Soften the edges on a slideshow?

[FiveFamilies]

I have a slideshow on my site, and I'd like to soften the edges of the images, so they blend into the background - is there a way to do this?

Also, is there a way to constrain the slideshow so all the pictures are the same size?

Thanks ahead of time.

[Adam7]

Thanks for your post, @FiveFamilies. 

You could try editing your original slideshow images in an image editing program and adding transparency to the edges there. I've not tried this myself, but that might get you want you want.