minute read

I recently had to place a border around an image of unknown size and save it back as an image. Here is how:

Start with a UIImage:

Run it through this method:

- (UIImage *)addBorderToImage:(UIImage *)image {
CGImageRef bgimage = [image CGImage];
float width = CGImageGetWidth(bgimage);
float height = CGImageGetHeight(bgimage);
// Create a temporary texture data buffer
void *data = malloc(width * height * 4);
// Draw image to buffer
CGContextRef ctx = CGBitmapContextCreate(data,
width,
height,
8,
width * 4,
CGImageGetColorSpace(image.CGImage),
kCGImageAlphaPremultipliedLast);
CGContextDrawImage(ctx, CGRectMake(0, 0, (CGFloat)width, (CGFloat)height), bgimage);
//Set the stroke (pen) color
CGContextSetStrokeColorWithColor(ctx, [UIColor greenColor].CGColor);
//Set the width of the pen mark
CGFloat borderWidth = (float)width*0.05;
CGContextSetLineWidth(ctx, borderWidth);
//Start at 0,0 and draw a square
CGContextMoveToPoint(ctx, 0.0, 0.0);
CGContextAddLineToPoint(ctx, 0.0, height);
CGContextAddLineToPoint(ctx, width, height);
CGContextAddLineToPoint(ctx, width, 0.0);
CGContextAddLineToPoint(ctx, 0.0, 0.0);
//Draw it
CGContextStrokePath(ctx);
// write it to a new image
CGImageRef cgimage = CGBitmapContextCreateImage(ctx);
UIImage *newImage = [UIImage imageWithCGImage:cgimage];
CFRelease(cgimage);
CGContextRelease(ctx);
// auto-released
return newImage;
}
view raw gistfile1.m hosted with ❤ by GitHub

You will get back a UIImage with a border. Simple.

Obviously, you will need to adjust the border percentage and color for your own application.

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