Creating Custom Papers using Vignettes

in Adobe® Photoshop®

We saw in a previous tutorial that a vignette is a soft-edged border around a photograph, a framing element where the image fades out towards the edges of the photo.

In this tutorial, we’re going to take vignettes one step further. Here, I’m going to show you how you can use a photo that has been given this vignette effect to turn a piece of digital scrapbooking paper into a custom piece that you can use to create a really special digital scrapbooking layout.

In this lesson, we’ll show you how to create the vignette effect. But, if you have any questions or would like to see that technique in more detail, be sure to check out our previous tutorial, Creating Vignettes in Photoshop. Then, after we’ve created the vignette, we’ll look at how to blend it with a piece of digital paper to create a custom paper.

Here’s the custom digital paper we’ll be creating here:

So, let’s get started.

Open the Photo that you want to use in the workspace.

Convert the Background layer into a regular layer by double clicking on the Background Layer in the Layers Palette:

This will bring up the New Layer dialog box:

Click ‘OK’ here. After that, the Background layer is gone from the Layers Palette and instead, there is a single layer called ‘Layer 0′:

I’ve just converted the background layer to a normal layer with the name ‘Layer 0′.

Now, I’m going to create the outline of our vignette, using the elliptical marquee tool.

Select the elliptical marquee tool from the toolbox:

Now, put a selection around the subject of the photo. Click and drag out this selection. If I need to reposition the selection, I can press the spacebar while the mouse button is still pressed and reposition the selection outline, then release the spacebar and continue resizing the outline until I get it the way I want it:

Now, with the selection still active, I’ll hold down the Ctrl button on the keyboard, and then click on the new layer button at the bottom left of the Layers Palette:

This will add a new layer below the layer of the photo.

Now, fill in the selection outline on the new layer with black by choosing Edit>Fill Selection:

Then choose black in the drop down menu of the Fill Layer dialog box:

Click ‘OK’.

Deselect the selection by using Ctrl+D.

Now, hide the photo layer by clicking on its Layer Visibility icon (the eyeball) on the left of the layer in the Layers Palette:

With the photo layer hidden, I can see that I now have a layer with an elliptical shape filled in black:

To create the soft edge effect of the vignette, I will apply a Gaussian Blur to this ellipse shape. With the ellipse layer still selected, choose Filter>Blur>Gaussian Blur:

When I’m creating a vignette, I usually use around 15 to 45 pixels, but it really depends on the resolution and size of the photo you’re working with.

Here, though, I really want to kick up the blur because I want really soft edges on the photo so that it blends well into the digital paper. You’ll have to play with this setting to get the effect you want with your image.

The only thing you want to look out for is you have to be careful that the blur doesn’t go beyond the edge of the photo because then you’ll see a harsh line there that will ruin the effect.

So, I’m going to use 100 pixels here:

Now, I’ll turn the visibility of the photo layer back on. Now, group the two layers together. This is sometimes called a clipping mask. To do this, hold down the Alt key on your keyboard and hover the mouse over the line between the two layers in the Layers Palette. I’ll click the mouse button when I see the cursor turn into two intertwined circles:

Our photo now has a vignette effect:

Now, let’s merge the layers so that the photo with the vignette edges, on a transparent background, is on one layer so that we can move it to the digital paper easily. I’m going to show you a way to do this non-destructively.

Make sure that the top layer, the one with the photo on it is selected.

Now, hold down the Alt key when clicking on the down-facing arrow at the top right of the layers palette. This will bring up a fly-out menu. While keeping your mouse button pressed, select ‘Merge Visible’:

This will create a new layer above the photo layer. This layer is the merged image – the photo with the vignette border on one layer:

Now, open a digital paper.

Here, we’re using a piece from the ScrappyDigits School Days collection:

Now, we’ll move the photo onto our digital paper.

First, select the Move tool from the Toolbox on the left hand side of the workspace. The Move tool looks like an arrow. Click on it to select it:

Now, click on the top layer of the photo file and drag and drop it onto the digital paper:

This puts the photo with the vignette edges into a layer above the digital paper:

Now, we’ll blend the photo into the digital paper using the blending options at the top of the Layers palette:

Make sure that the top layer, the photo layer is selected. Then, click on the down facing arrow next to ‘Normal’ at the top of the Layers palette to see all of the available blending options:

You can cycle through the blending options by choosing one and then using your up and down arrow keys to cycle through the rest.

For this image, I’m going to use the Luminosity blending mode:

Finally, I’ll change the opacity to 50% to make the effect more subtle:

And, now the custom paper is ready to use for a digital scrapbooking layout. You can move the photo around or resize it or whatever to fit the layout that you’re creating.

Here’s a layout I created from this paper: