Corel Paint Shop Pro / Discuss

PhotoGraham    says:

Adding an adjustment layer and using a gradient fill is a handy way to apply a vignette. Using adjustment layers with masks is a useful technique to know for other things. You can use this same tutorial to apply a gradient filter effect to a landscape (to darken the sky), just change to a linear gradient for the fill.

Here's how the vignette works:

I'll start with a random shot:


Here's PSP with a curves adjustment layer added. Note how the bright parts of the adjustment layer mask correspond to the vignette effect. The dark parts leave the image unchanged.



The curves adjustment is set like this, to set the required darkness in the corners:



We only want the corners dark so we fill the adjustment layer with a gradient using the flood fill tool The gradient is set-up like this:



And the detail of the gradient curve is like this (Access this screen by clicking the Edit... buton):



And here's the final result. You can go back and change the curve at any time to make the effect more subtle, more or less contrasty, etc. You can also add other adjustment layers in the same way to add colour effects and so on. You may also want to vary the adjustment layer opacity to moderate the effect, or set the layer mode to Multiply or Overlay, or whatever.



You can also re-do the fill after editing the gradient to control the placement and fall-off of the vignette effect. You can also use a paintbrush to modify the adjustment layer mask to add or remove vingetting in some areas.
Originally posted at 5:40AM, 19 June 2007 PDT (permalink)
PhotoGraham edited this topic 60 months ago.