where to find tut on masking/blend photo.

[tommytx]

This is a simple one, but I can't find a tutorial on how to make soft shadows around a photo. I have tried searching for mask, blending and etc, but none turn up what I am looking for. I know someone out there knows exactly what I am looking for and where to find it. If I knew the correct search terms, I could probalby find it on search engines.
I have attached a sample photo to make sure everyone understands what I am looking for. I have seen the tuts before, but can't find any now.
I have photo shop 7 to work with.

See attachment.

Thanks
Tom

 

[MarcusStringer]

With your marquee tool, change the Feather to say 20px.
Draw you selection around the image. Invert the selection then hit the delete button. Taaaa Daaa.

Changing the feather amount will produce different results depending on what you want.

Marcus

http://www.midlandtypesetters.com.au

 

[mscallisto]

Marcus did you mean, use the polygon lasso tool?

 

[0987123]

You can use lasso tool to but marquee tool is one top left on you toolbar - is square or cyrcle. With lasso you need to close selection and when see marching ants go to SELECT choose invert than under some menu (select) open feature tape desired 20, 30, 40... and hit delete. That's all dude.

 

[MarcusStringer]

Hi mscallisto,
Yeap, you can use both, I didn't want to confuse tommytx with to many different ways...

Marcus

http://www.midlandtypesetters.com.au

 

[pixl8r]

That particular sample actually looks like it has an airbrushed edge on a layer mask. To create that is also fairly easy.

On the layer containing the image select Layer>Add Layer Mask> Reveal All. This will create a new layer mask and make it active.

Now using your lasso (or marquee) tool make your selection. Then Select>Inverse. You will notice that the foreground and background color changes to black and white on the layer mask. Fill the selected area with black and deselect (selected area disappears). At this point you could apply a Gaussian Blur to the layer mask and get a nice graded transparency or you could distress the border by using the brush tool (set to airbrush). Select a brush that is not solid but is many small dots. Reduce the flow to say 50% and brush around the edges of the area still showing. BTW painting with white will reveal hidden parts of the image.

The beauty of using this method is that you have more control over the "edge" of the selection and you can just discard the layer mask and start over if you don't like the result (where with a feather you are bound to the history pallette to undo anything).

Hope it helps.

Wow JT that almost looked like you knew what you were doing!