Trouble with Feathering

I'm a beginner with Photoshop so please bear with me. I have some images that I have combined as separate layers in PS6 for the PC. I would like to blur the edges and blend them where it's a smooth transition between images. Everytime I make a selection on the image whose border I want blurred, then click Feather, enter a radius, it rounds off the edges but doesn't blur anything. I was thinking that since they are on different layers, then that was causing the 2 layers not to blend together. So I flattened the image and still had the same results. Is there something I'm missing? In my next email, I will attach the pictures.

Here are the attachments.

How about this?

Maybe I'm not sure if erasing or feathering is the right option. Is there any way for Photoshop to "blend" the difference between the background and the edge of the photos where it's a seamless transition?

By the way, how did you erase the border and give it that blurred look?

cvaughn2x, the feather command doesn´t soften the picture, only the selection. You can see the effect when you do something to the selected area _after_ the feather command. For example, you can make a picture (like the "erased" picture above) this way:
Select the picture layer and draw a rectangular area (a little bit smaller than the picture itself) with the marquee tool. Then choose Select --> Inverse, and Select --> Feather (for example 5 pixels). Then clear the selected area, Edit --> Clear. Finally Select --> Deselect.

cvaughn2x

After re-reading what you are trying to do perhaps there is a better way than either feathering or erasing. However, before proceeding I want to be sure I understand what you are after. Does the following montage come close to your desired results.

Don

[img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_rolleyes.gif[/img] I wouldn't mind knowing how to do this.

TIA

Hi, CVaughn, and welcome.
I had hoped that Mark would have visited the forum to answer you, and I hope he still does, but I will already try to give you an answer.

As you know, the images that you see on your monitor are a mosaic of pixels (picture elements). If you want to change the information (this is the colour and the brightness) of a pixel, you have to tell Photoshop (or any other app) which one you mean. Therefore you select this pixel, or this group of pixels and then you do something with it (them). Feathering a selection does not do anything with the pixels, but gives Photoshop a command like: "Whatever I do, you have to apply 100% to the central pixels, but at the borders you have to diminish the influence and take into account the information (colour, brightness) that is already there."

Practically speaking, Photoshop was waiting for your orders what it had to do with this selection with a feathered outline. You might for example invert the selection and then , as is suggested, take your erazor and eraze all that is not selected. If you click on the eye icon of the (background) layer under it so as to make this layer invisible, you will see the borders disappear.

But this is only half the story. Ready?
The selection outline, aka the marching ants, does not show the border of a feathered selection, but halfway between full strength and nothingness. To understand this, you'd have to use a mask, but more on this later. Let's not make it too complicated right now.

Practically speaking: if you imagine your feathering as a gradient going from black to white, the marching ants show you middle grey. So your selection would fall off halfway.

Therefore you may want to do the following:

1/Open your background image.
2/Open your photograph, select the arrow tool (upper right hand corner on the tools palette) and drag your photograph on the background image. You will notice that it is placed automatically on a new layer.
3/Be shure that this layer is selected (its name is coloured. Now Hold Ctrl down and click on its name in the layers palette. Your photograph is automatically selected.
4/Go to Select>Modify>Contract and fill in a number like 10. (you may change this. The higher the number, the smoother the transition). You'll notice that your selection becomes smaller.
5/We saw that the marching ants are halfway the feathering-to-come, so enter a number for feathering that is the double of the contract number, in this case, 20.
Now your selection really ends at the edge of your image and you will have a fall-off of twenty pixels.
6/But in fact, what you want is not to do something with the photograph, but with the edges. Therefore you choose Select>Invert. You'll see now marching ants where they were before, but also at the border of the photo.
7/Now click on the eye-icon of the background layer to make this layer invisible and take your erazor tool. Select a big one, 100 or even bigger and fearlessly eraze all your image. You'll see that only the borders are erazed, and the closer to your photo, the less you can eraze. You have a softened border.
8/ Make the background visible again and flatten.


Try this out, and a next time, we'll talk about masks which are the opposite of selections, but are far more handy to work with.

If you don't work against time, time often works for you.

cybxo9

Welcome to the forum!

Here is how the montage was done:

Adjust each of the images that you intend to use in the montage to the same resolution and roughly the same size. Open them all. Also open a new background file sufficient in size to hold all or your images with some overlap.

Drag the images one at a time onto the transparent background file to hold all the images but with some overlap. Close all of the other open images.

Each image will be on a separate layer with a transparent background. To each layer add a layer mask: Layer>Add Layer Mask>Reveal All.

Set the foreground color to black and the background color to white and choose the airbrush tool. Select a large soft brush pattern.

Select one of the overlapping images on top in the layers palette and make sure that the layer mask icon (to the right of the photo icon) is selected and begin to paint the edges of the image away making the image below visible. Continue to blend the images together by selecting their layer masks and painting the hard edges away. If you paint away too much of an image switch the color to white for the foreground color and paint the image back in. You will soon get the hang of it.

Hope this helps.

Don

Hey ya sorry people, just been real busy here.

Don's explanation is pretty much what you should do to create a montage/collage effect with faded edges on the separate images/photos used.

This effect seems to be very popular among new users, and so i've decided to go ahead and create a tute about it (even though i feel 'Layer Masks' are an intermediate level subject). I'll be putting it within my "Beginner" section on the site.

And i'll post a notice here and on my board when it's done and posted ok. Should be within 2-3 days from the date stamp of this message.

Take care folks.

Don,
Looking at the second image you posted, that's exactly what I'm trying to do.

Mark,
That would be a great idea having this as a tutorial. After all of the sites I've visited and the books I've read, I'm surprised that I haven't seen this mentioned in detail before.

Thanks to everyone for their input. I'm still digesting all of it.

Don,

Thanks, it worked out great. I'm doing a few photos for the fam. and this really just looks nicer than putting them side by side or kinda overlapping them.

Do Appreciate it.

Here is another approach preserving girl hairs.

Regards

Michael Cervantes
MC Design Studio

There is an easy way to feather, and with Photoshop it's often easier to do if you sort of do it backwards. (It seems backwards to me, anyway.)

Take your photo, and select an area so that you have a equal border all around the photo. See below.

Click Select/Inverse. This selects everything BUT the photo area where the girls are pictured. We have allowed enough room for the feathering.

Click Select/Feather, and choose 5 or so for a value.

Choose the surrounding color you want, and make sure it is the foreground color. (Those two squares over on the left, below the tools, are the foreground and background colors. The one in front is the foreground color.)

Use this shortcut to fill the surrounding color with the color you just picked: Alt+Delete. This fills the selected area with the foreground color.

It should be feathered when you fill it.

Try picking any color for your foreground color, and use Alt+Delete to fill with, and you can easily try out different colors, and all of them will be feathered.

I actually think an oval shape would look better with this photo, but there isn't much room to use that shape, without feathering into the girl's hair.

You can do a gradient fill with the same technique, and use the gradient tool instead of filling with Alt+Delete. The gradient will also be feathered.

Making an extra layer for the surrounding color is a good idea, and then you can move it and play with it until it's just right.

http://www.eyesitewebdesign.com/girls3.jpg http://www.eyesitewebdesign.com/girls2.jpg
http://www.eyesitewebdesign.com/girls4.jpg

Dale

[This message was edited by Dale Landry on March 10, 2002 at 21:50.]