Vignette edges

[bweber65 Profile]

VIGNETTE_003.jpg (978.53 KiB) Viewed 12849 times

I am trying to apply vignette soft edges to some photos; however, the finished photos have hard, flat edges. The problem seems to be that the vignette frame extends too close to the outer frame. How can I shrink the vignette frame further within the outer boundary of photo so that all vignette edges are soft, not flat?
Thank you

[Richard Briggs Profile]

This is an interesting question and relates to similar challenges I have faced doing this.

I guess the fact is that, within SPE, it has no idea what colour 'page' you will be dropping the image onto. So, the vignette probably looks fine on it's own but when dropped on pure white you end up with result you have got. If the vignette was programmed to fade to pure white then what if you dropped it onto a black page or even just off white?

I think whenever I have been faced with this I have been placing the finished SPE image onto a background in Photoshop. I've then used the tools in Photoshop to fade the edges so a smooth transition to the background colour is achieved. If it's a Word document (where your text is) then I'm not sure whether Word offers such a capability. So, in short, I'd also appreciate an answer to your question.

Richard

[bweber65 Profile]

Thank you, Richard Briggs
Hopefully, we will figure this out with some expert help.

[eadams Profile]

The vignette effect that you applied looks like it uses an image mask to create the vignette effect that is not meant to blend seamlessly into any background. The edges aren't faded completely on purpose. I think I have seen oval vignette effects in the effects gallery that work with gradient masks and that can be resized, but they are oval and don't follow rectangular edges.

There is at least one way to manually fade the edges of an image like yours that will be placed on a white background. It requires that you have a white image to make a composite with your forest image.

Load the forest image that has the vignette effect applied to it.
Select File - Add Underlay
Select a white image to open. It doesn't have to be the same size as the forest image - it will stretch to fit it.
Your forest image will now be placed on top of the white image. You won't see any of the white image below until you "reveal" it by masking away parts of the top forest image.
In the Composite dialog box click on "Add to Selection". Select a large airbrush with minimal hardness and low to medium opacity. Brush the edges to reveal the white color underneath. You can restore the edge you removed by clicking on "Erase from Selection" and brushing over it again. You will have to experiment with the brush size and opacity to get the result you want.

In the example below I placed two images side by side in a Word document. The one on the left has a vignette effect applied to it and you can see the hard edges of the image. The one on the right is the same image that I composited with a white image as described above and the hard edges are gone. I didn't do a very good job, but I hope you see what I mean.

There may be other ways to soften the edge of a vignette in SPE. Maybe someone can suggest an easier way.

vignette sample.jpg (55.34 KiB) Viewed 12462 times

Composite dialog box.jpg (48.23 KiB) Viewed 12462 times

[eadams Profile]

I forgot to mention that the described method for softening the edge of a vignette effect works with other background colors as well, not just white. For example, if the user wants to make the vignetted image blend into a red background, it needs to be composited with an image that has the exact shade of red. Then when the edges are brushed away as described in the previous post, the red color from the red underlay image will be revealed. In the example below the image of the water doesn't harmonize with a red background, but I didn't bother to look for a better image to use in the example.

View from Ferry to Corsica_red vignette pe_pe.jpg (69.87 KiB) Viewed 12424 times

I used the File-New Montage feature of SPE to place the two images on a red background.

Montage red vignette.jpg (241.85 KiB) Viewed 12424 times

[bweber65 Profile]

Thank you, eadams for these suggestions. I will try them.