zdesign: August 2012

Monday, August 27, 2012

Removing fringe pixels from a selection in photoshop...

When you move or paste an anti-aliased selection, some of the pixels surrounding the selection border are included with the selection. This can result in a fringe or halo around the edges of the pasted selection. These Matting commands let you edit unwanted edge pixels:

Defringe replaces the color of any fringe pixels with the colors of nearby pixels containing pure colors (those without background color). For example, if you select a yellow object on a blue background and then move the selection, some of the blue background is selected and moved with the object. Defringe replaces the blue pixels with yellow ones.
Remove Black Matte and Remove White Matte are useful when you want to paste a selection anti-aliased against a white or black background onto a different background. For example, anti-aliased black text on a white background has gray pixels at the edges, which are visible against a colored background.

You can also remove fringe areas by using the Advanced Blending sliders in the Layer Styles dialog box to remove, or make transparent, areas from the layer. In this case, you would make the black or white areas transparent. Alt-click (Windows) or Option-click (Mac OS) on the sliders to separate them; separating the sliders allows you to remove fringe pixels and retain a smooth edge.

To decrease a fringe on a selection:

Choose Layer > Matting > Defringe.
Enter a value in the Width text box for the distance to search for replacement pixels. In most cases, a distance of 1 or 2 pixels is enough.
Click OK.

To remove a matte from a selection:

Choose Layer > Matting > Remove Black Matte or Layer > Matting > Remove White Matte.