masks & feathering

[rollingstone webforumsuser@macromedia.com]

I need to create an oval graphic from part of an existing tif and give it a feathered edge. I can create the shape I want using a mask but cannot get the edge to feather. What am I doing wrong. (FW4 on Windows)

[Lanny Chambers]

In article <bg7b7t$4ns$1@forums.macromedia.com>,
"rollingstone" [email]webforumsuser@macromedia.com[/email] wrote:

> I need to create an oval graphic from part of an existing tif and give it a
> feathered edge. I can create the shape I want using a mask but cannot get
> the edge to feather. What am I doing wrong. (FW4 on Windows)

Set the fill of the mask to Feathered in the Fill panel.

--
Lanny Chambers, St. Louis, USA
[url]http://www.hummingbirds.net/[/url]

[rollingstone webforumsuser@macromedia.com]

There's the problem. When I set the fill to feather nothing happens. It's really annoying because I have done it in the past. Seems like I am doing something out of sequence or have left off one step.

[Stéphane Bergeron]

"rollingstone" [email]webforumsuser@macromedia.com[/email] wrote:

> There's the problem. When I set the fill to feather nothing happens.
> It's really annoying because I have done it in the past. Seems like
> I am doing something out of sequence or have left off one step.

You have to make sure you are selecting the actually mask shape, not the
whole mask group so make your selection in the layers panel. Also, this
might be obvious but your mask shape has to be a vector shape, not a
bitmap shape.

HTH!

Stéphane Bergeron

[rollingstone webforumsuser@macromedia.com]

The problem seems to be with the fill attribute of the mask. To be able to feather I need the fill to be solid. If I have no fill I don't get a feather option. If I paste inside the mask with the fill attribute set to solid & feather the edge the graphic is pasted with a hard edge inside the feathered edge of the mask shape. I need to paste the graphic inside the mask & feather the edge of the graphic not the edge of the mask outside the graphic. Hope this makes sense. I am following the Macromedia fundamentals to do the mask part which works OK, but getting the feather on the masked picture is where the problem lies. Thanks for your suggestions so far.

[Amy Blankenship]

Try this:

Start from scratch with your bitmap. In FW 4, draw a solid black shape over
it, and feather the edge. If you are using MX, the shape needs to be white.
Don't ask why the change...I have no clue.

Select both shapes. Go to the Modify menu, pull down to Group, and select
Group as mask.

Helps?

-Amy

"rollingstone" <webforumsuser@macromedia.com> wrote in message
news:bg9u2k$ob0$1@forums.macromedia.com...

> The problem seems to be with the fill attribute of the mask. To be able

to feather I need the fill to be solid. If I have no fill I don't get a
feather option. If I paste inside the mask with the fill attribute set to
solid & feather the edge the graphic is pasted with a hard edge inside the
feathered edge of the mask shape. I need to paste the graphic inside the
mask & feather the edge of the graphic not the edge of the mask outside the
graphic. Hope this makes sense. I am following the Macromedia
fundamentals to do the mask part which works OK, but getting the feather on
the masked picture is where the problem lies. Thanks for your suggestions
so far.

>
>

[Lanny Chambers]

In article <bg9u2k$ob0$1@forums.macromedia.com>,
"rollingstone" [email]webforumsuser@macromedia.com[/email] wrote:

> If I paste inside the mask with the fill attribute set to solid & feather the
> edge the graphic is pasted with a hard edge inside the feathered edge of the
> mask shape. I need to paste the graphic inside the mask & feather the edge
> of the graphic not the edge of the mask outside the graphic.

The mask must be smaller than the bitmap, or it won't do anything.

--
Lanny Chambers, St. Louis, USA
[url]http://www.hummingbirds.net/[/url]

[rollingstone webforumsuser@macromedia.com]

Thanks Amy that did the trick. Thanks everybody else for your suggestions.