Adobe Photoshop: Feather

Here is a short tutorial on how to soften the edges of your photos with an effect called feathering. Feathering is also known as vignetting, it is an image blended into the background with softened edges:

How-to:
1) First, use the selection tool to select the area of the picture you would like to preserve.
2) Menu->Select->Inverse
3) Menu->Select->Feather. Then choose a feather radius. I usually start with 10 pixels
4) Press delete and the softened edges will appear blending in with the background.

Any selection tool can be used, such as the ellipse selection tool or the lasso. Also the feather will blend in with the background, so set the color of your background first.