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April 28
9 min. to read
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Photo vignetting is fast becoming one of the most widely accepted trend in photography. Besides its stunning effects, Photo vignetting boasts of vast application in photography.
Some time ago, in the early days of photography, this so-called “hotspot effect” was created by the byproduct effect of cheaper camera whenever they failed to effectively shield unwanted light rays from gaining entry into the camera lens. Even nowadays, depending on certain focal length and aperture parameters, vignetting is easily achieved by means of superzoom lenses.
With the advent, creativity and vastness of photo editing software, there’s virtually no end to the possibilities that abound in photography. The internet abounds with a wide range of downloadable and cloud-based image editors, both free and paid, that offer various services.
Skylum’s photo editing software, the Creative Kit for Mac users, is an amazing package that’s been designed to provide every photo-loving individual, professionals and leisure users, the opportunity to make their photo-imaginations become digitally tangible. With the Creative Kit, there really isn’t a limitation to the photo creativity achievable by anyone.
Amazingly, the Pro versions of the Creative Kit apps, Tonality, Focus, and Intensify, feature great photo vignetting tools which can be used to accomplish stunning effects on your images. As with other Creative Kit apps, they function as standalone and can also be installed as plugins to host applications.
The host applications also known as plugin hosts are Adobe Lightroom, Photoshop, Photoshop Elements and Apple Aperture. The Kit also runs as an extension within Photos for Mac. These apps synchronize perfectly with any of the above-mentioned host application.
As earlier mentioned, three out of the six Creative Kit apps, Tonality, Focus, and Intensify, can be used to create unique vignette effects on your images. As with all Skylum’s products, these apps are highly intuitive and easy-to-use; efficiently serving the needs of both professionals and hobbyists. Let’s begin by looking at how to create fantastic vignette effects by deploying the vignette filters contained in these apps.
Popularly known as the award-winning, intuitive and highly creative feature-rich black and white image editor, which runs exclusively on Mac, Tonality CK offers a whole lot more than what it’s generally known for. It features flexible vignette tools like Luminosity and the Place Center controls that provide users with incredible image control.
The “Adjust Panel”, situated on the right-hand side of the screen, includes a list of tools that provides you with several hundreds of options.
The Vignette tab is loaded with simplified but powerful tools primarily used for creating lightening or darkening vignette effects around the edges of an image, thus directing the viewer’s attention to a specific part of the frame. Most of these effects can be accomplished by simply moving the slider of each tool to the left or right as desired. The tools include:
The vignetting effect obtainable with Focus CK is slightly different from the usual. Unlike Tonality CK that’s got several adjustment sliders under the ‘Vignette option’ that helps to fine-tune the design until a desirable vignette effect is created, Focus CK employs a single vignette slider which you could use to enhance or create an image vignette.
Having determined the areas you’d like to blur, contrast, highlight and saturate, and done so accordingly, the Vignette tool is used to adjust the luminosity areas relative to the affected blur radius.
Focus Ck gives you tremendous and unimaginable control over your photos. While Tonality is perfect for vignetting ‘black and white’ images, Focus CK is great for colored images. Effortlessly add Vignette, Detail, Structure, Contrast and Micro Sharpness as well as Shadow-tone and mid-tonal ranges to your images. Just imagine vignetting a perfect photo!
Featuring ‘Amount’, ‘Size’, ‘Roundness’, ‘Feather’, ‘Place Center’ and ‘Reset’, the image vignetting tools and processes deployed when using Focus CK are very similar to that of the Tonality CK.
Irrespective of your preferred photo vignette or skill level, you can create terrific vignetting effects using any of these Creative Kit apps.
Launching the Creative Kit app as a Plugin or extension is equally as easy. After you must have installed the plugin on any of your preferred Plugin hosts, Adobe Photoshop or Lightroom, for example, the vignetting tools of the preferred plugin can then be easily launched by following very simple procedures.
Open the desired image you’d like to work upon in your Plugin host or host application. The Creative Kit plugins are accessed differently based on the Host Plugin.
As a standalone, plugin or extension, the Creative Kit’s vignette effects are always outstanding!
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