I have started to apply more vignetting in almost all my non landscape/architectural/environmental pictures, even if very subtle.
What are everyone’s thoughts on these? Especially in a photo where the main subject is more or less centered in the frame, and the background is not of interest, I find that it elevates the photo a lot if done correctly.
It’s probably second nature to some but I really never explored the effect and thinking about its history I guess it must’ve been used a lot in the film era, either through darkroom dodging or due to the lenses natural imperfections that obviously weren’t corrected.
I think it works great when it isnt obvious and am a vignetting conisseur myself . This also depends on the surroundings of the subject. E.g. In your example it is hardly noticable. It also depends on the images surroundings. If your example photo had a lot more whitespace around it, it would probably Look better without the vignette.
I think it looks great, and the image could take even more vignetting.
You can also try a tiny bit of desaturation along the edges, on some photos it looks great (color balance rgb), but don’t overdo it, it has to be even more subtle.
Extra blur also helps.
I wish I could automate these with one slider/module, where I would
pick the “center” (default to the center of the crop),
adjust the size of the area that is left alone,
decrease exposure, saturation, and add blur with 3 sliders.
I know how to do it in Darktable now (reuse the mask, etc), but it is somewhat tedious.
I usually use a lot of vignetting. Even on landscapes.
But I almost every time use it with a parametric mask, so that mainly the darker areas are more effected than the brighter. In my opinion, this gives a more natural look.
Just for comparison - heavy vignette with parametric mask:
Nice topic and nice picture, a great example of where and how to use a vignette. You might do a bit stronger still, but better safe then sorry counts in developing pictures as well.
I use vignettes quite often. Think the natural lens faults has made photographers discover the great use of it in a natural way.
I nearly exclusively use the exposure module for it.
Sure, the composition musk ‘ask’ for it. Although I do not know how to describe that more precisely.
Nice suggestions, will try! Thanks for those!
Nice, I’m a fan of your ‘freedom’ in processing. Though in this case of using the mask in the way you describe I feel with @Tamas_Papp it slightly pulls attention away from the subject. So this - in my eyes anyway - may not be the best example. But hey, it is very nice to try this kind of things most of us never even start to consider.
I use a vignette every time. Usually the vignette module in lightness blendmode at 20% opacity. It is subtle put helps push the eye away from the edge.
This was an example for showing the effect. Based on the Lomo preset It was my intend to overdo it to show it over-clearly. You are free and should use the sliders more moderate. I wouldn’t use a saturation with +0,5 in this case as well. but that’s the Lomo preset. On top I wouldn’t use such a heavy vignette on this pic In real life it would be probably used more like that:
I would not use the vignette module at all, just a (drawn) mask.
As for parametric masks, I would experiment with focusing on the highlights, that would still make the area darker but at the same time lose contrast, especially as the fringe highlights would get pushed to the low-slope part of sigmoid/filmic.
In any case, here is my attempt with a bit of exposure and saturation removed from the edges, focusing on the midtones and highlights:
I almost never use it. Looks too artificial. But done subtly on the right picture it can work, and I think you’ve done that well in your original post.
the vignette module is for a slight vignette still the weapon of choice for me. I have different presets saved and usually just have to activate it. That’s faster than with a drawn mask because I unfortunately can’t save them in a preset.
RAW Coming soon. I will change the topic to playraw as well. Thanks for everyone’s contributions. I can’t reply to all at the moment as I am a bit busy
I used vignetting on 82 pictures out of the 108 I put online in 2024–2025. Sometimes combined with graduated filter when the subject is far from the center or when something too flashy to my taste catches too much attention in a corner, etc.
However, the average “strength” of vignetting on the 82 pictures was 0.144268, and the average “feather” was small as well: 9.86585. (RawTherapee)
Hidden ugly and suboptimal Bash commands
# Count vignetted
ag PCVignette -A 4 -G 'out\.pp3$' --nonumbers --nofilename 202{4..5}* |
grep -c Enabled=true
# Count non-vignetted
ag PCVignette -A 4 -G 'out\.pp3$' --nonumbers --nofilename 202{4..5}* |
grep -c Enabled=false
# Average strength
ag PCVignette -A 4 -G 'out\.pp3$' --nonumbers --nofilename 202{4..5}* |
grep Enabled=true -A 1 |
awk -F = '
$1 == "Strength" {
s += $2
n++
}
END {
print s/n
}
'
# Average feather
ag PCVignette -A 4 -G 'out\.pp3$' --nonumbers --nofilename 202{4..5}* |
grep Enabled=true -A 2 |
awk -F = '
$1 == "Feather" {
s += $2
n++
}
END {
print s/n
}
'
I feel the same way. I even noticed one of mine in a thumbnail and I went back and changed the mask so it was not noticeable. Full image was fine but the thumbnail was bothering me
Hmmm. I have never even thought about using vignetting as an artistic choice, only as something to get rid of with Lens Correction. I’ll have to consider it.
But does it draw the eye more away from the center, than having a light patch in the middle will draw it towards the center?
Some of the reuse of mask can be eliminated if we use the color balance rgb module for the task.
We can adjust both brilliance (luminance) and saturation with the same mask. Furthermore with its inbuilt masks, we can make those adjustments separately for shadows, mid-tone and highlights (although with a certain overlap) with the local sliders. In addition it has a contrast slider on offer.
Quite a kinder-egg for the task, actually, although any blurring has to be done elsewhere…
Thanks. First time I do some “serious” processing on another person’s raw.
Quite an impressive shot; it looks pretty out-of-the-box.
Has anyone mentioned negative-strength vignetting? I rarely use it, but that picture is one of the rare occurrences in which I might prefer it (vs. traditional positive-strength vignetting):
I sometimes feel guilty for creating vignetting (some purist part in me), but what I do then is I reduce the vignette correction in the lens correction module which for some reason makes it seem okay
. This also depends on the surroundings of the subject. E.g. In your example it is hardly noticable. It also depends on the images surroundings. If your example photo had a lot more whitespace around it, it would probably Look better without the vignette.
Sometimes combined with graduated filter when the subject is far from the center or when something too flashy to my taste catches too much attention in a corner, etc.
Have fun
)