Softening edges of an object

[_Rayman_]

Hi all,

I'm looking for an easy way to soften the edges of a newly added bitmap object!? There is the option to adjust border softness of selections, but that doesnt help me (or I do understand it wrong).

Please see the attachement to understand what I need:

1. Paste an image object from clipboard (e.g. from another application) as a new layer into the image (see left cat).
2. Do WHAT?? to ...
3. Achieve soft edges of my object to meld into underlying objects or the background (see right cat).

Thanks a lot!
Stefan

[MarkZ]

Pehaps this is what you are looking for:

1. In menu, Selections/Select all (Ctrl-A)
2. Selections/Modify/Inside/Outside Feather . .
3. Click on Inside and the amount of feathering. This depends on the size of image.
4. Selection/Invert
5. Delete

Alternatively:

1. Select All
2. Selection/Modify/Contract
3. Enter pixel value for contraction of selection
4. Selection/Modify/Inside/Outside Feather.
5. This time select Outside feathering and enter amount
6. Selection/Invert
7. Delete

The second method gives more control of the size of the image remaining. Instead of "Select all" the selection tool has a number of different shapes under "selection type". Also, if the rectangle or other regular shapes are boring you can do a freehand selection or after the initial selection use a tool such as Smart Selection brush (with Smart Edge off) with remove or add mode to roughen the selection edge. With this as a starting point experiment for the best effect.

[_Rayman_]

Thank you very much Marc!

I knew Selections / Modify / Inside / Outside Feather ... however I missed "Select All" in advance on the particular object.

Using this I could achieve the edge smoothing!