Hiya! I'm sorry if this is a frequent thread, but I run a facebook page that mainly revolves around editing minecraft elements, usually backgrounds, into real world photos. It passes the time lol
My problem is that I want feathering on the foreground elements that I cut out and keep, so that they don't look all jagged, like is kind of visible here.
This is what happens when I use the default magic wand, and yeah I realise it doesn't do alpha. Although that one was done by drawing lines around the internal perimeter in another layer and magic wand-ing them (and deleting in the layer below).
My alternative method is to fill a layer underneath the image with red or blue or something that there is not much of in the photo, and then use the eraser on 75% softness to erase the background manually, gradually. This is more versatile but takes longer, and I have a key issue: once I've erased around the foreground, then I use the magic wand (contiguously on a high percentage) to select all of the remaining background, like this (It's messy, don't judge me):
However, when I delete, there's a little rim left around the line of erased stuff. Like so (grey square with magnification added for clarity):
This doubles my workload as I have to go over the exact same route I did before. It seems petty but I like being efficient. Does anyone know a way around?
Also, if I used the paintbrush in a new layer and then AlphaMask to delete the background instead, it would have the same effect; it would give me the semi-transparent foreground inside-perimeter (sorry I'm not good at being concise) but then it would also give me a rim of unwanted pixels around the paintbrush, since fill isn't able to completely fill the inside of a paintbrushed line without leaving these same types of semi-transparent pixels.