creating "simulated" borderlessness (fading to white) 1

[worldwise]

Hi,

I am trying to edit a picture to post onto a website. I want to fade/blend the edges of the photo to white so that it looks like its part of my webpage (the background of my webpage is white).

I hope you know what I'm talking about - it's very common out there. Thanks in advance.

-kevin

Oh yeah, i have Paint Shop Pro 8.

 

[Volk359]

Called a gradient and there are several available in your swatches pallet. Double-click on an existing swatch or create a new one or click on the little icon next to the trash can, looks like a dog eared peice of paper with a square in it. Click on the Gradient tab and select the pulldown. There's one called Raindrop that should fit the bill.

 

[worldwise]

Volk,

I'm talking about editing an existing image - like a picture from a digital camera. Not starting from a blank canvas.

I can't use the flood fill with the swatch because it only fills a couple of pixels (depending where I click in the image).

-kevin

 

[Volk359]

Create a new image with the same dimensions and res as your image, fill with the gradient swatch, copy all, paste into the original image.

 

[ChrisHunt]

You want to soften the edges, like my photo on

http://www.extraconnections.co.uk

? The technical term for that is a "vignette". There are several ways to do it, here's one example:

http://graphicssoft.about.com/cs/paintshoppro/ht/pspvignette.htm

-- Chris Hunt
Webmaster & Tragedian
Extra Connections Ltd

 

[worldwise]

Thank you both. ChrisHunt - yeah thats what I want to do. Thanks for giving me the actual term for it. I'll check out that link now.

-kevin

 

[Volk359]

Chris, that's pretty slick! Wish I'd know of that in the past. Thanks for the link, there's a ton of other good usefull stuff there.

 

[worldwise]

I should just add that instead of using the Gaussian Blur I just used the regular 'Blur' and then 'Blue More' like 10 more times to get the exact effect I was looking for.

The Gaussian fade was a bit too subtle (it took way too many pixels to fade to white) but the Blur More option did it just the way I wanted.

thx again for your post Chris.

 

[ChrisHunt]

Like I said, there are several ways to do it. The way I do it is this:
[ul]
[li]Duplicate the layer with the image in[/li]
[li]Select the background layer and use flood fill (Match Mode: None) to fill it with the background colour[/li]
[li]Now select the top layer (with the image on it) and make a selection around the area you want to be solid in colour[/li]
[li]Pick Selections>Modify>Feather from the menu, pick the number of pixels over which you want to fade[/li]
[li]Pick Selections>Invert from the menu[/li]
[li]Press the Delete key[/li]
[li]Pick Selections>Invert again, then Image>Crop to Selection[/li]
[li]Merge the layers and save the image.[/li]
[/ul]
You can vary this technique by (intead of deleting from the image layer) using the feathered selection to select an area of background colour from the background layer, then paste it over the top as a third layer - this lets you push the vignetted area around till it looks right. Like I said, more than one way to do it!

I would have posted this yesterday, but was at work and away from my copy of PSP. Glad you found the link useful.

-- Chris Hunt
Webmaster & Tragedian
Extra Connections Ltd