Experimenting with Vignettes

Hello all, and welcome to my first post of 2010. This year I hope to continue my one-post-daily trend. I've started an "official" Photo365 project, although this blog will not follow it. By that I mean I won't be numbering each photo, or posting a photo every day whether I took a good one or not. Ideally, some days I will manage to take more than a single good photo, so I won't run out of material for posting every day. But I will be taking at least one photo every day, even if I don't post it on this blog.
 

I went on my "architecture and abandoned buildings" shoot yesterday. It degenerated into a regular nature shoot, but with a couple friends. I guess that's what happens when you see a bird within shooting distance during the trip, and then notice that the berries growing on the tree where the bird was would make good macros, and then forget all about the building altogether. Oh, well.

It was a very sunny day, so when I was shooting the aforementioned bird, I threw on my polarizer, then my telephoto lens. Later, I wanted to shoot some close-ups, so I took off the telephoto lens and replaced it with my macro lens. Normally when I shoot macros with the polarizer, I mount the filter over the lens to protect the lens, rather than putting the lens over the filter. I can't do this with my telephoto lens, because the diameter is larger than 52mm at the business end. Turns out when I shoot with my macro lens over my polarizer (or my UV filter, I have to assume), I get a vignette in the corners.




click to enlarge, or see it on Flickr
Aperture: f/2.6
Shutter Speed: 1/500
ISO: 80
Handheld


I generally prefer a much more subtle vignette, like the one in this post. But when I opened this up in Photoshop, it seemed like a harder vignette suited this photo better. The photo is called "Fenced In." Obviously, that's because it's a fence. But also, the mountains and blue skies that you can just make out are beyond the fence. The fence is keeping the viewer from getting there. The vignette is so strong that it seems almost annoying, and limits your view. A subtle vignette may subconsciously draw your eye to the center without you noticing, but this vignette helps perpetuate the feeling of being trapped and limited.

Have a hard vignette photo you want to show us? As always, I invite you to link to relevant photos in the comments.

Vignettes

Vignettes come in two flavors: real and fake. Real vignettes happen when a part of your lens blocks the imaging sensor in the corners, and in extreme cases, the edges, from being exposed. Fake vignettes happen when you wish there was a real vignette, but there's not. Just Photoshop.

Vignettes are nice because they draw your eye naturally to the center of the image. The biggest thing to remember with vignettes is that they can be easily overdone. A little goes a long way. Here's how I do them in Photoshop:

1. Do all edits on your image you want done. Vignetting comes last. For the image in this post, I did some minor rotating and cropping, and added a very subtle texture.
2. Make a new layer. Name it "Vignette."
3. Fill the Vignette layer with white.
4. Set the Vignette layer's blending style to "Multiply."
5. Use the elliptical marquee tool to select the area you want vignetted. I usually start dragging from one corner to the opposite to insure I get a symmetrical selection, then Select>Modify>Expand as desired.
6. Invert the selection.
7. Fill the new selection with black.
8. Filter>Gaussian Blur. I use 250 pixels (maximum).
9. Dial down the Opacity of the Vignette layer. I used 50%.
10. Flatten your image. Voila!




click to enlarge, or see it on Flickr


Let's see it: post links to your well-vignetted images in the comments.