Seeking tips for mist, clouds, halo, aurora...

[David Rust]

Hi All,

I am trying to put a misty "halo" or "aurora" behind a portrait. I have removed the background and am left with a nicely defined subject, and I want to gradually transition the pic to the background with wispy mist or clouds etc...

Any ideas how to do this with Corel?

I tried the linear fills and also messed around with creating a shape with grayscale and then applying a vignette... these are all too uniform to get a misty, cloudy background look...

I want to put this on black granite.

Thanks

[Mike Null]

Take your picture into PhotoPaint and open effects>creative>vignette. Experiment with the vignette tool. In Draw you might find the transparency tool will do some things you like.

Here's one I did a while back.

March 20, wallet.jpg

[Dee Gallo]

You can also use the brush tool or eraser tool set with "feather" - it will let you soften the edges as you wish manually. This is helpful especially when you want to fade out part of the picture (like at the shoulders, etc.) or make a background less distinct. Using a big sized brush will give you softer edges, a smaller brush give you more definition.

[Doug Griffith]

Not sure about Corel but there may be a similar method to PS. In PS, magic wand the background you already removed. Invert selection. Copy and paste into a new layer. While still selected, go back to the original layer and offset the selection outwards. Then feather the selection quite a bit. Then fill with the halo color. The offsets and feather amounts will depend on the resolution of the photo. Using quick mask (CTRL/CMD "Q") will help you visualize the results before actually applying.

[Martin Boekers]

Do a search on vignetting on YouTube I'm sure they have a ton of videos on this. YouTube is a valuable asset,I always explore it when I have some time.

[Dan Hintz]

I haven't done it in quite a while (got away form pics), but I would do a Gaussian fade on a separate layer and then AND the two layers together...

[Martin Boekers]

I haven't done it in quite a while (got away form pics), but I would do a Gaussian fade on a separate layer and then AND the two layers together...

The nice thing about doing it on 2 layers is when you select the background/blurred layer you can adjust as needed as it's on it's own layer. You can make it "high key or low key" by adjusting density or change the level of blurring. Sometimes I'll desaturate or sepia tone the background also. You have much more control this way.

[Mike Chance in Iowa]

Another thing to experiment with in addition to the above, is apply a mask. (Corel PaintShopPro has this feature. Not sure about Corel PhotoPaint.)

[Dan Hintz]

The nice thing about doing it on 2 layers is...

Yeah, I've tried to make use of layers (and some of the other goodies) more and more. I likely only use about 1% of the program's capabilities, but I'm trying to get to 2% within my lifetime.

[Mike Chance in Iowa]

Yeah, I've tried to make use of layers (and some of the other goodies) more and more. I likely only use about 1% of the program's capabilities, but I'm trying to get to 2% within my lifetime.

Soon you will be working with 2-4 layers on a regular basis. I don't like to work without them now. :-)

[Dee Gallo]

You can also use the airbrush/paintbrush with a large soft edge and white or black paint on the edges of the picture.