Vignette – Instructions and Tutorials

The Vignette effect will fill the inside or the outside of rectangular or elliptical selection with a selected color, using a given blending mode and opacity. Alternatively it can render only the color mask itself or fill the outside of the vignette with transparency.

Tutorials




Application

The plugin can be found in the effects group “Creative Impatience”, and is called “CI Vignette”. To apply it, drag it over the layer, to the effects panel, or in CS6 double click.

Parameters

Vignette type allows you to choose between rectangular and circular vignettes.

Point of origin determines the center of the vignette.

Width and Height set the width and the height of the bounding box. In case of elliptical vignette they determine its both radium.

Angle allows you to rotate your vignette around the point of origin.

Feather determines the amount of feather in pixels that will be applied to the inside of the Vignette.

Fill with allows you to choose whether you are using color or transparency to fill out the vignette.

Color is the color of the vignette.

Opacity tells you how much of the effect will be applied to the source layer. This control is disabled and automatically set to 100% in Mask Only mode.

Blending mode allows you to choose how the color will be applied to the source layer. All After Effects blending modes are available. This control is disabled and automatically set to “Normal” in Mask Only mode.

Invert will toggle between applying the effect to the inside, or to the outside of the vignette.

Mask Only turns on “Mask Only” mode, where the source layer is ignored, and only the mask is rendered on the layer where the clip was applied.

Graphical UI

After clicking on the effect name, both in Premiere Pro, and in After Effects, custom controls will appear in the comp/layer window or program monitor.

The outside rectangle and rectangular handles control width and height parameters.

If an elliptical vignette is chosen, the ellipse will be displayed to show the outer extent of the vignette. For rectangular vignette only the rectangle is shown.

Four round handles in the middle of the rectangle sides control the feather parameter. Drag any of them to the inside to modify it. Right now they might behave a bit erratically when the vignette is rotated, and also there is no limit on the feather size.

The point handle in the middle moves the vignette’s point of origin.

The slider to the left of the center is the opacity slider going from 100% at the top, to 0% at the bottom.

The round handle with the line connecting it to the point of origin is used to set the vignette’s rotation.

Creative applications

Did you find a creative application for this plugin that was not envisioned? Share the idea with the rest of us!

13 Responses to Vignette – Instructions and Tutorials

  1. L.Rose says:

    How do I install the plugin for premiere pro cs6…… where do I place it??

    • BartW says:

      Detailed installation instructions are here:
      http://www.creativeimpatience.com/vignette/

      • adeodatus says:

        when I download the vignette on my mac, I got 2 files (the “readme” and the plugin which opens with terminal but nothing happens) Unfortunately I can’t find the right folder-path to put it in… I got the whole CS6-collection but there’s no “plug ins-folder” in the folder “commons”. thanks for your help!

        • BartW says:

          Make sure you clicked on the Mac Hard Drive in Finder, then Library, then Application Support, etc.
          If you navigate to your user’s home directory, then Library, you won’t find it.

          • adeodatus says:

            ah.. that’s why. thanks Bart, works just fine now! perfect!!

  2. guest says:

    Working with 4k RED .r3d files and this plugin does not work. I only see a few random scattered yellow pixels that appear on the source image. I put the effect on an adjustment layer and clicked “mask only” then tried adjusting some of the parameters and the opacity on the adjustment layer itself and it doesnt change anything. I see the opacity of the entire image change but thats it. No mask effect showing up at all.

    • BartW says:

      I’ll check it out. Didn’t try it on RED footage. Could you try applying the effect on a color matte or transparent video not on adjustment layer, in mask only mode, and let me know if it works or doesn’t?

    • BartW says:

      I checked with some R3D files that I found on-line. It works fine, just apply the effect to the transparent video, not an adjustment layer. I could even play it back in real-time on my old Q9550 at 1/4th resolution.

  3. Gavin Seim says:

    I thought I was home free with this one in PP CS5. Worked great on my 5D MK2 footage and previewed fine. But when I exported to H.264 720p it just gave a vertical split down the video with one side dark and one side light. Any ideas? This thing would be great if I could get it dialed in.

    Gav

  4. simon says:

    excellent : thanks so much for the vignette. I am a newbie to PrPro (2 months only) and I have just spent hours creating vignettes in Speedgrade, and then discovering that there was no simple way to export the finished project to web, so your plugin has become a real life saver.
    How about some other plugins in future? : a cinematic style LUT would be useful.
    Cheers
    simon

  5. davidhlawrence says:

    Perfect! This plug-in does *exactly* what I’ve been looking for. Thank you!

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