Vignette how to?

Clixphoto

Can anyone tell me how to add a vignette in photoshop elements. I tried a search of the topic and turned up nothing.

Thanks,
Wes

digismile

Quite a few examples using Google. Should work at least back to Elements 3.0

Look here and here.

Stuggi

Those are mostly examples of how-to-do that often quite horrible fade-to-white effect that you mostly see on anno 1995 websites of pets and wedding photos.

For the more proper, artistic and good looking vignette, where the edges get darker and darker; do the following:

Option one, "the test of patience":

Basicly what you want to do is to manually burn the edges with the burn-tool in photoshop. Basicly use a big soft-edge brush and low exposure (5% or less). You probably want to play around with the tone-setting until you get the results you're after.
This method takes a lot of time, but you have much more control over the process. I personally have never used this method since it requires more patience than I've got.

Option two, "the quick and dirty":

First, make a copy of the background layer.
Then set blending mode to Multiply or Overlay (Test both to see which one you like the most, they are quite similar).
Now your photograph gets quite a lot darker, but don't worry, we're going to correct that in a minute.
Now, make sure you're working in the background copy layer and select the whole image (Select -> All or Ctrl+A).
Then select Feather (Select -> Feather... or Ctrl+Alt+D) and feather your selection. A setting of 250 pixels usually works great for me, but experiment here as well.
Now just delete the feathered selection and Voilá, you have a "fade-to-blackish" vignette, which should be quite close to the real effect (the one really cheap film cameras with pour lenses give, like Lomos and Holgas).

(Please note that I'm not so serious in my comments (so please don't take offence) about the fade-to-white version, it has it's places, but I personally think it's quite ugly compared to the fade-to-black version.) ^^

Clixphoto

Thanks
Very helpful. I'm for a more subtle effect as well Stuggi.

Thanks,
Wes

Stuggi

You can also use PS's Lens Correction to remove vignetting, and also add both white and black vignettes. It's under Filters -> Distort -> Lens Correction

pyrtek

Stuggi wrote:

Then set blending mode to Multiply or Overlay (Test both to see
which one you like the most, they are quite similar).

They are completely different, actually. Overlay makes lights lighter and darks
darker, which dramatically increases the image's contrast, while multiply only
makes things darker (except for whites, which remain unchanged). The result is
quite different and I would suggest multiply mode for your specific method.
Another good way to achieve the darkening is a levels or curves adjustment in
luminosity mode. That is actually my preferred method, because you have a lot
more control over how light or how dark a vignette you achieve.

Stuggi

OKay, cool, I've never actually tried the Overlay mode for this thing, but some people have suggested that they are similar, so I poped it in here anyway...

I'll have to try the levels/curves version and see if I like it more...

InsuredDisaster

Stuggi wrote:

OKay, cool, I've never actually tried the Overlay mode for this thing, but some people have suggested that they are similar, so I poped it in here anyway...

I'll have to try the levels/curves version and see if I like it more...

That's right, blame it on some people.


Those blending modes are really confusing. But I learned something about overlay and multiply I didn't know. Can't wait to play with them some more.