how to add colored border to uiimage in swift

Question

It is pretty easy to add border to UIImageView, using layers (borderWidth, borderColor etc.). Is there any possibility to add border to image, not to image view? Does somebody know?

Update:

I tried to follow the suggestion below und used extension. Thank you for that but I did not get the desired result. Here is my code. What is wrong?

import UIKit
    class ViewController: UIViewController {

    var imageView: UIImageView!
    var sizeW = CGFloat()
    var sizeH = CGFloat()

    override func viewDidLoad() {
        super.viewDidLoad()

        sizeW = view.frame.width
        sizeH = view.frame.height

        setImage()
    }

    func setImage(){

        //add image view
        imageView = UIImageView(frame: CGRect(x: 0, y: 0, width: sizeW/2, height: sizeH/2))
        imageView.center = view.center
        imageView.tintColor = UIColor.orange
        imageView.contentMode = UIViewContentMode.scaleAspectFit

        let imgOriginal = UIImage(named: "plum")!.withRenderingMode(.alwaysTemplate)
        let borderImage = imgOriginal.imageWithBorder(width: 2, color: UIColor.blue)
        imageView.image = borderImage

        view.addSubview(imageView)

    }



}


    extension UIImage {
    func imageWithBorder(width: CGFloat, color: UIColor) -> UIImage? {
        let square = CGSize(width: min(size.width, size.height) + width * 2, height: min(size.width, size.height) + width * 2)
        let imageView = UIImageView(frame: CGRect(origin: CGPoint(x: 0, y: 0), size: square))
        imageView.contentMode = .center
        imageView.image = self
        imageView.layer.borderWidth = width
        imageView.layer.borderColor = color.cgColor
        UIGraphicsBeginImageContextWithOptions(imageView.bounds.size, false, scale)
        guard let context = UIGraphicsGetCurrentContext() else { return nil }
        imageView.layer.render(in: context)
        let result = UIGraphicsGetImageFromCurrentImageContext()
        UIGraphicsEndImageContext()
        return result
    }
}

The second image with the red border is more or less what I need:

Answer 1

Strongly inspired by @herme5, refactored into more compact Swift 5/iOS12+ code as follows (fixed vertical flip issue as well):

public extension UIImage {

    /**
    Returns the flat colorized version of the image, or self when something was wrong

    - Parameters:
        - color: The colors to user. By defaut, uses the ``UIColor.white`

    - Returns: the flat colorized version of the image, or the self if something was wrong
    */
    func colorized(with color: UIColor = .white) -> UIImage {
        UIGraphicsBeginImageContextWithOptions(size, false, scale)

        defer {
            UIGraphicsEndImageContext()
        }

        guard let context = UIGraphicsGetCurrentContext(), let cgImage = cgImage else { return self }


        let rect = CGRect(x: 0, y: 0, width: size.width, height: size.height)

        color.setFill()
        context.translateBy(x: 0, y: size.height)
        context.scaleBy(x: 1.0, y: -1.0)
        context.clip(to: rect, mask: cgImage)
        context.fill(rect)

        guard let colored = UIGraphicsGetImageFromCurrentImageContext() else { return self }

        return colored
    }

    /**
    Returns the stroked version of the fransparent image with the given stroke color and the thickness.

    - Parameters:
        - color: The colors to user. By defaut, uses the ``UIColor.white`
        - thickness: the thickness of the border. Default to `2`
        - quality: The number of degrees (out of 360): the smaller the best, but the slower. Defaults to `10`.

    - Returns: the stroked version of the image, or self if something was wrong
    */

    func stroked(with color: UIColor = .white, thickness: CGFloat = 2, quality: CGFloat = 10) -> UIImage {

        guard let cgImage = cgImage else { return self }

        // Colorize the stroke image to reflect border color
        let strokeImage = colorized(with: color)

        guard let strokeCGImage = strokeImage.cgImage else { return self }

        /// Rendering quality of the stroke
        let step = quality == 0 ? 10 : abs(quality)

        let oldRect = CGRect(x: thickness, y: thickness, width: size.width, height: size.height).integral
        let newSize = CGSize(width: size.width + 2 * thickness, height: size.height + 2 * thickness)
        let translationVector = CGPoint(x: thickness, y: 0)


        UIGraphicsBeginImageContextWithOptions(newSize, false, scale)

        guard let context = UIGraphicsGetCurrentContext() else { return self }

        defer {
            UIGraphicsEndImageContext()
        }
        context.translateBy(x: 0, y: newSize.height)
        context.scaleBy(x: 1.0, y: -1.0)
        context.interpolationQuality = .high

        for angle: CGFloat in stride(from: 0, to: 360, by: step) {
            let vector = translationVector.rotated(around: .zero, byDegrees: angle)
            let transform = CGAffineTransform(translationX: vector.x, y: vector.y)

            context.concatenate(transform)

            context.draw(strokeCGImage, in: oldRect)

            let resetTransform = CGAffineTransform(translationX: -vector.x, y: -vector.y)
            context.concatenate(resetTransform)
        }

        context.draw(cgImage, in: oldRect)

        guard let stroked = UIGraphicsGetImageFromCurrentImageContext() else { return self }

        return stroked
    }
}


extension CGPoint {
    /** 
    Rotates the point from the center `origin` by `byDegrees` degrees along the Z axis.

    - Parameters:
        - origin: The center of he rotation;
        - byDegrees: Amount of degrees to rotate around the Z axis.

    - Returns: The rotated point.
    */
    func rotated(around origin: CGPoint, byDegrees: CGFloat) -> CGPoint {
        let dx = x - origin.x
        let dy = y - origin.y
        let radius = sqrt(dx * dx + dy * dy)
        let azimuth = atan2(dy, dx) // in radians
        let newAzimuth = azimuth + byDegrees * .pi / 180.0 // to radians
        let x = origin.x + radius * cos(newAzimuth)
        let y = origin.y + radius * sin(newAzimuth)
        return CGPoint(x: x, y: y)
    }
}