Portrait edge softening.

Radial mode, fading inside out, with the edge opacity at 0 for a complete dissolve or 20 to 30 for a gentler softening. Set the radius so the face and shoulders stay fully solid.

One that covers the face and upper shoulders, typically 40 to 60 percent of the image width for a standard headshot. The subject stays opaque while the background and the frame fade.

Transparent: the portrait then sits on any background later. For white, place the transparent PNG on a white layer in an editor.

Draw an area selection centered on the face. The radial fade then starts from the subject rather than the middle of the frame.

Use a larger radius, or switch to a linear fade on the outer edges. Radial suits one subject; a group needs the whole row kept solid.

Increase the radius. Better too much kept than a fade cutting into a face or a shoulder; crop afterwards if the solid area is too large.

Uniform sets one opacity for the whole photo, from a faint ghost at 10 percent to nearly solid at 90. Linear fades from one edge to the other in the direction you choose; radial keeps the middle solid and fades toward the edges, or the other way round, with a radius you set.

Draw an area selection around the subject. A radial fade then centers on that area rather than on the frame, so an off-center face stays solid while the rest falls away.

No. The file is decoded, drawn and re-encoded by your browser's canvas, and the page makes no request with it. You can load the page, go offline and keep working; nothing is stored either.

No. The "Portrait edge softening" tool is free and opens without a sign-in, an account or an install.

Up to 100 MB per file, the limit the tool states under its drop area. A larger file is refused with a plain message instead of being decoded.

No, it takes one file at a time. If you drop or choose several, only the first is used; run the tool again for the next one.

The edit is written as a PNG because PNG stores every pixel exactly, with a full alpha channel, so the result can be edited again without a second round of loss.

No. The browser decodes the image and the tool writes a new file from its pixels, so camera EXIF, GPS position and text chunks in the original are not copied into the result. Keep the original file if you need them.

No. The result has the same width and height in pixels as the source.

Closest to the "Portrait edge softening" tool: JPG opacity changer, Photo spotlight effect, JPG background remover, PNG opacity changer. Each opens on its own page, free and in the browser.

The "Portrait edge softening" tool is one of 44 in its group. The group's page, /tools/jpg, lists them all.

The tool is free. Its interface is built from shadcn.io's own components (Button, Input, Slider and the rest of the registry under /ui), which come in React, Vue, Svelte and Solid. Pro adds the blocks and templates for the product around it.