When I began the process of creating print-on-demand (POD) products from my photographs, I perused the available merchandise. In doing so I noticed that I had a negative reaction to some products that had a rectangular picture plunked down in the midst of a white background, even when I really thought the picture was lovely.
That began my search for finding ways to soften or edge into the photo, but with a transparent background that would not be printed.
Create a transparent irregular border in GIMP using Filters
- Open photo.
- Select–Select All
- Pick the rectangular selection tool.
- Form an inner box that is where you want the solid part of the image to be (Note: you can input coordinates for the upper left corner of the box and dimensions into the dialog boxes if you prefer that over winging the size and location).
- Click the quick mask tool, a dashed box in the lower left corner of the window with the image.
- Right click mouse to get menu and select Filters.
- Adjust the area as desired (the red mask will show how it will look).
- Click on quick mask tool again (it will be in the same location but now shows as a red box, no dashes).
- Select–Invert
- Edit–Clear
- Export the resultant image as a .png file to maintain transparency.
The image below used this set of instructions with the distorts–wave filter followed by a blur–Gaussian blur filter.
