How to easily and quickly create a vignette effect

As we all know in photography, our eyes are drawn to the brighter areas of the photo. When the edges are brighter than the center, they lead the viewer's eyes away from the center and are harmful to the overall impression of a photo. This is when vignette comes to your rescue. Vignette darkens the edges and corners of the photo so that viewer's attention will be led towards the subject placed in the center. There are numerous photo editing programs that let you add a vignette effect to your photo. But many of them are hard to use for photo editing beginners. If you are searching for an easy-to-use tool to create a vignette effect, please continue reading this article. In this article, I will walk you through two photo effect editors with which you can get the job done without any hassle.

#1. Photo Effects by Vertexshare

As the name suggests, Photo Effects by Vertexshare is a piece of photo effect software. Coming packed with a generous assortment of parameters and decorative objects, it allows you to apply various effects to your photo in an instant.

After the program is launched, you will be greeted by a simple window. The window is divided into three panels. A collection of predefined effects are located in the left-side panel. When a photo is loaded into the program, you will see the small preview thumbnail of each effect. The middle panel takes up most of the window, which is the area to preview the adjustments you make. You can zoom and pan the photo, compare the differences between the original photo and the changed photo, and discard all changes. A series of parameter adjustment sections are located in the right-side panel. You can adjust the exposure compensation, exposure compression, black points, lightness, saturation, and contrast. In addition, you can adjust the shadows/highlights, dynamic range, tone mapping, and white balance. It is also possible to alter the image sharpening and eliminate the noise in the photo. Other parameter adjustment utilities include local contrast, vibrance, channel mixer, soft light, and vignette filter.

Overall speaking, Photo Effects is a professional photo effect filter. It comes with a variety of filters and effects to help you enhance your photo. Owing to the intuitive layout and options, it is suitable for both novices and experts. Photo Effects is a great choice if you want to fast adjust the photo effect to make amazing photos.

Let's dive into the part of how to use Photo Effects to create a vignette effect

How to create a vignette effect with Photo Effects

Step 1.

• Throw your photo onto the working area "Drag and Drop Your Photo here". Or click on "File"->"Add Photo" to add your photo into the program. You can also import the photo by clicking on the "Add" button. If you want to remove the photo, click on the "Remove" button next to the "Add button".

Step 2.

• Go to the right side panel and scroll down to the "VIGNETTE FILTER" section. Click on the "VIGNETTE FILTER" button to activate the function of adjusting parameters. Fine-tune the following parameters by dragging the sliders,

Strength

Strength is to adjust the amount of darkening. Increasing the value will apply more amount of darkening to the edges. The edges will be brightened instead of darkened if you set a negative value.

Feather

Feather is to adjust the width of feathering. Feathering refers to softening the transition between the edges and the areas in the center. Increasing the value will apply the feathering effect to more areas. When you set the value to 0, only the corners will be affected. When you set the value to 50, feathering reaches halfway to the center. When you set the value to 100, the feathering effect reaches all the way to the center.

Roundness

Roundness is to control the shape of the vignette effect. Increasing the value will make the shape rounder.

• Click on the "View" button to compare what the photo had looked like before you made changes with what it looks like after you made changes. Click on the "Redo" button to discard the changes if you want to readjust the parameters.

Step 3.

• When all is set, press "Export Photo" to export the photo to a desired location. You can also click on "File"->"Save As" to save the photo to a destination folder.

#2. PineTools

PineTools is a web-based app that offers free utilities to manipulate images for every occasion. You can change the size of an image, flip an image horizontally and/or vertically, split an image into smaller pieces, and combine multiple images together. You can also adjust the image effect by changing the contrast, brightness, saturation, vibrance, adding a vignette effect, blurring an image with different filters, and modifying the intensity of color channels. There are too many other functions to post-process your image and I won't list them individually. Let's see how to use PineTools to apply a vignette effect to your photo.

How to apply a vignette effect to a photo with PineTools

• Head over to the site. Go to the left pane and select "Images".
• Choose "VIGNETTE EFFECT".
• Go to the "INPUT IMAGE" section and click on "Choose file" to upload your photo.
• Go to the "OPTIONS" section. Use the "Size" slider to adjust the size of the vignette effect. The higher the value is, the larger the size is. Use the "Strength" slider to adjust the strength of the vignette effect. The higher the value is, the darker the edges become.
• Click on "Apply" and you will see the vignette effect applied to your photo.
• Click on "PNG", "JPG", or "WEBP" to choose an output format and download the photo.

Summary

Vignette gives your photo an elegant effect that draws the viewer's attention to the center of the composition. With the two apps above, you can darken the periphery of your photo to make the viewer's eyes focus on the center parts of the photo. If you find some other beginner-friendly vignette photo effect apps someday, let me know by leaving a comment.