'feathering' without the tar

lakewud · Post by **lakewud** » Sat Aug 09, 2008 10:20 am

Hi all

a quickie, wanting..no needing!..to extract an object from a photo..and then ideally wanting to justy blur/feather the edges..so that when i insert the object..say a Nappy - dont ask! - onto other objects/images...says feeding bottles and..balloons!!...well i want the objects not to have a messy harsh edge.

thats all. simply procedure?

Trevor Andrew · Post by **Trevor Andrew** » Sat Aug 09, 2008 10:33 am

Hi Gary

Use a photo editor to create a *.Png image without background.
Insert to overlay track.

lakewud · Post by **lakewud** » Sat Aug 09, 2008 2:14 pm

Hi Trevor and thanks for replying..seems only a couple of you on here actually answer the questions - the rest ask - not that im complaining.

Jumped the gun a little with the reply thou - didnt want to use this for VS - this time! - just a dvd cover. So not certain what you mean abou transperancy..and editor....thought just a case of looking for a button that will soften the edges of a photo/selected object etc.

g

Trevor Andrew · Post by **Trevor Andrew** » Sat Aug 09, 2008 5:11 pm

Hi Gary

Sorry for the confusion, must have been asleep when I read your post, thought it was for Video Studio, and that you were after an image with a clear background.

I have not used Photo Impact that much, prefer Photoshop.

From what I can remember, once you have selected your image/nappy, from the top menu ¡¥Selection¡¦ -- ¡¥Soften¡¦ will allow you to apply a feather effect choose the amount in pixels.

You should be able to drag the ¡¥nappy¡¦ to insert into another image.
You may have to convert your selection to an ¡¥object¡¦ before dragging.
Its been a long time. I think you may be able to use the keyboard to copy and paste the selection, Ctrl+C to copy----Ctrl+V to paste.

I¡¦m sure that other PI users will help out here.

lakewud · Post by **lakewud** » Sat Aug 09, 2008 5:20 pm

thanks for taking the time to reply, very helpful as always. Will give it a shot. And, need that previous advice anyway, because yes plan to create more balloons etc and insert via transparency onto VS.

heinz-oz · Post by **heinz-oz** » Sat Aug 09, 2008 8:03 pm

I am not sure what exactly you are referring too but I use PI extensively and may be able to help if I understand your problem.

Sorry, I fall into the same category as mentioned by you earlier

, asking rather than answering.

What format are you using to get your object extracted? Is it Gif format?

When extracting an object and saving it in gif format, you will get what is called "jaggies", stray pixels around the edge with different colors, making the whole thing look like it has been torn out of a page. Is that what you are referring too?

You can find a lot of useful tutorials on the internet. Here is one which might get you going http://wwell.net/tutorials/pi8/phototoc ... index.html but you will find a lot more on that site

gebirgsjager · Post by **gebirgsjager** » Sun Aug 10, 2008 12:37 pm

I think I may have the same question. I want to place these individual pics together and just fade the edges (not the center) so that I don't have the harsh edge that appears between pics. Do we have the same question lakewud?

I thought I could use the Mask function, to mask off the center portion of the skier, and then just use the transparency function to lower the transparency of the unmasked part of the image. I literally had my PI user manual in front of my face reading and performing steps as I went, but to no avail. I think sometimes PI is really counter-intuitive and the user manual not well written.

Anyway, I still have no better understanding of how to get rid of the edge.