The Art of Feathering in PhotoshopWritten by Nashville
Some people are startled on how wonderful images look with blurred edges. They certainly don’t know how easy it is to do it. It is called a feathered edge in Photoshop (PS). You can put in many feathered images together to get a wonderful collage that melts seamlessly together using Octagonal and Rectangular tool or Lasso Tools in PS. Feathering is one of most commonly used techniques when creating wallpapers. It is set by a radius measurement in pixels which means that it occurs in both directions or on both sides of selection boundary. Since it’s set by pixels, a feather value will have a very different effect on images of very different resolutions. The feathering effect to combine two or more images smoothly in PS is easy to be learned. As a start, it’s advisable to use two images. Here we go. First, create a new image of any size you want and paste image. It should be on layer 1. Now, here comes feathering effect. Choose Rectangular Marquee tool and you will see thing that says Feather. Once you have found it, change px to between 15-20. Then, select around one-third of image on left side and press delete. Now, you can see some of second image through first image. Using Selection menu, you can set amount of feathering you wish. Higher numbers, mean wider spreads of feathering. You can also set amount of feathering by using Options bar text entry field for "Feathering" in PS versions 6, 7 and CS. From here, just click QuickMask button if you wish to test your feather. Now, you can see feather in action. If you want an even clearer demo, double-click QuickMask button in tool bar; and in QuickMask dialog, set mask color to white; and Opacity to 80 to 90%. Keep selecting some parts of first image and press delete until two images are combined smoothly. That's it! You now have a feathered image.
| | Some words are worth a thousand picturesWritten by Maricon Williams
As maxim goes - a picture is worth a thousand words. We are all aware of that. But can some words be worth a thousand pictures? Is a picture really worth a thousand words? written by Jamie Kiley, is a manifestation that words can be worth a thousand pictures. “As a graphic designer, she reveals, my natural inclination is to create graphically-rich, light text websites. Since I'm focused on what a site looks like visually, I like using impressive images, bold splashes of color all over page, and not very much copy. The end result is an attractive, visually-appealing site, with very few words.” Based on her observation, she noticed that visitors want specifics and they want them quickly. So it is advisable that you tell them exactly what you can do for them. You should tell why they have to choose you over other competitors. For this purpose, words are far more effective than images. In some if not most cases, pictures cannot convey message nearly as specifically or quickly as well-chosen words can. Thus, it is necessary for web to be informative and use right words. Visitors want explanations, answers, reasons and motivation – and that’s exactly what you suppose to give them!
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