If you are not careful we'll demote you from Super Hero status  

You need to understand it fully if you are making your own cutouts.
In the of the "fade oval" example I gave, the basic cutout, that is with no fade-to colour specified in square brackets is made in your favourite graphics program as follows:
1. Create a square white (255,255,255) background
2. Insert a Black (0,0,0) circle into the middle of the square background; you made need to adjust its size at a later stage.
3. Blur the edges of the black circle; graphics software will usually have some filter effects including the ability to blur edges.
4. Adjust the degree of blur and size of the black circle to suit your requirement for the vignette.
5. Group the 2 shapes and export as an image of at least 1000 pixels in size. Place the image in the QU Cutouts folder.
You could make several different versions with different sizes for the black circle and different amounts of blur.

I hope that helps someone to understand making you own cutouts.  
Terry

Fred,
The sample you sent to me had a problem: the "black" was grey and not a true grey with RGB values equal.
Perhaps Corel is messing up the colour values when it exports.
I've just done one in my program and it works fine.
Terry

If it was a pure grey it would work and the oval image would be partially masked in that area.
Hang on I'll do it.
Terry

Here is a blurred edge vignette, full transparency for the image and with a coloured fade out, colour picked from a blade of grass.
Cutout File name: Test Oval blur2 T[125,139,47].tif
Terry

I give up Terry.

I thought I could create a mask in Picture Window Pro - but an hour later I have to admit defeat.

If you have a few minutes to spare (and you claim that is all it takes!!) could you make me a really gentle cutout that slightly darkens the edges like this:-

http://www.tonygamble.org/BowlsCrossley%202011/_1140516.htm

I hope that with that as a starter I can then use PWP to make some variants that are more, or less, aggresive. If you don't hear back from me until later it is because I am about to start my first QU converting session and there is no internet on that machine.

Tony

Thanks Mike,

That's a good start.

When you have a moment do you think you could do me a top and bottom grad please. Fred suggested using a TT filter on either the blue sky or the green grass of a bowls lawn. I don't want that effect as I am looking for graduation.

Tony

Sorry Fred,

My poor terminology as I find my way around.

I can't see that Select Colour tab offering me any graduation - which is what I want.

Tony