... continued from "Merging Images: The art of Feathering" above, see in the active layer, we are moving our cropping tool around, yet with the photo as the only visible layer, we are able to "see" the tool as an active selection.

Building the crop Once we experiment with the shape oval we want, making the selection active on a new layer, and inverting allows us to (option-delete) fill the non-print areas with black. At this point we select the whole layer and drag it around to find the crop that pleases us most. Making the photo layer the active layer, and then hiding our cropping layer we now see the running ants selection on the photo. You’ll remember that clicking on the Selection tool with the option key converts it into an oval/circle tool. Feathering With feathering is the term the software geeks gave the traditional technique known as vignetting: a soft edged border around an image which blends into the background. You can make this any shape you like, but we’ll maintain our oval here. continue make the feather...

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