FEATHER A SELECTION WITHOUT THE GUESSING GAME

Most of us try to guess how many pixels will give us the nice, soft selection we're looking for when we use the Feather Selection dialog. Sometimes we guess right, and other times we press Command-Z (PC: Control-Z) to undo the damage before trying again. Try this instead: Make your selection first, and then press "q" to turn on the Quick Mask mode. Now make the edge fade out by going under Filter, under Blur, and choosing Gaussian Blur. You can see how much of a blur you'll need to soften the edges as you adjust the Radius amount. When you're done, press "q" to get back to Standard mode with the selection already made with the exact amount of feathering that you want.