Video – Vignetting and Edge Darkening

i just noticed this one today…

darn, and i was hoping for a fix / workaround.

oh well, thanks!

hi matt,

I’m only an amateur photographer. I don’t even know what lens correction is, but stumbled on it when learning to use lightroom and the vignette sliders, and it didn’t take me long to work out what is more asthetically appealing to the eye, and gives a more natural result, def lens correction, though thankyou for pointing this out!

duh,
make that “post crop blows”

Thanx. What a difference. I’ll immediately stop that post-crop now I’ve seen the difference.
The only thing you can you post crop for, is when part of the effect may be some desaturation. So for your beach photo, you’re right, but in a foggy city street I can imagine the post crop will work.
For sure the LR guys will follow your site closely and I would bet that next update we’ll get a solution for this ‘black curtains’.

Hi Matt – great tip as always and thanks for all you do. One thought on this – should you adjust your “Updated Auto Fix” presets from January 13? I believe they use post-crop vignettes. I use those presets but have updated them to remove the post-crop vignette (I found I was usually removing it anyway manually, so finally got around to updating my preset).

If the color, exposure and contrast tools of the graduated filter could be added to the post crop vignette it would work perfectly and with some good creative control.

As one poster mentioned, I also use the graduated filters ganged up around the border of the image to create a pretty decent vignette effect that doesn’t add the muddy gray to colors. Its not perfect because the effect gets stronger where the gradients overlap but it works pretty charmingly as a bandage until Adobe can come up with something better.

Sorry I’m not sure exactly where to post this question so I’ll just start here if that is okay. Is there a way in Lightroom to imbed the original file name in the metadata when changing the file name – similar to Adobe Bridge? I would like to change the files names of edited files but it would be very helpful at times to be able to reference the original file if needed.

As one of the earlier posters stated I don’t even have to watch the video to know that you’re talking about. I HATE the post-crop vignette tool. I always use the lens correction when possible as the result is MUCH more appealing. I have tried very hard to get the same results out of the post-crop tool with little success. There are a few images that I can get to look close but if I try those same settings on another image I get much different results.

One trick I tried which didn’t work as well as I had hoped was comparing and adjusting the lens correction and post-crop tools on a pure white image… but because they are apparently usnig different algorithms I could get them appearing close but when they were used on a real image the results were comlpetely different.

GRRR please fix this adobe or give some kind of extra slider that changes the algorithm / effect the post-crop has to allow us to make it more like the lens correction!!!

Hi Matt – thanks for the video. I was so excited to hear that LR2 had post-crop vignetting, but when I tried them, I HATED how it looked! You are so right – blah. I still use your original edge darkening presets – the first presets and downloaded from you and I still love them!

Matt – and all this time I honestly thought it was just me. My experience has been that the post crop tool just wasn’t as “natural”.

On the flip side – I’ve learned that I can use the post crop tool in some interesting ways (when used sparingly) – such as creating a very hard line to frame the image with inside rounded corners (while keeping it straight on the edges) or to only keep a hard triangle in each corner to give it a sort of “mounted” scrapbook look. I don’t think I currently have an example of either of these on my website – but I’ll try to throw some examples up there in the next few days. -Jones

This is the 2nd time that I’ve been unable to download your video – I get stuff on my screed that looks like this and no video – 
!
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What can I do to get the video – I used to be able to get them easily but not any more. Any help would be most appreciated! Thank you!!

One technique that I’m surprised no one else has mentioned is the adjustment brush.

I find this to be the perfect marriage between the two. I can apply it whether or not I’ve cropped the image, it actually *burns* the colors in the vignette and doesn’t just slap a drab grey layer above it, and I have complete control over where it shows up, allowing me to direct attention to specific areas.

The two downsides to this are that a) the brush can be a little slow and choppy if your system is less-than-uber, and b) the brush feathering/softness could be better. But despite that, I still find it a superior means of vignetting in Lightroom.

Matt,

I’ve given up on using the post-crop vignetting and just use PS with a layer set to multiply. It’s a step that Scott recommends in his 7-step book and I love the additional control it gives me. Plus, I love the sharpening I can get in PS CS3.

Eric

Matt-

Great tip!, I was just pondering if you old edge darkening presets were still relevant to Lightroom 2 and whether or not to keep them in my presets database. I know this is a little off topic of vignetting, but have you tried the Adobe DNG Camera Profiles Editor? I downloaded to try it out and its AWESOME in my opinion. Apparently, if you are not happy with the results of the Camera profiles that Adobe released with ACR and Lightroom 2, you can further customize those Nikon/Canon profiles with the Profile editor. Check it out, may be of benefit to do a video for the subscribers of this blog.
Thanks,
Jason

Thanks for your explaination…
Didnt realize that its different since usually i used both of the setting at the same time…
for cropped image usually i set the lens correction to -100..
then start working with the post-crop to get the edge darkening…
though sometimes it may not work…

Matt, thank you.

Just like everyone above, I knew what the video was about before I watched it. Thanks for drawing attention to this.

Puh-lease Adobe, fix this. An easy update for all of us paying customers should fix this easily.

Very interesting for sure. I never really noticed, but that’s probably because I use a very thin, dark, pretty much squared off post crop vignette when I use it. It’s almost like a pseudo frame. Aside from the obvious gray, drab look of the post crop, I’d love to be able to “center” the post crop vignette in LR around any point I choose in the frame (a rule of thirds point for example).

I like the multiply blending mode option in PS because I can follow the shape of the subject more easily and choose where the “center” of the vignette is. However, I tend to use a soft, large brush and a quick mask, then duplicate the selection onto a new layer. Maybe I’ll post a vid on it soon too.

Wow, I’m glad I watched. I hadn’t caught the difference. I’ve always thought the vignetting was nice, but not all that exciting. You’ve hit upon the difference. We should be lobbying Adobe to make the post-cropping vignette match up with the algorithm used on the lens correction. Thanks!

Without watching the video or reading the comments I am going to say that the post-crop vignette stinks!!! Why Adobe created such a terrible function, I’ll never know. If only they had built the same algorithm for post-crop that they did for the lens-correction… my beef list is building… Aperture here I come…

Matt:

These two sliders are clearly using different algorithms, and the post-crop could hardly be considered superior. Traditionally, there have been numerous ways to create the effect, and I had assumed that LR was using all the data available to it and essentially decreasing the exposure, rather than doing a multiply or black overlay effect.

We need Tom Hogarty to comment on this, since it is an extremely important capability for most photgraphers. Can you or Scott get this in front of him?

Dude! I don’t even have to watch the video to know what you’re talking about. First time I tried using post crop, I thought “that looks…terrible”.

I live up north. You know where Dave lives? Well, lived, I suppose. That is to me as Florida is to New York. Way up north. It’s kinda impossible to stay out of the snow, as there is snow for six months of the year.