How to make edges blend with gradient background

Question

I need to blend edges of an image with gradient background.

For past 4 days i have gone through many online tutorials and guides but could not achieved the perfect.

Method i have used is first make edges transparent and then set gradient image as background. But this is still not perfect.

According to me the issue is gradient background.

I am not photoshop expert, so i don't know whether 'blending' is the exact thing i am looking for. It could be merge or dissolve too.

So far this is what i have achieved...

Answer 1

You can add a layer mask to your foreground layer. Select the layer in the Layers panel and click at he bottom "Add Layer Mask"

Select the layer mask icon. Put into tha mask a bidirectional linear gradient white at the middle, black at the edges

Adjust by using the curves tool the steepness of the mask gradient. You can also spray into it more white or black by large smooth brush that has low opacity or slow airbrush mode ON. That way you can brush some details better visible at the edges.

Consider also to try somehow more complex background than a gradient. It blends better if it has horizontally same colours than the image. Here's one that is made by motion blur from the photo. It needs heavy color adjustmet before use. Red is offensive and must be turned to blue with Image > Adjustments > Hue&Saturation. The blurred layer need several duplications to make it thick enough. A slight motion blur is applied also vertically. The blurred layers are merged to one, the "Complex Blur"