When creating digital photo collages, it is often necessary to smooth the edges of each fragment, that is, to make sure that its borders are not clear and sharp, but smoothly flow into the background. This is called shading, it is resorted to for artistic purposes, as well as in order to hide traces and make the collage more natural. This article focuses on some possible ways to blend in Photoshop manually.
Feathering with an eraser
The easiest way to blend in Photoshop is to use the Eraser tool. Select the borders of the object to be cut with the Lasso tool, copy it and paste it into the same or a new file. You will get a new layer with sharp cropping borders that need to be shaded.
Select the Eraser tool, adjust it so that its rigidity is minimal. Try erasing the edges of the object. It may be necessary to further adjust the magnitude and rigidity of the eraser brush so that the blending of the edges in Photoshop is convenient and comfortable.
One of the minuses of this simplest method is that as a result, part of the object is erased. This can be compensated: when selecting, circle the object not along its borders, but with a small margin.
Eraser Cutting
Greater compensation can be achieved if you cut the object with an eraser.
Create a duplicate of the layer from which you want to cut the object ("Layers" - "Create duplicate layer"). This is necessary to work with an unsecured layer, otherwise the eraser will not crop the fragment, but replace the pixels of the image with pixels of the background color.
For shading in Photoshop in this way, you need to select the Eraser tool, choose a brush that suits you, adjust its size and hardness, and start tracing the object with this tool. Pixels around the object being cut will be replaced with transparent ones. Unlike the first method, you will control how close the instrument needs to get to the object: in some cases (for example, when working with the image of the head with flowing fluffy hair) this distance will be greater, in other cases (for example, when cutting objects with clearly outlined geometric shapes) it will be minimal. As you work, you can also adjust the shape, size, and stiffness of the eraser brush.
It is completely optional to erase everything around the object. It is enough to remove the pixels on its border, and then select the image with the Lasso tool, copy and paste.
The disadvantage of shading with an eraser is the irretrievable loss of pixels
The disadvantage of feathering in Photoshop with the eraser is that the work done cannot be adjusted. Careless movement can lead to the fact that you remove excess pixels. Or, say, at another stage in the work of creating a collage, it turns out that the edges are cropped and shaded carefully, but additional pixels are needed for work, which were irretrievably lost. And then all the work with cutting the fragment will have to start again.
Work with a layer mask
How to make shading in Photoshop so that in the future you can return to editing it? Especially in order not to lose pixels when “erasing” in Photoshop, it is possible to work with a mask layer, which involves not deleting, but a kind of hidden pixels, which can then be easily returned. Visually, this looks like an eraser, but the global difference is that at any stage, even after closing the file, you can return any “erased” pixel. The eraser in this case resembles a tool that erases the image with one end and restores the erased one with the other.
So, for this you need to create a layer mask. Duplicate the working layer, and delete the original layer or make it invisible. Make sure that the desired layer is active (selected) and create a layer mask ("Layers" - "Create a new layer mask"). In the Layers window, you will see that a white rectangle appears in the layer row next to the thumbnail rectangle.
Cut a fragment with feather edges using a mask layer
Click on the white rectangle with the mouse to work not with the layer itself, but with its “mask”.
Now, if you select the Brush tool, black will hide pixels (make them transparent), and white will restore. Accordingly, gray will make the pixels translucent.
Select the Brush tool, adjust it, select black. You can begin to trace a portion of the image in order to hide the pixels around it. If something in the work does not suit you, you can always change the color of the brush to white and restore the pixels. Or you can choose a gray shade and make the edges more accurate.
In order to return to editing the file in the future, you must save both the layers and the layer mask. Feathering in Photoshop CS6 in this way will be as comfortable as possible if you use a graphics tablet.
So, for quick shading of the image fragment, it is enough to use the adjusted Eraser tool, however, to achieve artistic effects and to create complex photo collages, it is better to stop working with the mask layer, in which case shading will be professional.