Vignette Effect

Hello! Welcome to another free Adobe Photoshop tutorial! I'm going to how you guys how to add a vignette effect to photos.

"Vignetting" as it is often called, is an effect done to draw attention to the center of the frame. This can be done with photography deliberately with the use of special filters, or using post-processing procedures with programs such as Adobe Photoshop.

There are 2 simple ways to achieve a vignette effect, and I'm gonna teach you how.

Shown below is what we're gonna be doing.

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So let's start with the first method by importing a picture into Adobe Photoshop.

 

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The first way to make a vignette effect is pretty simple. If you are using Adobe Photoshop CS5, go to Filter>Lens Correction. If you're using an older version of Adobe Photoshop, go to Filter>Distort>Lens Correction. Go to Custom, and we can see this:

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Go to the Vingette controls and set the amount to -100 and the midpoint to +30. 

 And there you have it. You can change the values however you like to get your desired effect. 

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 The second method of making a vignette effect is best used if you want more control of your effect.

Select the Elliptical Marquee Tool(M). Drag a circle around the area of the shot that you don't want to be affected by the vignette effect. In this shot, I want the focus to be on the small whitish fountain in the background so I centered the circle around it.

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Now right-click and click on "Select Inverse". Go to Select>Modify>Feather. Set it to 200 pixels. This is what gives the vignette the "blur" effect.

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Now to darken the outsides and wrap this effect up. Go to Image>Adjustments>Levels. Set the gray middle slider to .50 and the Output Levels to 125. 

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And the effect is completed! 

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Feel free to use the vignette effect in your photo editing but make sure not to overdo it. The vignette effect has the potential to make your shot great, but it also has the potential to ruin it if not used wisely. Check out my other tutorial called Beach Edit-Color Correction which uses this effect.

That just about sums it up. Thank you all so much for watching this free Adobe Photoshop tutorial for creating a vignette effect. Please leave your comments below and share it to the world! 

Cheers!

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