Value of a vignette: Build an action

As I’ve shared previously, a vignette can help secure your viewer’s eye inside your image. It can also give your image that final finished look. Let’s take a look at how to create vignettes with an action making them even more useful in our post production world.

Bird image

Here’s the image we’ll work with here. BTW a side tip, making avian images is easier in a target rich environment. This bird photo was captured at the Whitewater Draw Wildlife Area. At this time of the year, lots of birds made an appearance while I was there. This House Wren was flighty and took a while to get in a nice composition.

Photoshop actions

Photoshop actions are nothing more than a complete step by step description of what should happen to a file. With a click of a button, many instructions can be carried out. Actions can make a many steps repeatable and a task easy as pie. I’ll show you how to work with actions. Actions palette screen capture is below.

General actions

Have an image open. Activate the actions palette. Push the + sign. Name your new action with something memorable for what the action does. Choose the Set, AKA the folder, where you want the action to reside. Push the record button. Begin the steps you want to make. Work through the recording til you have completed the effect. Once finished push the stop button. (Don’t forget this stop! Or it keeps recording… and recording. I’ve done this before!)

Vignette action

The specific vignette action goes like this:

• New action + button.
• Name the action and Set (folder) where it will live in the Actions palette. Name action ‘Vignette’.
• Record button.
• Make a selection with the oval marquee tool.
• Feather the selection 150 pixels.
• Add a Levels layer and adjust it. Input 29 – 255 Gamma .94.
• Set current Layer and name it Vignette.
• Stop recording.
• Test your action on another image.

And you’re done!

My vignette action

If you have made it this far and still don’t quite understand how to make an action, you can download the file below or email me for mine to use in the meantime. Make sure you make a selection before playing the action or it will not run properly. Once you are using the action, you can control the amount of vignette in many ways. You can lower the opacity of the layer to make it less. Duplicate the layer to make it darker. You can also use the mask with a black brush at a low opacity to dial out portions of the vignette.

Let me know how you make out or if you have any questions in the comments below.

Yours in Creative Photography, Bob