How to Get the Dark Edges Around the Pictures ~ Enhance Photography Skill

Dark edges around a photograph form a vignette. The term, which is French for "little vine," describes an old style of decorating the edges of a picture with a border, often adorned with vines. In modern art and photography, vines are no longer used, but darkened edges are still employed to create a border that draws the eye into the center of the photograph. Sometimes vignettes are unintentional, the result of the light from the camera lens spilling off the edges of the film. But some photographers add them to their photographs intentionally for effect.

Instructions

Turn off all the lights in your darkroom. If necessary, a safe light may be left on. These are usually red or amber-colored lights that enlarging paper is insensitive to.

Pull the negative carrier out of the enlarger. This is a case that holds the photo in place below the light source.

Place the negative into the carrier, close it, and reinsert it into the enlarger.

Turn on the lamp to let the image project onto the enlarging surface, or easel.

Turn the elevation knob on the side of the enlarger to move the head closer and farther away from the easel until the projected image is almost in focus.

Turn the focus knob near the lens until the image is in crisp focus.

Turn off the lamp and place a piece of enlarging paper on the easel, emulsion-side up. The emulsion is on the slick side of the paper. Hold it in place with the easel's metal clamps.

Turn on the lamp to project the image onto the enlarging paper until the photograph has reached proper exposure.

Select a large dodge tool or a burn mask that will cover most of the central part of the image. A dodge tool looks like a circle of stiff cardboard attached to a wire. It is designed to cover the portion of the image that is already properly exposed, while allowing the other portions of the image to darken under additional light. The burn mask accomplishes the same thing, but is usually a large, square piece of cardboard that covers most of the image.

Hold the dodge tool or the burn mask between the lens and the easel to block the light from the center of the image, while exposing the edges. Move the tool in small circles to create a fuzzy edge so that the image will appear to blend into the dark border.

Turn off the lamp when the edges have vignetted to your liking, and immediately transfer the print into the stop bath, or fixer. The chemicals in the stop bath prevent the paper from reacting to any additional light. Gently rock the tub of fixer for 15 to 30 seconds.

Remove the paper from the stop bath with tongs. You now have a vignetted print.

Open the digital photo in a photo editor, such as Photoshop.

Select the lasso tool, or an equivalent that allows you to create a custom selection.

Set the tool to feather, or soften, the edges of the selection. In Photoshop, you can enter a value into the feather text box on the option bar that appears at the top of the screen. The value you enter determines how many pixels the program will use to feather the selection.

Select the anti-aliasing option, if available. On Photoshop, you can click the anti-aliasing check box on the option bar. This will smooth any jagged edges.

Draw a selection around the area of your photo that you want to remain unaffected by the vignette.

Invert the selection to choose the area outside the crawling border. In Photoshop, you accomplish this by clicking the select menu and choosing inverse.

Select the levels or curves tool and drag the white point to the left to darken the edges of the image. You can find these tools in Photoshop's Image menu under adjustments.