Can I Create a Vignette in Photoshop?
A vignette, or soft fade, is a popular photo effect where the photo gradually fades into a solid colored background, usually, but not necessarily, in an oval shape. By using a mask, you can create this effect flexibly and non-destructively in several applications including Photoshop, Photoshop Elements, Affinity Photo, and practically any other image editor out there. The purpose of this technique is to draw the viewer’s eye to a portion of the photo that you choose. Other uses are to subtly highlight an area of the photo or, as is quite common, to create a photographic effect for a photo. Though they all have slightly different ways of creating the effect, they all have a common two-step technique: Let’s start with Photoshop CC 2017:
Create a Vignette in Photoshop CC 2017
Create a Vignette in Photoshop Elements 14
It’s is a similar workflow in Photoshop Elements 14. Here’s how:
Create a Vignette in Affinity Photo
Affinity Photo takes a somewhat similar approach to its Photoshop and Photoshop Elements counterparts but there are a couple of ways of applying the vignette. You can use a Live Filter or make a selection and manually adjust the effect.
Here’s How
If a Live Filter approach isn’t to your liking you can create the vignette manually
Here’s How
Conclusion
As you have seen three different imaging applications have remarkably similar ways of creating vignettes. Though they each approach this technique in similar ways, they also have their own way of doing it. Still, when it comes to creating vignettes it is a two-step approach: Make a selection and make the selection a mask.
