- Pretty much every image can be improved
with a subtle edge vignette to darken down the edges.
In Lightroom Classic, this effect is called
post crop vignette and it's found in the effects panel.
So let's take a look at that next.
The effects panel is listed at the bottom here.
So I'm going to scroll down and then click on it to open it.
And then we'll just take the amount down
a little bit to keep it really subtle.
Maybe minus five or minus six.
You can barely see that anything's changed on the image,
unless you do a before and after.
And you can do that with this switch
in the upper left of the effects panel.
If I turn it off,
we can see what it looks like without the vignette.
And if I turn it back on,
we can see that that really does help the image.
I want to explain all the rest of these options to you,
but they're so subtle.
It might be hard to see what's happening
unless we make this really extreme.
So for now, I'm going to take the amount
all the way to minus 100.
We can see how dark that gets.
And then I'll take the mid point to the left.
I do this often,
cause it really helps with the subtlety
of that edge vignette.
So as I pull this down to the left,
we can see how it pulls into the center.
If I go to the right,
it takes it all the way out to the edge.
So let's pull it in towards the center,
and then I hardly ever changed the roundness at all.
But you might like this special effect you get
if you take the roundness all the way down to the left.
I'm going to double click on it
to reset it back to the middle,
and then the feather I'll crank up
because that helps make it really subtle too.
We can see how it's really feathering out softly
now as I move this up to the right.
Then the highlight slider partakes,
or pulls back out the highlights.
So as I take the highlights to the right,
notice the whites in the clouds start coming back
into the area where that vignette is.
And that'll give you a more natural look
if you take the highlights up just a little bit.
So now with these set,
I'll take the amount back up to minus five or minus six,
and we'll have something that's very subtle,
very barely noticeable,
but if we turn it on and off,
we'll see that that really did help the image.
You'll also find Grain in the effects panel down here.
Grain is a special effect that mimics old prints.
I don't use this very often,
but if it's a style you like, give it a try.
It's a good idea to zoom in on the image
so that you can see what's happening though.
So I click to zoom in and then I'll crank up the grain
and you can see what that does.
I'll double click on this as well to reset it back,
and then click on the image to zoom back out
to the full picture.
I recommend getting in the habit of visiting
the effects panel and try the edge vignette
on all of your photos.