Page 33 - CC2018_PS_Look_Inside

5. With the marching ants active, choose Select>Modify>Feather.
Photoshop offers a number of options for modifying an
exiting selection marquee. In the Select>Modify menu:
• Border creates a selection of a defined number of
pixels around the edge of the active marquee.
• Smooth helps to clean up stray pixels at the edge
of a selection. Within a defined radius from the
selection edge, pixels with less than half of the
surrounding pixels are excluded from the selection.
• Expand and Contract enlarge and shrink a selection
(respectively) by a defined number of pixels.
• Feather creates a blended edge to the active selection area.
• Select>Grow expands the selection to include all adjacent pixels that fall within
the tolerance defined for the Magic Wand tool.
• Select>Similar expands the selection to include all pixels throughout the image
that fall within the tolerance range, even if they are not adjacent to the active
selection.
• Select>Transform Selection shows bounding box handles around the selection Note:
marquee, which you can use to transform the selection as you would transform
layer content. You could also create a
feathered selection by
6. In the resulting dialog box, type 100 in the Feather Radius field. Make sure typing in the Feather
Apply Effect at Canvas Bounds is not checked, then click OK. field of the Options bar
before drawing the
Feathering means to soften the edge of a selection so the image selection marquee.
blends into the background instead of showing a sharp line
around the edge. The Feather Radius defines the distance from Keep in mind, however,
solid to transparent. that if you draw a
If the Apply Effect... checkbox is active, the feathering will be applied at the top and feathered selection (using
right edges of the canvas, where you dragged past the image edge while making the the tool option setting),
selection. You want these edges to remain hard, so the option should remain unchecked. you can’t undo the feather
without also undoing the
7. Click the Edit in Quick Mask button at the bottom of the Tools panel to selection area.
toggle into Quick Mask mode.
Marching ants do not show degrees of transparency. Quick Mask mode creates a
temporary red overlay (called an Alpha channel) that shows the feathered selection. By
default, the overlay is semi-transparent, which allows you to see the underlying image.

The semi-transparent
overlay shows the smooth
transition that was created
by feathering the selection.

Edit in Quick Mask
button

Project 1: Music CD Artwork 43