Masking photos: Soft edges!

[Braindamage]

I was trying to convince my sister to start using Xara for an alternative layout software for the adobe series and I was trying to fullfill what she wanted to get out of it. Xara extreme solves most things with ease, like simple masking, contrast levels and so on. I told her it's not a photo manipulation tool per se, since you can't alter the pixels like you do in photoshop.

There was one request that she was fairly stubborn about though. As me, she's been educated using photoshop in school. You select your area, and then you use the feather option to make the edges softer. Quite a pixel altering tool... I had to think for a bit, and said it probably couldn't be done.

But behold, I found a solution! I'm pretty sure it's not a very well known solution, so I thought I'd share it with ya'll.

Start with making a mask of what ever bitmap you wish to mask. You'll have to do it by intersecting shapes (ctrl + 3). ClipView wont work. All the same with bitmaps anyway.

Next step is to make... steps! The contour tool that is. Make a contour, leave it at 4 steps. Go to the transparency tool, click the outer contour and set the transparency to 100%. Go back to the contour tool and set it to 8 steps, or more for a smoother transition. Ta-da, you've got a soft edge. Ofcourse you'll have to pull the vector mask a bit to make it look perfect. Takes a bit of effort, but it's worth it.

Here's a comparison, pretty crude and fast but you'll get the point; the left is without, the right is with soft edges:
http://lowtown.se/stuffs/chimpvschimp.png

[Giovanni]

Why do you say clipview is not suited for this purpose? I use it all the time to isolate a subject on a photo and soften the edges...
This is my workflow, perhaps you aren't following the right steps?

1) import a photo
2) draw the shape you want to isolate
3) put the shape on the back
3) select both
4) 'Q' to apply clipview
5) use the feather slider to soften the edges

[Braindamage]

The feather slider? My way might not be the intended way of doing this. Is there a tool dedicated to actual feathering?

As I mentioned above, I use the contour and then the transparency tool on that. When I used the clipview, the contour is just a plain color and not a continuation of the bitmap. So that's why I recomend the intersect.

[haakoo]

Hi,

Here a screencapture of the feather-slider

[Braindamage]

Sweet
I feel like a complete idiot!
Cheers =D

[Giovanni]

Yes mate, we have feather slider, pretty much amazing and unique feature amongst vector drawing programs.

Take a look here and search for it in Xtreme help.


Edit: eheheh, Haakoo beaten me up on speed... :-)

[Ross Macintosh]

Sweet
I feel like a complete idiot!
Cheers =D

Braindamage - don't sweat it. Some of us have used Xara everyday for several years but still occasionally learn a new function or approach hithertoo (a nice word eh?) unknown to us. Given how user-friendly Xara is I think most of us have tended to learn it on our own. No doubt most of us are "missing" things quite obvious to most others.

Even though we do have a feather tool at our disposal, I think your technique contributes something useful. Good to have it in the back drawer so I can access it should it serve a need sometime.

Regards, Ross "I-don't-know-everything" Macintosh

[Grenou]

Brilliant, just what I wanted to know!
So easy too.
Thanks Giovanni

Grenou

[gwpriester]

I can really relate to anyone who uses the nickname braindamage.

You can also create a bitmap with no background (alpha channel transparency) and use the Live Effects Tool > Bitmap Feathering.

The default amount of bitmap feathering is 10pix which is really overkill. Back it off to about 2-5.

[amoore]

...hithertoo (a nice word eh?)

Yes, it's a very nice word. Would be even nicer if it were spelled correctly.

Allison Who Doesn't Know Everything Either by a Long Shot