A dark vignette effect could be used to give emphasize a certain area of a picture mainly for highlighting the central theme of the picture. It helps focus the viewer’s attention to the desired area. Let us see how to add a dark vignette to a picture using photoshop.
Open the picture to which you would like to add the dark vignette effect. Either click File > Open or press Ctrl + O.
Open the Picture
Open the picture to which you would like to add the dark vignette effect. Either click File > Open or press Ctrl + O.
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| Applying Dark Vignette Effect To a Photo In Photoshop |
Select the Elliptical Marquee Tool
Select the Elliptical Marquee Tool; either click on the icon shown in the picture or you can use the keyboard short cut M. Once you select the tool click on the top left corner and while holding the button pressed, drag to curser to the bottom right corner of the image. This will create a selection of the centre portion of the image excluding the 4 corners. Since our aim is to apply dark vignette to the corners we need to inverse the selection.
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| Applying Dark Vignette Effect To a Photo In Photoshop |
Either right click on the selection and click select inverse or use keyboard short cut Shift + Ctrl + I.
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| Applying Dark Vignette Effect To a Photo In Photoshop |
Add Mask
To add a mask either click on the button indicated in the picture or press Q.
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| Applying Dark Vignette Effect To a Photo In Photoshop |
The area appearing in red are the areas that are masked out and they won’t be affected by any of the changes we make.
Click Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur.
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| Applying Dark Vignette Effect To a Photo In Photoshop |
One important thing to consider here is the transition from the dark area to the light ones. You could either choose a sharp transition or a softer one. The value you choose for the blur determines how the transition is made. Use a lower value for sharper transition and a higher value for smoother transition.
Press Q to exit the quick mask mode.
At this stage do not click anywhere on the picture. If you do so your selection and preferences will be lost.
Apply Dark Vignette Effect
Click Image > Adjustments > Levels or use keyboard short cut Ctrl + L to adjust levels to make our corners dark. Adjust the Output Levels slider to set your preferred level of darkness.
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| Applying Dark Vignette Effect To a Photo In Photoshop |
Press Ctrl + D to deselect.
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| Applying Dark Vignette Effect To a Photo In Photoshop |
Congratulations you have now successfully applied a dark vignette to your picture. Save the picture and you are good to go.
In the next article we will discuss about Photography - Post Production - How to Make a Custom Border for Your Photos Using Photoshop
In the next article we will discuss about Photography - Post Production - How to Make a Custom Border for Your Photos Using Photoshop
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