How to Make a White Vignette

Use the layering, selection and paint-filling tools of an image manipulation program to create white vignettes for your photos. Several such programs, including free ones, have layer masks to help you produce vignettes. Layer masks hide layers, which are the virtual transparencies that compose an image. Painting on a layer mask hides a portion of the mask itself, which reveals the underlying layer. Painting ellipses on these masks will thus reveal a vignette-shaped window onto the underlying layer.

Instructions

1. Paint.NET

   • 1
     Click the "File" menu's "Open" command; then navigate to and double-click a photo to which you'd like to apply the white vignette effect. The program will load the photo.
   • 2
     Click the page icon on the "Layers" menu to create a new layer. Click the toolbar icon shaped like a paint bucket; then click the white swatch in the color panel. Click the canvas to fill the new layer with white.
   • 3
     Click the toolbar icon shaped like an ellipse to run the tool for drawing ellipses; and then drag on the canvas to create the vignette's oval.
   • 4
     Press "Delete" to delete the oval.
   • 5
     Click the "Effects" menu's "Blur" command, and then drag the "Radius" slider to the right until the oval's edge looks sufficiently soft. Click "OK" to complete the blur effect and the white vignette.

   GIMP

   • 6
     Click the "File" menu, and then click the "Open" command. Navigate to a photo you'd like to apply the white vignette effect to. Double-click the file to load it into GIMP.
   • 7
     Click the "Layer" menu's "New" command, and then click the "Background" color option of the dialog box that appears to white out the new layer. Drag the "Layers" panel's top item to the bottom to place the new layer under the photo.
   • 8
     Right-click the top row in the "Layers" panel and click "Add layer mask;" then click the "Tools" panel icon shaped like an ellipse to enter selection mode.
   • 9
     Drag over the canvas to draw the ellipse; then click the "Select" menu's "Feather" command. Type a number between 20 to 40 in the dialog box that appears to indicate you want to feather the selection.
   • 10
     Click the "Edit" menu's "Fill with background" command to fill the ellipse with white, which will make the mask reveal the photo you loaded.

   Photoshop

   • 11
     Click the "File" menu's "Open" command, and then navigate to the photo you want to apply the white vignette effect to.
   • 12
     Click the "Layers" panel's page icon to add a new painting layer to the canvas, and and then press "Shift" and "F5" simultaneously to display the "Fill" dialog box. Click the "Background" option, then click "OK" to fill the new layer with white. Drag the highlight layer of the "Layers" panel, which is the layer you just filled, to the bottom of the stack of layers in the panel.
   • 13
     Click the "Layers" menu, then click "Layer mask." Click "Hide" to add a black layer mask. Click the "Tools" panel icon shaped like an ellipse to run the "Elliptical marquee" selection tool, and then click the "Selection" menu's "Feather" command.
   • 14
     Type a number between 20 and 40 in the dialog box that appears, then click "OK" to close the dialog.
   • 15
     Drag over the canvas to draw the elliptical selection, and then press "Shift" and "F5" to display the dialog box for filling image regions. Click the "Background" option, and then click "OK" to fill the ellipse with white. This action removes an elliptical portion of the mask to reveal a portion of the photo. The result of this behavior is the white vignette effect.