Blending images to make a sort of "collage" banner

[mrjakej]

I'm trying to make something along the lines of these:





I'm using 3 stock images and I want to make them nicely "blend" with each other so i don't see the corners/edges of the pictures etc.

I've tried smudging, gradient and feathering, but I can't seem to get it right. Here are my 3 stock images:

 

[peta62]

It seems they apply colour ( filter, blending, etc. ) over both, foreground and background, so they seem similar, where you have multicoloured characters on B&W background.

 

[ibclare]

If I were doing this, here's what I would do.

There are too many objects around the borders so I would clone those away.
Then I would make a selection of the blank edges of color and lengthen them using transform. The images are pretty tight for blending. Then I would choose the middles image, put it on the top of the layer stack, add a layer mask and overlap the pictures. Then I would make a marquis selection and run a black to white gradient across this.

Here is my example. If you are interested in the results and need a detailed explanation, let me know.

 

[Dom]

Ah, a fellow RuneScape player xD.

 

[Jessicayla]

For things like this, I would use a layer mask and using a low opacity black brush, blend the images together.