Vignetting your photo for dramatic effects

Some purists hate the use of Photoshop on their photos. I was never part of that camp since day one. For the things that i photograph and the images i have in my mind, they simply cannot be done Photoshop-less. The photograph above, taken at Singapore Botanical Gardens, is one such example.

Sorry Photojournalism, we just weren’t meant to be together. Then again, this post is not for me to talk about purist photography.

Here’s a post-production technique i use for quite a lot of my photographs and i have decided to share with you. If anyone is reading that is.

What does it do?

Basically this technique adds vignetting into you photograph so that the center spot ‘pops’ out from the photo. It helps if your photo has not strong anchorage like the one above.

Here’s the original shot:

Pretty flat and boring eh? I agree.

Let’s convert it to black and white using Channel Mixer first.

Here’s where the trick comes into play: Create a curve layer and darken your image till you are satisfied with the dark edges of the photo.

Now try to locate the layer mask and click on it to make sure you selected it.

Next, select the ‘Gradient’ tool and make sure you select the radius option.

I hope you are following me thus far.

With the Gradient tool selected, click on the center of the photo. In this case, click on the roots area and drag your cursor away from the spot. What you are doing here is that you are deciding what is the radius of the circle you want it to be.

Once you let go of the mouse, you should see the layer mask showing this:

That’s it. You should see a nice vignetting effect on your photo.

To help you visualize better, here’s how the effect looks like in colour.

There you go. I pretty much spilled the secret to most of my photographs. But go ahead and try it out on your photos!

PS: The final product has had more post-processing but i skipped them to make this tutorial simple.

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