Fading a photograph

[Clematis]

Hi there! I am very new to paint.Net, having downloaded it yesterday. I have been playing around and looked at a few of the tutorials but can't seem to work out how to do this - I want a black background, and to paste a photograph onto it then fade the edges of the photo into the background so it's not a sharp square but the background and picture look like one thing. I hope I've explained that ok! Any help appreciated!

Thanks, Gillian

[Helio]

You could use the Alpha mask plugin, but I think it will be easier to explain about transparent gradients:

First, click on the gradient tool (on the toolbar), then, up towards the top you will see something like this:

(ignore the highlighting around the radial gradient [the one on the left {more brackets! }], I used this image for a tutorial.)

Click on the :AllColorChannels: so it looks like :AlphaChannel:. (Oh, make sure that you have the default black and white color setting for secondary/primary colors.)

Then, just drag the gradient tool (try right-clicking and dragging inward), and hold shift to constrain the angle.

I hope that makes sense.

[Clematis]

Getting there - thank you! But....I get a degree of blurring, but then still get a hard edge after the blurred bit. How can I ensure there is no hard egde, i.e. the top layer picture blurs into the whole of the lower layer black background?

[Ash]

http://paintdotnet.12.forumer.com/viewtopic.php?t=2756

Getting there - thank you! But....I get a degree of blurring, but then still get a hard edge after the blurred bit. How can I ensure there is no hard egde, i.e. the top layer picture blurs into the whole of the lower layer black background?

2 points closer = harder edegs

so pull the 2 points far apart

when you :AlphaChannel: :LinearGradient: