Joan….
It depends on what you were expecting ‘feather’ to do. On it’s own you’ll see nothing change. What happens is the transition between the selected area and the non selected area will be come ‘soft’ when you do something with the selection.
For example, if you have a black background and fill a feathered selection with white you’ll see the white fade out to the black around the edge of the selection.
Colin
after you set the feather you need to copy and paste to see the result. a little wierd as compared to other programs. if you want to see the feather in real time, copy the object you want to feather (with feathering set to "0"). paste to a new layer. crtl-click the thumbnail to select the newly pasted data. in the bottom of the layers palette, click the add layer mask icon. then add a filter> gaussian blur. adjust the slider up and down to adjust the feather and to see it live in the preview. once you get it rough, you can use image> adjustments> levels (still on the mask) to adjust the feathering with even finer control.
Colin . .thanks for reply. I simply want to take a jpeg photo and feather the edges with white to put on a white background in PowerPoint so there are no hard edges. I did this as described in my first post and it did exactly as I expected without a lot of manuvers, but could not repeat . . ..
Joan….
Not sure how you managed it first time around but maybe you can try this.
1. Open image
2. Set your background colour to white
3. Use the Rectangular Marquee Tool to draw a selection inside the boundary of the image.
4. Invert Selection (Ctrl+Shft+I)
5. Press Delete
Colin
Wow . . . too deep and complex for a new user and a simple manuver. Is there a simple straight forward way to get a white feathered edge on a colored photo?
Yes,
1. Open image
2. Set your background colour to white
3. Use the Rectangular Marquee Tool to draw a selection inside the boundary of the image.
4. Invert Selection (Ctrl+Shft+I)
5. Press Delete
Joan….
If you’re looking for a one click solution I think you’re out of luck with Photoshop 7. You can try Elements 3….this has some nice one click effects.
Colin
Dave . . . tried your suggestion on cpy then past after selectinf feather . . . thst worked once I figured out that I didn’t have to reselct the photo before I copied. So, now I have method #1 down pat. Thanks a bunch. now I will work on some of the other methods. To use an old expression . . . there is more than one way to skin a cat, in Photoshop!
Joan
Colin . . . your right, not many one click solutions in Photoshop but I love the versitility and am not one to give up . . . thanks again for all your help.
Thanks for your help. That worked except after step 4 I had to go to ‘Select’ and ‘Feather’ before I did the ‘Delete’ otherwise I would get a hard edge as opposed to a feathered edge. I am glad I found this Adobe site . . . It has been very helpful. My Photoshop, Classroom in a Book doesn’t really go into this.
JOan
To see the feathering before doing anything, switch over to Quick Mask. You can even stay there and Paint and Erase the mask in there.
Rob
While it is true you don’t fully see the effect of applying a feather, you will notice a slight change in the selection marquee if there are any sharp corners on it, as quite often they take on a more rounded appearance. Of course, the amount of rounding is affected by the size of the feathering applied and the image resolution. I know that’s not worth much but at least it is some measure of assurance that the feather has been applied.
Regards,
Daryl
Thanks . . . I will try that method also.
Joan
Yes . . . you are right. Every little bit helps.
Joan
To use an old expression . . . there is more than one way to skin a cat, in Photoshop!
we usually say: "there’s at least 3 ways to do anything in photoshop". 🙂
glad it worked for you. i learned it here and was glad to pass it on. it works great as an action to. record it once and you never have to do all the steps again.
