Produce feathered frame

Hi!

Sorry for my bad english, but I´m german.

I want to make a PNG with Alpha channel. The result should be a picture frame with feathered edges for a slideshow in MAGIX Video Deluxe.

I opened a new project with 1024x576 (for 16:9 aspect ratio).
Then I made a rectangle with bitmap filling.
After that I made a second smaller rectangle with feather and tried to use CTRL+2 to cut out the feathered rectangle-area.
The result is not what I expected! No feather anymore!

Here is an example for what I mean:
http://img120.imageshack.us/img120/4893/pngmitakl2.gif

This is what I made:
http://img353.imageshack.us/img353/653/rahmen1cs0.gif

And that is what I get after CTRL+2:
http://img170.imageshack.us/img170/3954/rahmen2dx6.gif

Any help would be appreciated! Thanks in advance.
MM

do the ctrl-2 operation first - then feather [- the ctrl-2 sometimes removes the feathering]

if you do not want the feather on the outside of subtracted rectange then you can mask it out [cover it with an unfeathered subtracted rectangle shown here slightly different color to show what has been done]


hope this helps

welcome to TG :)

re-reading your post - I think you did not have the large rectangle feathered?

that was probably the reason the feathering disappeared here - I tried it with the larger rectangle feathered instead of the smaller, and it then seems to work ok [xtreme pro 4] - but you will still need to mask out the outer feathering if this is not required

Hi Steve!

Thank you very much!
I think that a combination of your answers will work fine for me.

Yes, there is an unwanted feather on the outside of the rectangle which I can easaly mask out.
I tried that immediately and it was successfull. I made a clone of the full feathered frame and after that I aligned all objects. Then I set feather to "0" (for the new clone), drew another (slightly bigger) rectangle, and combined the clone and the new rectangle with CTRL+2.

Thanks a lot again!

MM

glad you got it to work :)

Another way that may suit what you are trying to achieve is to simply draw a rectangle for the background in the colors you wish, then place your image/photo on front of the rectangle (centred).
Then select the photo and apply the desired amount of feathering:D

Hi!

Thanks for your suggestion.
But to be honest, I want to compose the photos in Video Deluxe. If I would follow your way, I must do all work in Xtreme. Sure, it´s possible, but not as comfortable as in my NLE in which I can easaly create zooms and pans on my photos and leave the picture-frame static!

Nevertheless I thank you for your suggestion.

cheers
MM

You could also just use feathered rectangles and lay them along the top and sides in your video app. Then you could adjust the amount of feathering just by repositioning the rectangles in the video program.