Quickmask feathering

QuickMask for Feathering only a portion of the selection

Jane from Mass, US, using Photoshop with Macintosh, writes in with:

[Quote:]
I'm trying to feather only a portion of a selection. It's along the edge of a shadow, and without the feather it won't look right. [END QUOTE]

Photohsop 911:

The best way to accomplish this is

a) separate out the selection onto it's own layer, then work on just the edge, or,

b) Use Quick mask, then blur/feather visually using a soft brush
With an active selection, tap the "Q" key. The selection will appear as a red overlay. Now you can edit your selection with any editing tool - brushes, filters, even make selections on it.

Remember, the area outside the selection gets masked in red. To add mask (un-selected area) use BLACK paint, to add more to the selection, use WHITE paint. Since the marching ants of the selected area disappear in QuickMask mode, you need to get used to it. Toggle QuickMask offand on hitting the "Q" key.

You can Double-click the quickmask icon near the bottom of the toolbar to invert the selected area -- or change it from show masked area to show selected area.

In some cases you want a work mask or channel -- which QuickMask is NOT. (When you deselect the QuickMask will be lost.) So you'll perhaps want to save that selection.

Menu: Select > Save selection.

Name it and you've got a new channel. Click the eye icon - you have a 'red mask' just like the Quick mask. You can edit the channel any way you like, using all the capabilities of PS. When you're done you can load the channel as a selection - but now it is the newly edited selection.

Another way to accomplish a similar chore is to copy it to a new layer.

Drag the layer to the "New Layer" icon on the Layers Palette.

Now make a new blank layer above the copy.

Change the blend mode to Burn or Darken (darken = Burn; Dodge = lighten)

Choose a soft light gray brush. Crank opacity of the brush down to 5-10% and on the new Burn layer. You'll see the area in your photo darken.

If you can help, just comment below! Thank you!

PLEASE don't post new questions here! POST QUESTIONS at the Photoshop 911 EMERGENCY ROOM

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Comments

[hemanth]

hi i am hemanth i was a pro in creating masks used for color correcting the various parts of an image, So i would like to give a tip- when we create selections we need to see the item under the mask, so double click on a new alpha channal and change the setting to selected areas, and set the colormode majority green-251 and then set the opacity to 50%, -After following the above procedure, create a new alpha channel from the channels pallete and hit the key 'D'to get the default black and white color on the fore and bkgd color swatch,now keep all the color channels on but have only the new alpha channel selected,now go ahead u can use the shift key to navigate the brush tool along the edge of the item that u mask once u reach the staring point of the mask fill it with black completely.Now we can create channels directly from the brush by setting softness and hardness values wherever required.....Hope u got the picture bye