(from Everyday Elements)

I remember when I was first trying to learn Photoshop Elements and I wanted to make a vignette. I hunted high and low in Scott Kelby’s book, looked online, tried to follow various tutorials and was left just wanting to cry. I finally found a tutorial in Kelby’s book that was what I wanted (but he didn’t have it listed in the Index as vignette).

A vignette is typically a darkening of the edges of a photo, to bring emphasis to the subject. There are different ways to create vignettes, but with this tutorial I only show three:

• Multiply layer, inverted and vignette brushed on edges of photo
• Dodge/Burn layer, using a black brush to darken edges of photo
• Radial Gradient, B&W, set to soft light

With each technique, I lowered the layer opacity way down. This is important…you do not want a heavy vignette on all your images. Yes, sometimes a heavy, obvious vignette makes a photo, but usually that is for artistic reasons and it is definitely not the norm.

Below is a video tutorial showing the three ways (really I show a fourth, kind of), and I used my Photoshop CS5 for the video. Elements users, do not turn away thinking this is not for you, IT IS. 100% of this tutorial can be done in PSE. I purposely used my CS5 to show you that many tutorials out there can be followed in PSE.