Okay, here’s my blog post about creating a vignette effect in Photoshop, written in a casual, personal style, using simple HTML tags:
So, I was messing around in Photoshop the other day, trying to give one of my photos this cool, vintage-y look. You know, the kind where the edges get darker and the center kinda pops? That’s called a vignette, and it’s super easy to do. Let me walk you through what I did.
Getting Started
First, I opened up the photo I wanted to work on. It was a picture of my dog, looking all majestic in the park. I’m not a Photoshop expert, not at all,but that’s why I love searching for new ways to create effects!
Creating the Vignette
Then, I grabbed the Elliptical Marquee Tool – it’s the one that looks like a dotted oval. If you can’t find it, it might be hiding under the Rectangular Marquee Tool (just right-click on that one). I clicked and dragged to make an oval shape over the part of the photo I wanted to keep in focus – basically, my dog’s adorable face.
Next, I went up to the top menu and clicked on Select, then Inverse. This selects everything outside of the oval I just drew.
Now for the darkening part! I made sure my foreground color was set to black (you can just press ‘D’ on your keyboard to reset to default colors). I picked the Paint Bucket Tool (it looks like, well, a paint bucket). Then I simply clicked anywhere in the selected area (the area outside the oval) to fill it with black. Boom! Instant darkness.
It looked a bit harsh, though, so I needed to soften those edges.I went back to Select, then Modify, and then Feather.
I played around with the Feather Radius. This controls how blurry the edge will be. For my photo, something around 250 pixels looked pretty good, but you might need a different number depending on your picture’s size. I clicked “OK”.
Finally, I pressed Ctrl+D (or Cmd+D on a Mac) to deselect everything. And there it was! A nice, soft vignette effect.
Playing with Opacity
If the vignette is too strong, you can always adjust the opacity. I made sure the layer with the vignette was selected in the Layers panel (it’s usually on the right side of the screen). Then I found the Opacity slider at the top of the Layers panel and dragged it down a bit until I liked the look.
Final Touches
I saved a copy, so I could always go back, and started playing a bit with the colors.
That’s all there is to it! It’s a really simple technique, but it can make a big difference in how your photos look.
Give it a try and see what you can create.
