Photoshop tip: Vignette (dark edges) for your photos

[Paul]

It's quite a commonly used effect to see dark edges or "vignette" effects on photographs and even film (Top Gear seem to use it heavily).

The theory is that it increases focus on your subject, rather than the extremities of the photograph which may not be so important.

This is how I've done it in the past, might be useful for some.

Original:

Attachment 136455

With effect applied:

Attachment 136456


It's dead easy.

Open your photo in Photoshop.

Add a new layer.

Select the outside edges with the rectangular marquee tool, you can vary the size of your selection, use [shift] to select all four edges.

Make sure there's plenty of room around the focal point of your image.

Then feather your selection Select > Feather or [Alt]+[ctrl]+d The amount of feather depends on the size of your original image, smaller images like the one above about 50 pixels or so should be enough.

Then using the paint bucket tool just fill the selected edges with black.

The darkness may be too harsh, so adjust the opacity of the layer to suit.

To make life easier I've attached a zip with a large Photoshop file in it with a vignette layer ready for you to drag and resizee over your own images.