Vignette Image Editor

What a vignette does optically

Real lenses transmit less light at the corners than at the centre, so photographs naturally carry a subtle edge falloff. Adding a vignette reproduces or exaggerates that falloff, darkening toward the corners while leaving the centre at full brightness.

Using it for composition

Busy backgrounds and bright edges compete with your subject. A gentle vignette quiets the frame's perimeter so the eye settles on the centre, which is why it is a staple of portrait, product and street photography finishing.

Keeping it believable

The falloff here is a smooth squared-distance curve, so there is no hard ring. Keep strength modest for realism; reserve heavy values for moody, editorial frames. Pair with a slight contrast lift to make the subject separate further from the darkened edges.

Computed locally, exported losslessly

Each pixel's darkening factor is derived from its distance to the frame centre on an in-browser canvas, then saved as PNG. Your image is never uploaded and the centre pixels remain untouched.

Matching the falloff to the frame

A vignette calibrated for a square crop reads differently on a wide panorama, because the corners of a wide frame sit further from the centre and darken sooner. Judge the strength against the actual composition you are shipping — tighten it when edges are busy and loosen it when the background is already quiet, so the shading guides the eye instead of announcing itself.

Finishing a portrait edit

Vignetting is usually the last touch, applied after exposure and colour are settled. A reliable sequence is a small contrast lift to separate the subject, then this falloff to recess the perimeter, then a soft grain layer so the darkened corners have texture instead of going dead-black and banded. Export the finished frame through the image compressor when the file has to stay light.