4 transparent edges on photo/phade out edges

[NiekMV]

Hi, I would like to fade out all 4 edges around a photo. I searched all over internet and here but cannot find the solution. Found the following posted years ago, but cannot get it working. 

Who can help me with this? I am a complete beginner in Affinity Photo so I would really appreciate the help. Thanks a lot!

 

The steps above seem to me a bit overcomplicated if you want to fade out all four edges. I tried doing it myself in a different way, I think it should work; but for some reason - it does not.

Here is what I do:

1. Import my photo
2. Create a white rectangle over the image (of the same size)
3. Use inner glow effect on the rectangle. Blend mode: normal, color: black, radius & intensity depending on whatever is needed
4. Rasterize the object. Now I have a nice white rectangle with fading black borders.
5. Use the obtained fading white rectangle as a mask to the image below: right-click the object in the layers window and select "Mask to below"

Edited January 12 by NiekMV

[GarryP]

Welcome to the forums @NiekMV

If you search these forums for fade photo edge you should find lots of different ways to do this sort of thing depending on exactly what you want to do.

For example: https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/171580-fading-edges-of-a-photo/

See attached video for one simple process (taken from the thread linked to above).

[NiekMV]

Thanks so much @GarryP for your quick reaction. This is exactly the effect I was looking for, apparently did not use the right search ;-). I think I am doing the steps exactly as in the video but for some reason it does not work...  No clue what I am doing wrong. When I add the rectangle and then add gaussian blur in Fx I see the sides go transparent. But when I then move the rectangle over the picture I see nothing happening and when I then place the rectangle below the background, I only see the background picture, no fading.... any idea what I am doing wrong?

[Komatös]

18 minutes ago, NiekMV said:

any idea what I am doing wrong?

Do you have Preserve Alpha activated for Gaussian Blur? This could be the reason why the effect is not visible for you.

[Oufti]

24 minutes ago, NiekMV said:

when I then move the rectangle over the picture I see nothing happening and when I then place the rectangle below the background, I only see the background picture, no fading.... any idea what I am doing wrong?

Take care that you have to drag the rectangle layer on the thumbnail of the background image, not on its name. 

This reminder sheet helped me:

 

[NiekMV]

@Oufti: thanks that was indeed the solution. When moving on top of the thumbnail and waiting a bit, it created the effect I wanted on the photo. Also found that following action did the trick as well: use the rectangle layer as a clipping mask. Not sure if it is the same ;-). Now only thing to find out is how to export jpg to photo's app with the same date and time as raw/original file.

[Komatös]

26 minutes ago, NiekMV said:

Now only thing to find out is how to export jpg to photo's app with the same date and time as raw/original file.

It does not work from the programmes because it is set by the OS. Under Windows I had always used TotalCommander for this. I have not yet found what I was looking for on the Mac.

[Oufti]

3 minutes ago, Komatös said:

I have not yet found what I was looking for on the Mac.

Graphic Converter is able to do that, besides many other things — but I'm sure you already know.