Feathering Masks

To feather the edges of a mask, select the mask, and then adjust the Feather slider in the Modes controls.

Feather is essentially a blur over the entire mask shape, which effectively softens the edges—but with no control over how far in or out the softness goes.

Edge gradients offer more control over how the softness cuts into or grows out of the mask. You can also use feathering with an edge gradient. For example, you can use a spline edge gradient for variable softness along the edge, and still use a small Feather value for the overall softness of the shape.