Possible transparent gradient? (picture to picture)

I'm rather new to photoshop. I've been in a class and I have a project to do. I generally got the basics down, but I cannot figure out how to do this.

What I have is a picture in one layer. And my background, which is another picture. What I want to do is make the picture on top blend into the background...like a gradient.

In case I'm not explaining very well. Take this example... You have a picture, and a black background. You put a gradient on the picture so that it kind of fades into the black.

What I'm trying to accomplish is a blend, where the picture appears opaque and also not so square. The problem is, gradients basically allow you to go from one color, to another... But I dont want it to go to another color, I want it to be...transparent to where it blends into my background. If there is a different technique for doing this. Please let me know! I will go into more detail if needed if my explaination isnt making sense. I could also post a pic of what I have so far! THanks in advance! Any tips or suggestions are welcome. :D

[QUOTE=hxckid88]I'm rather new to photoshop. I've been in a class and I have a project to do. I generally got the basics down, but I cannot figure out how to do this.

What I have is a picture in one layer. And my background, which is another picture. What I want to do is make the picture on top blend into the background...like a gradient.

In case I'm not explaining very well. Take this example... You have a picture, and a black background. You put a gradient on the picture so that it kind of fades into the black.

What I'm trying to accomplish is a blend, where the picture appears opaque and also not so square. The problem is, gradients basically allow you to go from one color, to another... But I dont want it to go to another color, I want it to be...transparent to where it blends into my background. If there is a different technique for doing this. Please let me know! I will go into more detail if needed if my explaination isnt making sense. I could also post a pic of what I have so far! THanks in advance! Any tips or suggestions are welcome. :D[/QUOTE]

EDIT: Looking around a little more, I found out that you could do a layer mask. Which has the same general effect as the eraser tool (adjusting opacity) but it doesnt affect the photo directly. It turned out the way I wanted it to, by making the outside least visible and the inside more visible. It takes more time to do it this way. Is there another way I could do this, just out of curiousity?

If I understand you correctly, this should be what you want.
1. Press Ctrl+A to select all
2. Go to the select menu and border the selection 1px. (Select->Modify->Border)
3. Feather the selection (Ctrl+Alt+D). Experiment with the feather radius.
4. Then go to the Layer menu, go down to 'Add layer mask'->'Hide Selection'

Thank you! That worked awesome. Easy and clean rather than using a brush/eraser. Thanks for the tip.