Feathering a selected area in Photoshop

Apply the command Feather(Feather) to blur the border of the selected area in Photoshop by a specified width on both sides of the selection frame. For example, with a feather radius of 5 pixels, the feathered area will be 10 pixels wide.

The feathering effect will not be noticeable until you modify the selected area using a drawing tool, copy/paste, move, fill with color, apply a filter, or use a menu command Image(Image).

1. Select a team Select > Feather(Select > Feather) by pressing the key combination Ctrl+Alt+D.
2. In the field Radius(Radius) Enter a number up to 250. The width of the affected area depends on the image resolution. The higher the resolution, the larger the feather radius you need to specify.
3. Click the button OK or press the key Enter- see fig. 6.47, 6.48.

Rice. 6.47 . Original image, the borders of the selected area are shaded

Rice. 6.48. Result of inverting a selection and pressing a key Delete

If the feather radius is too large for the selected area, a message appears: No pixels are more than 50% selected(You cannot feather more than half of the selected pixels.)

To specify the feather radius when creating a selection, activate the tool Marquee or Lasso and enter the required value in the options bar.

Rice. 6.46. "Mixing",

To create the image shown in Fig. 6.46, scanned drawings, photographs and other elements were arranged, the brightness level of various components in individual layers was adjusted using blending modes Darken, Multiply and tools Eraser and Burn.

To blur the edge of an image in the Russian version of Photoshop, use simple instructions.

Step by step instructions

You need to use the Rectangular Area tool and draw, for example, a rectangle of any size onto the picture.

Place the cursor inside the selected rectangle and right-click to call context menu, in which select “Refine edge”.

In the window, set the sliders according to your idea. Let's look at some of the functions for the Refine Edge action:

Also here you can view what we get in five different modes:

1. View our selection with a standard selection border.
2. View our selection as a quick mask.
3. View on a black background.
4. View on a white background.
5. And view the mask that defines the selected area.

If we are going to leave the picture on a white background, then we will stop at the fourth option. Click OK.

Now press CTRL+J. And click on the eye on the Background layer.

So we save it in JPEG or PNG format.

That's not all. Almost the same blurring of the edge of the picture can be done using one automatic function called Feathering. After you select the rectangular area and right-click to bring up the menu, select Feather from it. Then put the appropriate radius in the window.

Next, follow the text above: CTRL+J. And click on the eye on the background layer again.

Save the result. This is how easy edge blur is!

ABOUT Adobe program Photoshop.

Adobe Photoshop– one of the most popular packages for processing raster graphics. Despite the high price, the program is used by up to 80% of professional designers, photographers, and artists computer graphics. Thanks to huge functionality and ease of use, Adobe Photoshop occupies a dominant position in the graphics editor market.

Topic 2.2 Selecting objects. How to make the edges of a photo translucent (selection with feathering in Adobe Photoshop).

There are times when photos with sharp edges look worse than shots with smooth saturation increases. The effect of feathering edges has been known to artists and engravers for many centuries.

With the advent of the era of digital photography, this effect received a “second wind.” The reason is simple: it’s easy to make and looks great.

In this lesson we will try to approach the topic more thoroughly - to analyze all the possibilities of shading using selection.

To work effectively, you should familiarize yourself with the previous lesson. “Selection in Adobe Photoshop. Part 1: Simple geometry."

A little theory

What is shading? And what is translucency?

The previous tutorial (Selections in Adobe Photoshop - Part 1: Simple Geometry) discussed the philosophy of "working through layers" in Photoshop.

Let's illustrate:

• Copy part of the photo to a new layer.
• And set the slider " Opacity» in the layers palette to a level less than 100%.
• You will get something like this:

Please note that changing the transparency level entails changing general view our composition. However, at any level greater than 0, we clearly see the edges of the image.

If the transition is made smooth, we get what is called shading.

So, feathering selection– smooth transition of transparency from 0% to 100% at the borders of the selected area.

Practical part

Edge feathering can be set in three ways. Main – setting tool properties “ Selection».

For this it is enough:

• Select a tool.
• Before selecting, set the feather radius in the properties context menu. The feather radius is specified in pixels. Moreover, the “real” radius is 2 times larger than what you specified. The fact is that the selection border becomes a translucent zone (50%). The 50-0 transition (from translucent to fully transparent) is carried out on pixels OUTSIDE dedicated zone. 100-50 – inside. Both there and the transition is implemented for the number of pixels you specify.
• Select the required area. If you select a rectangle, you will notice that the corners have become “smooth.” Naturally, they fell into the shading zone.
• Copy fragment.

Now the question arises: what to do with it? The simplest thing is to paste it onto a new layer.

• To do this, simply select the item “ Insert" in the menu " Editing" Or click " CTRL+V».
• The fragment will be placed on a new layer.
• By selecting the tool " Moving", move the fragment.

We got the simplest collage!

If we want to achieve exactly transparent background– you can go two ways.

Feathering with transparency based on an existing photo.

In order to leave only the selected fragment, it is enough to delete the layer (or layers) located below:

1. Left-click on the layer icon to select it (make it active).
2. Place the cursor over the empty space next to the icon and press the left mouse button.
3. While holding down the key, drag the layer icon to the “trash bin” at the bottom of the layers palette.
4. Repeat steps 1-3 until you only have the desired layer left.
5. Trim (crop) the photo. How this is done is described in the lesson on cropping photographs.
6. In the menu " File» select the item « Save as" After specifying the file name, select the type. Transparency saves files PSD, TIFF, PNG. If you are going to work with photography at an “amateur” level, choose PNG. This format is accepted by most user programs.

Comment: There are three more ways to delete a layer. Namely:

1. Select the layer and select “ Delete» from menu « Layers»

• Right-click on the icon of the selected layer. And in the drop-down menu select “ Delete»
• Call up the palette menu by clicking on the icon in the upper right corner. Select the item " Delete layer».

2. Move the fragment to new file. To do this:

• Copy the selected area.
• Create a new file in the dimensions of "clipboard" ().
• Paste the selected area into the new file.
• Save the file.

Alternative methods for setting feather radius

What to do if you created a selection zone but forgot to shade it? There is no need to despair. Deselect the selection – and even more so. There are two ways to correct feathering in an already created selection.

Correction via the “Selection” menu

• In the menu " Selection» select the item « Modification" And further " Feathering»
• In the dialog box that opens, set the required feather radius and click Enter.
• Next - according to the algorithm described above.

Correction using the “Refine Edges” function

In this case, you need to pay attention to the context menu of the properties of the selection tool. At the right end there is a button “ Refine Edges».

• Click it.
• In the dialog box that appears, adjust the feathering radius. A definite plus this method is its clarity - the selection boundaries change depending on the selected parameter.

After you have adjusted the feathering area, copy and create a file with transparency using any of the methods described above.

Today you will learn how to achieve a blurred edge effect in Photoshop. This lesson will be useful for users starting their acquaintance with the popular photo editor.

So, blurring edges in Photoshop is achieved in several stages:

Stage 1.
Open the original image in the program.


Stage 2.
On the right is a vertical toolbar. It contains the so-called “Oval Marquee” tool, which is located in hidden mode. To activate it, right-click on the “Rectangular Area” tools and select the required one from the list of tools.


Stage 3.
Now select the required area in the photo that will definitely not be subject to changes.


Stage 4.
The next step is to shade the edges that are outside the selected area. To do this, right-click on the image and select the “Feather” button.


Stage 5.
A small dialog box will appear in which you need to set the feather radius. The more intense the blur effect you want, the larger the radius should be.

Stage 6.
In the horizontal toolbar, open the Selection tab and select Invert. As you can see, the corners of the image that need to be blurred are now selected.


Stage 7.
On your keyboard, press the Ctrl+Delete key combination, which will delete unnecessary edges.


Stage 8.
To remove the selection, press Ctrl+D on your keyboard.


The image is ready! Don't forget to save it to your computer.

Greetings. One of the frequently asked questions on my site is “How to smooth edges in Photoshop after transferring an image?” or “How to blur edges in Photoshop?” I want to give you some advice on this matter.

Firstly, if you transfer an image to an image, then make sure that they both have approximately the same quality. You can also transfer an image with good quality to an image with poor quality. The quality of an image depends on the number of pixels it consists of, and the more pixels, the better quality images. Know that if you transfer a good image onto a bad one, the size of the good one will be much larger than the bad one. This can be explained by the fact that a good image has more pixels. But they seem the same in Photoshop because you changed the size of the window and moved this photo further away, or Photoshop did it for you for your convenience. But in any case, you will have to edit the size of the transferred image; this can be done using the “Ctrl + T” transformation. Never transfer a small image to a large one. If you enlarge it, it will look both ugly and unrealistic, since grain will be visible in the transferred image, but the large one will remain of good quality.

Secondly, high-quality image transfer depends on the quality of the selection of the transferred object. So check out our highlighting tutorials and highlight with quality. But if something suddenly goes wrong and you still have sharpness at the edges, then don’t worry, we’ll help you here!

One very interesting way will help us cope with this task. It is based on the work of the Blur tool. Like all other tools it is located in the toolbar. If you don’t have it, then you can open it and many other panels in the “Window” menu, which is located at the top, by checking the box next to the item you are interested in. The Blur tool appears as a small blob in the toolbar and is in the same slot as the Sharpen and Smudge tools. You can open a cell and find out what tools are in it by right-clicking on it.

This tool has only two main settings. These are: “Blending Mode”, with this setting you can create blur effects, and “Blur Intensity” using this setting You can adjust the blur strength. The “Blending Mode” setting has the same principle of operation as the already known “Blending Mode” in the “Layers” window. But in this tutorial we will need the blending mode to be “Normal” and the intensity to be “50%”.

In this image we see a clear edge on the transferred image. To get rid of it, we first need to combine the layers with the background and the image transferred to it. To do this, click on the transferred image in the layers window, thereby coloring it blue. And press the key combination “Ctrl + E”. After which our layers will merge into one. Now let’s zoom in on our image by moving the lever in the “Navigator” window in order to better see the places where we need to get rid of the sharp outline. You can also use the “Zoom” tool to zoom in; it looks like a magnifying glass. By tapping it on the image, you will get closer to the location you need.

Now we're ready to work on sharpening the edges. Having selected the “Blur” tool and set the above parameters, we begin to move it along the edge of the transferred image. Then we zoom out and look at the result. We no longer have a clear edge, and for more effect I decided to add a shadow cast by the girl. I did this using the Burn tool.

There is another way to get rid of a clear edge. Let's go back to the moment before we merged the layers. Take a soft-edged eraser and move it along the edge of the transferred image. How to make an eraser with soft edges is described in the article “How to make a fire man?”.

We have completed our task today and can proudly say that we have mastered the rough edges. I wish you good luck and only smooth transitions in your life!