How to create a vignette in Photoshop

As a professional retoucher, I work almost primarily in post-production. My job is to bring viewers into the photo and make the subject(s) look as good as possible, whether it’s a product, a person, or anything else. Vignettes are one of the simplest and most effective ways to draw your viewers focus into the image and make the subject pop. In this article, I’ll share how to create and edit vignettes in Photoshop, how to shoot vignettes in camera and on mobile, and I’ll dive a little deeper into my process for deciding when and how to apply them to photos.

A little about me

My career as a professional retoucher began when I studied at the School of Visual Arts in New York City, where I currently teach photography, Adobe Photoshop, and Adobe Lightroom classes. Landing this teaching role was a full-circle moment in my career, and it’s exciting for me to work with students in a field I’m so excited about. After studying, I worked in photo retouching houses and studios around New York City before landing my first position as a Production Coordinator working on color correction and product photos. That job taught me a lot and it definitely kicked off my career. These days, I own my own retouching company which takes up most of my time between the classes I teach.

What is a vignette?

Vignettes in photography are when the edges or the borders around your subject gradually darken, lighten, or even add a hint of color to draw the viewer’s eye towards what you want to highlight. Vignettes can be darker, lighter, or sometimes less focused than the central subject of the photograph.

Why use a vignette?

As a retoucher, some days I go through hundreds of e-commerce product images and other days I’m working on way more artistic editorial content for a print campaign. Even as the imagery ranges ], my job is always to make sure the image pops as much as possible and that the subject looks its best.

Vignetting is a nice way to bring the viewer into the photograph. It’s an effect that is highly sought after, it creates nice light fall-off and can make things appear dreamy and draw your focus right where you want it to be.

When to use a vignette

In my own photos, I tend to use a vignette when my subject is centered in the frame or when the photo has a one-point perspective. I double check that the edges don’t contain any valuable information and then go for it. Not all photos call for a vignette. In a landscape with a lot of key elements, such as trees, a mountain, and a lake, a vignette may take away from the story the photo is trying to tell. I wouldn’t want to darken something that adds to the photo.

How to create vignettes in Adobe Camera Raw

If I have a raw image to which I want to add a vignette, it's simple to do this in Adobe Camera Raw. I do this by going to the Effects panel (shown on the right-hand side in the screenshot) and playing with the slider to see how strong I want it to be. I love this tool because I can also have sliders to control the size of the midpoint and how round and soft, I like the vignette to be. In this example, I made a not-too-dense and soft vignette. I wanted the focus to be on the girl eating her ice cream, but I didn't want the effect to be too dark because then it would hide the two bikers who frame her so nicely! Use this technique with JPEG files by selecting Filter > Camera Raw Filter.

Creating Vignettes using Adobe Photoshop

Step 1: Start by bringing the image into Photoshop

Step 2: Add a Curves adjustment layer

Step 3: Pull down the midtones to darken the entire image

Step 4: Click on the Curves Layer Mask and invert the mask to make it black so you can paint in the areas you want to darken.

For step 4, use a soft-edged brush via the Curves Layer Mask. That way you can choose where you want the image to be darker, which gives you both control and creative freedom.

The advantage to using a Curves Adjustment layer is that this process is non-destructive. In other words, it is reversible. So, if you darken an image too much, you can always come back the next day and lighten it back up by painting on the mask with a black brush or by reducing the layer opacity.

How to create color vignettes

For color vignettes, we’ll use a Curve Adjustment layer. You have a drop-down option in the properties of curves for a red, green, and blue curve. That’s how I would inject some color in there, depending what color you want, you just pull down or pull up on that hue.

Creating vignettes in camera

Creating vignettes in camera can be as simple as wrapping your hand around the edges of the camera lens to create the darkness you want.

Wide-angle lenses, like fisheye lenses, often create a naturally darker edge which is called optical vignetting. This darkens the image edges and highlights the center of the frame, but offers less control compared to adding a vignette in Photoshop.

Vignetting in the camera can be a good jumping off point, but you’ll always want to balance it out by lightening or darkening the edges depending where you’re taking the edit. The advantage to bringing the photo into Photoshop is that you can either enhance the existing vignette or create an entirely new one. You end up having so much more control over the softness and feathering of the vignette, as well as the lightening and darkening of it.

Vignettes and mobile phone photos

I love and use Lightroom Mobile every single day. I have the widget on my phone so that I can open the camera in Lightroom mobile easily because I honestly prefer using the camera in Lightroom compared to the native iPhone camera.

After taking the picture, I edit right on the phone with Lightroom mobile. I use the Effects > Vignette Slider and the Masking tools to get the effect I’m looking for. Best of all, everything I do in Lightroom on my phone syncs up with the Lightroom desktop and I can refine as needed and to my creative heart’s content.

Final thoughts on vignettes

Vignetting is such an undervalued technique. It’s incredibly simple and highly effective at drawing in your viewer. Sometimes it’s just about evening out the exposure because the camera shot it too dark on one side and too light on the other, and I just want to make it more uniform. Other times it’s more about creating some drama. Either way, it’s a fun process to explore and I think a process all photographers and retouchers should have in their toolbox.