Soften the edges of selections

I have a strange (might be small) problem in my PS (CS 5.5).. while selecting with the Select tools (Marquee) i cant see the running marquee lines any more (those dotted lines around) instead i have a solid line sround the selection. How do I bring back the running line??
adgfx

I doubt it can be classified as a bug unless the issue can be reproduced.
Can you do that?
Boilerplate-text:
Are Photoshop and OS fully updated and have you performed the usual trouble-shooting routines (trashing prefs by keeping command-alt-shift/ctrl-alt-shift pressed while starting Photoshop, 3rd party plug-ins deactivation, system maintenance, font validation, etc.)?
Does turning off OpenGL in the Performance Preferences and restarting Photoshop have any bearing on the issue?

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Any way to soften the edges on a background in a "Basic Slate" title?

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The film is in another language so I have to subtitle too- so it's getting to be a lot of text on the screen. I am using a black background with white letters (opacity at 50%) I hate the edges on the background though, and I'm trying to soften them. I tried Soft Edges but that didn't work- it spread the edge all the way across the frame. I just want to soften up the end of the background a bit so it's easier on the eye.< </div>
There are many subtitle plugs for FCP; we use Digital Heaven's subtitler.
Your desire for expedited workflows "stuff like this" is not commercially viable or someone might have created a plugin especially for the purpose. Maybe they have. Where have you looked? Hundreds of plugs for FCP are on the market or you can write one of your own. The development tools for FXPlug and FXScript are easily researched and located and downloaded if you are inclined to write code or use nodes.
However, creating lower thirds is a standard video editing chore. You can create lots of presets for various sizes, transparencies, and colors of backgrounds (anecdotal drivel: we used to call them "pills" because of their shape) save them and just pull them from a bin.
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How can I soften the edges of a picture

I am trying to create a soft white frame around the outside of the picture. How can I do this. Thank you. I have Elements 10

There are several ways to do this.
Try Filter>Correct Camera Distortion, and work the Vignette sliders.
If this is not what you are after, please point to a picture with the desired effect.

What happened to the ability to hide the "marching ants" (CTRL/CMD H) in Photoshop? I cannot view the edges of my selection with the marching ants in the way!

I have been using Photoshop since version 2.5 when it came on 16 floppy disks. In all of the versions I've purchased over the years (many) up to CS3, I have always been able to use CTRL+H (Windows) or CMD+H (Mac) to hide the "marching ants" selection outline. This is immensely useful when making all sorts of adjustments where the edge of the selection must be viewed while "fiddling with the knobs" (so to speak). Without being able to hide the selection boundaries ("marching ants"), I often have to make a best guess, undo the selection, get bummed that the edge isn't what I want, then have to undo, reselect, try again... over and over. This is such a SIMPLE feature, but the lack of it is driving me crazy. I searched HELP, but it didn't live up to the promise. If there is a way to hide the marching ants, where is the menu item, and what is the shortcut?

You can assign Ctrl/Cmd H to hide Selection Edges (Edit > Keyboard Shortcuts) only, if you don't want to hide everything, but you will be warned if some other function has the shortcut.

How to shift selection of magic wand tool by 2 pixels to take the edges off?

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Why does Quick Select tool make the edges all jagged?

My Photoshop Elements Quick Select tool is great for selecting an item, a shirt say, and then I copy it and paste it onto a new page with a white background, thus eliminating the background I had before. The only thing is that it makes the edges of the item all jagged and then I have to go with the eraser tool and smooth everything out. This is not easy because my hand is not that steady. Also it is very hard on my eyes. I've already had to get new glasses. The original image, a shirt for example, has sharp delineation all around it. How can I copy it so that when I paste it onto a new background, it stays sharp and I don't have to spend ages, sometimes half an hour or more, trying to smooth out its edges? Thanks.

Hi Barbara,
Thanks for your answer about using Refine Edge. It works very well. Thanks so much. Is there a way that I can get the edge really sharp but not jagged? I've tried Smooth 8 and Feather 0 but the garment still doesn't have as sharp an edge as the original photo.
Many thanks also for your answer to Jane regarding Fill or Unfill Workspace. I couldn't find it even after a laborious task of copying every option screen in my original Photoshop Elements 6 and then comparing each photo to every option screen on my new Photoshop. It never would have occurred to me to look in Application Frame. I, like Jane and others, do not like working with my entire Workspace blacked out.
Thanks again. Would you have a suggestion re. my first paragraph herein? Thanks.

I am new to this program and want to know how to blur the edges of a pic

i am new to the program and want to know how to blur the edges of a pic?

Another way...
Use the Rectangular Marquee tool to draw out the edge to be blurred. Feather the selection. Here I feathered 50 px (note that feathering makes the borders of the selection appear rounded).
Invert the selection so that the edge is now selected, and apply a Gaussian Blur:
The reason for feathering is to soften the edge of the blur. The amount of feathering and amount of the Gaussian Blur is simply trial-and-error.

How can I soften the edge of a person in a photograph without changing the background?

I need to soften the outline of a girl in a photo without changing the background. I have tried the Modify Edges tool in the selections menu, but the results of the feathering command do not show up on the photo. Help!

Or you could brush with the Blur Tool.
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That is called the vignette, and yes Apple has removed it from Pages 5 along with 100 other features.
Pages '08/'09 should still be in your Applications/iWork folder so use that.
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IDVD is producing DVDs which chop the edges off my video. I have tried changing the aspect ratio between 4:3 and 16:9 but it hasn't helped. My TV is definitely on the correct settings. How can I solve this?

iDVD is producing DVDs which chop the edges off my video. I have tried changing the aspect ratio between 4:3 and 16:9 but it hasn't helped. My TV is definitely on the correct settings. How can I solve this?

One way to to put the videos into an iDVD slideshow
and set iDVD's Slideshow preferences to always scale slides to TV Safe Area.
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How can I make the edges of the JSC component curved?

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How can I make the edges of the JSC component curved? For example, consider Textfield component, how to make the the sharp edges smooth and curved?
Thank you very much.

Follow the steps below implement rounded edges for tabs in a tabset component:
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2) Redefine the following styles in your application stylesheet(originally defined in css_master.css)
.Tab1Div td.Tab1TblSelTd {
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.Tab1Div td.Tab1TblSelTd {
     background-repeat:repeat-x;background-position:left bottom;border-bottom:none
.Tab1Div td {
     background-color:#EFEBEF;width: 200px;height:40px;background-image:url(images/level1_deselect.jpg);border:none
.Tab1Div td {
     background-repeat:repeat-x;background-position:bottom left
a.Tab1Lnk:link, a.Tab1Lnk:visited {
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Results: By doing this you'll have the selected and unselected tabs show up with rounded egdes and also the selected tab will look bigger than the unselected tas making it more prominent.

Video doesnt extend to the edges....

Hi,
I'm working on a film made up of lots of different source materials: PAL DigiBeta, PAL DVCAM, Super16mm telecined to PAL DigiBeta, and NTSC DVCAM converted to PAL DigiBeta. Everything is Anamorphic 16x9.
The native PAL DigiBeta footage fills up the entire 720x576 image area. However the Super16mm that was telecined to PAL DigiBeta doesnt extend all the way to the left or right. There is a very small (maybe 3-7 pixel) band of black on either side.
The footage converted from NTSC (via an Alchemist Platinum PH) is worse, with approx 10 pixels of black on each side, and about 5 at the top and bottom. And the PAL DVCAM footage (shot on a DSR-500, not only has the smaller bands on the sides, but also a line of time code garbage at the top and a thin black area at the bottom.
Of course the bands on the sides wont show up on a standard overscanned Television. But the garbage at the top and bottom does. And when I make a DVD that is viewed on a computer monitor (which is more and more common) depending on how the player is set up, the bands are visable. If it was consistant across the whole show, then it wouldnt be a problem, but the main footage (native PAL DigiBeta) is fine, so the bands are there sometimes and not other times, often within one scene.
The easy way is to blow the offending clips up 102 or 103% so they fill up the entire frame. But this adds to render time, and softens the image ever so slightly. The other option is to apply a crop to the entire show. A setting of 1% all the way around in the motion tab is enough. But then I am getting a solid black line around everything, and the image doesnt extend out to the edges.
I'm curious if any of you have had to deal with this problem and what kind of solutions you have come up with.
thanks...
G5 Dual2.0 (PCI-X), 4.5GB RAM, 23" Cinema Display, PB G4 Mac OS X (10.4.6)

It's quite common. Video 'Blanking' as it's known doesn't always work perfectly, particularly if the tape has been dubbed down many generations or has at one stage been in an analogue format, and one very often gets small 'blanking errors' on footage, even on fully professional tapes. Don't worry about it - it's WAY outside 'Safe Picture' area as you say. Depending on the shot or circumstance, it's probably best to do as you suggest and create a simple crop around your entire picture that covers up garbage and standardises the image size. You might blow some shots up if it's particularly bad, but blowing a picture up, even a little, leads to softening and it's often better to avoid it and simply make the black edges 'neat and tidy'. Beyond these two techniques, you can also look at mirroring the content of the image out into those empty edges, that can look OK, but can also become distracting.
It's a problem, but it's a very common problem, and you oughtn't to over stress on it.

Rectangle marquee tool is rounding at the edges, how to I revert to sharp edges?

The rectangle marquee tool is rounding at the edges of my selections and when I try to fill with solid color, it fills very transparently and almost water-color like.
I don't know how the settings were changed, but I need help reverting them back to normal.
FYI: When I select an area using the rectangle marquee tool, an error message pops up that says "Warning: No pixels are more than 50% selected. The selection edges will not be visible."
I am not very savvy with this program, but need to finish creating a flyer by this afternoon. Please help!

Hi,
You probably have a feather value other than zero set in the tool options bar.

How do I fade the edges of a photograph

I would like to fade the edges of an image to match the background of my blog so the picture isn't a boring rectangle. You can see the main image here and see what I mean... it looks like a generic blog header with the blocked image.
I tried using the gradient tool, which I've used to create a reflection effect for ads and such, but had no luck in this project because it doesn't radiate evenly across all sides. I would even consider a rougher look, like when you use the spray, to fade the edges.
Any ideas or a point towards an existing tutorial would be much appreicated. Is there an action for applying this type of effect to images?

Hi there -
Your image link isn't working so I'm not precisely sure what effect you're trying to achieve. Below is a brief tutorial on how to easily feather the edges of an image by using a mask - if this isn't what you're looking for, post a reply and try relinking your image.
1. Open up your image in Photoshop - I have deleted the background layer so that I'll have a transparent image when I'm done (saving as .png).
2. In your layers panel, click on the Layer Mask icon, shown below.
With a layer mask, white areas will show your image while black areas will mask your image - this is a non-destructive way to "erase" areas of an image in Photoshop. Here's a great little beginner guide to masks.
3. Now, grab your Gradient Tool and set it to a Black to Transparent gradient.
4. Now you can drag out your gradient, fading away the edge you'd like. You can also use a large soft brush set to black to do the same thing. Make sure that whenever you're editing the layer mask, you click on the layer mask thumbnail in your layers panel - not the layer thumbnail (you can see in the screenshot below that there are small white corners around the layer mask thumbnail telling me it's selected).
When finished, save your image in a transparent format such as .png so that the background of your website will show through the transparent areas of your image.
And again, if this is not what you are looking to do, please post a reply!
Cheers,
Kendall

I need to clean up the edges of an image, please help!!

I stained a t-shirt and so to make one that was the same I scanned the image on it in order to later print it on a new t-shirt. I opened the scanned image on photoshop and removed the background, then I used the quick selection tool to select the colors (only has 2 colors) and to recolor it as the colors looked dull. The problem is, the quick selection tool didn't make a 'clean/smooth' selection so the edges are VERY bad and I don't know how to fix this! Please help!!
I took a screenshot of the image I'm working on (so that you can have a better idea) and also a close up on the edges (it's like this in all of the image)

It sounds like you want a vector image.
One word: Illustrator. That's Adobe Illustrator.

Soften the edges of selections

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