Feather

About the feather concept

Feather is a float value in points (or whatever unit you have defined in File > Setup > Misc > Unit System) that represents the width of the area that is going to be dissolved at the edge. Feather is the light horny waterproof structure forming the external covering of birds. See English Feather definition.

The Feather parameter is an standard parameter for the following types of layers:

• Outline Layer

• Region Layer

• Circle Layer

• Polygon Layer

• Star Layer

Strangely Rectangle Layer doesn’t have the Feather parameter.

When you apply a Feather to any of those layers, then the edge of the shape becomes dissolved and spread out and shrunk the amount that the Feather value indicates.

Circle with Feather set to 0 points

Circle with Feather set to 20 points

Feather’s Complementary Parameters

There is another parameter that works together with the Feather parameter, and which specifies the type of feathering to be used. On Circle layers the parameter is called Fall Off and for the other featherable layers it is called Type of Feather.

Type of Feather

This complementary parameter can be set in Outline Layer, Advanced Outline Layer, Region Layer, Polygon Layer and Star Layer. All the example images below have the same amount of Feather (set to 20 points).

Fast Gaussian Blur

Gaussian Blur

Box Blur

Cross-Hatch Blur

Disc Blur

Fall Off

That’s the type of feather for the Circle Layer. All the example images below have the same amount of Feather (set to 20 points).

Square Root

Square

Sigmond

Cosine

Linear