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Feather effect (around placed photos, graphics, etc)


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Hi,

Apologies if this question is answered elsewhere, I haven't found it though.

In Serif PagePlus X9 there is a "feather" effect that can be applied to pictures. I can't see any way to do the same thing in Affinity Publisher Beta. Is there any way of doing it?

A picture is worth a thousand words, so hopefully the one attached will show what I mean.

Feather effect.jpg

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I have found one way to do this -- or at least, to achieve something visually similar -- directly from within Affinity Publisher Beta (1.7.0.384).

Referring to the attached illustration,

1 -- select the image you want to "feather"

2 -- right-click on the image, then choose Layer Effects

3 -- choose Inner Glow

4 -- experiment with the options, like Radius, Intensity, and Colour (here: white)

Note that the Radius value, by using the slider, can only be taken to 100 px.

But if you hover over the value-box beside the slider, and roll the mouse-wheel, you can change the value to anything between 0 px and 1024 px.

Rolling the mouse wheel changes the value in increments of 1 px. Holding Shift, while rolling, steps in increments of 10 px; holding Ctrl while rolling steps in increments of 0.1 px.

Feather effect in Affinity Publisher Beta - a method.jpg

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Feathering is easy. Select the picture. Then select the rectangle tool and draw a rectangle slightly inside the picture and keep the rectangle selected. Use the layers panel and Mask to below. With the rectangle selected use layer effect (I think), Gaussian blur, move the slider. You can adjust the rectangle size and position and blur to get what you want. I can't remember if the blur is transparent.

Windows 10 Pro, I5 3.3G PC 16G RAM

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1 hour ago, MickRose said:

I can't remember if the blur is transparent.

The blur is transparent :)

Nice trick. I had forgotten about that one.

d.

Affinity Designer 1 & 2   |   Affinity Photo 1 & 2   |   Affinity Publisher 1 & 2
Affinity Designer 2 for iPad   |   Affinity Photo 2 for iPad   |   Affinity Publisher 2 for iPad

Windows 11 64-bit - Core i7 - 16GB - Intel HD Graphics 4600 & NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960M
iPad pro 9.7" + Apple Pencil

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2 hours ago, MickRose said:

Feathering is easy. Select the picture. Then select the rectangle tool and draw a rectangle slightly inside the picture and keep the rectangle selected. Use the layers panel and Mask to below. With the rectangle selected use layer effect (I think), Gaussian blur, move the slider. You can adjust the rectangle size and position and blur to get what you want. I can't remember if the blur is transparent.

Thanks to all for comments and contributions, and to MickRose for a solution.

If this could possibly, in a future release, become a one-click "feather" operation, that would be nice..... :12_slight_smile:

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  • 9 months later...

Thanks MickRose, that worked for me, but as an InDesign user wanting to use AP and give Adobe the flick, it's the lack of a good user guide that's stopping me from coming over completely.  I've just bought v1.8.2 and still trying to see how to achieve the same things in AP as I do in ID.  The hard copy books I expect won't contain any of the improvements since 1.x.  As Patrick also wishes, this sort of basic stuff should be a tool as it is in ID (which is under the Object sub menu) and within a few seconds, achieve the same result.  I'm hoping I can find out if you can make this an action or user preset, then it would be OK.

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Just a thought:

If you only need to feather along one axis, you can use a linear transparency gradient (created using the Transparency Tool).

For a different sort of look you can use an elliptical transparency gradient (but this means the corners will be rounded - so it should work just fine if the picture is being framed as round in any case...).

 

Rectangular gradients might be a useful building block for offering this feature...

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