Eraser and constrain

[rural]

Is there any way to constrain the eraser to draw a straight line using the current brush? I tried, but with the shift key, although it draws a straight line, it ignores the brush setting and it's a hard line. I want to draw a very feathered edge (100 pixels+). Is there any way to do this? Is using the marquee with a feathered edge and fill, the only way?
What I want to achieve is, with a photo in the background layer, have another layer with a soft vertical feathered edge to graduate the photo into a plain background - similar to this http://rlv.zcache.com/saddlery_business ... 08_325.jpg
Thanks!

[bkh]

Is there any way to constrain the eraser to draw a straight line using the current brush? I tried, but with the shift key, although it draws a straight line, it ignores the brush setting and it's a hard line. I want to draw a very feathered edge (100 pixels+). Is there any way to do this? Is using the marquee with a feathered edge and fill, the only way?

Works for me - note that the eraser might use a brush shape different from the one you chose for the (painting) brush. Every painting tool remembers the brush shape which you chose for it, so you can use a fine brush together with a larger eraser.

Alternatively, you can create a greyscale layer with a blend from black to white and use that as a layer mask for the layer. I've attached a sample document.

Cheers

Burkhard.

[rural]

Thanks for that! The layer mask/graduation works better, and is easier to control. Just what I was looking for