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This effect applies a controlled reduction in brightness and focus to the corners and edges of the frame.

The default darkening process can be replaced with a colorization effect.

Effect Parameters

Presets
Presets contain a snapshot of the plug-in parameters. The Presets control lets you choose among one of the presets built into the plug-in, save current parameter values to a preset file, or load an existing preset file from disk.
A preset file saved to disk via the "Save As" button can be loaded from another instance of the same plug-in by clicking the "Open" button. Presets generated in one host can also be loaded from the same plug-in when used in a different host.

Preview
This parameter displays a preview of the vignette shape. The preview is updated when parameters are adjusted and only if the effect is being displayed in the canvas.

Center
This parameter defines the center of the vignette effect.

Scale
This parameter controls the size of the vignette shape relative to the frame.

Aspect Ratio
This parameter controls the aspect ratio of the vignette shape. The shape is stretched horizontally: an aspect ratio higher than one will increase its width; a value less than one will reduce it.

Softness
This parameter controls the transition between areas of the image that are affected by the vignette from areas that will show the original image. If the current vignette shape is either “Oval” or “Rectangle”, this gradation can be further adjusted using the “Softness Curve” parameter.

Softness Curve
Defines the gradation curve used to transition from the inside a shape to its edges. When the “Quadratic” or “Cubic” options are selected, the gradation starts and ends closer to the inside of the shape. The “Inverse Quadratic” and “Inverse Cubic” options move the gradation to the outer edge of the shape.

The Softness Curve parameter is only available when the current vignette shape is “Oval” or “Rectangle”, and only if the “Softness” parameter has a value higher than zero. The effect of this parameter will be more obvious with higher softness values.

Shape
This popup menu lets you select the shape to be used by the vignette effect. The available options are:

• Oval – default
• Rectangle – when this option is selected, and additional “Rounded Corners” parameter becomes available.
• Custom Media – when this option is selected, additional parameters become available to let you supply your own media and extract a vignette shape from it.

Rounded Corners
This parameter controls the radius of the rounded corners of a rectangle-shaped vignette effect. It is only available if the current “Shape” selection is “Rectangle”.

Custom Media
This image well lets you supply your own media to be used as a vignette shape. The media will be scaled to the size of the frame. It is preferable to use a matte track, but the Vignette plug-in gives you options for extracting a shape from regular footage as well.
In Final Cut Pro, Final Cut Express and Motion, this parameter is available as an image well. You can drag and drop any media currently imported in your project onto the image well to assign it to the parameter:

To clear an image previously assigned to the well in Final Cut Pro or Final Cut Express, right-click on the drop area and select the “Clear” option. To clear the image well in Motion simply drag any media away from the drop area. Image wells can be used with video as well as static images.
In After Effects, this parameter is available as a layer selection menu. Select an existing layer to assign its contents to the parameter. You can clear any layer selection by choosing the first option in the layer selection menu.

Mask Extraction
This parameter lets you pick the algorithm used to extract a vignette shape from any media you have assigned to the “Custom Media” parameter. The available options are:

• Interpret Custom Media as a matte track – this option works best when your custom media is a black and white matte/mask track.
• Select luminance range – this option lets you extract a vignette shape from any type of source media by selecting a range of pixels according to their luminance value.

Invert
This option is available only when “Mask Extraction” is set to “Interpret Custom Media as a matte track”. It will cause the black and white areas of your matte track to be inverted during the vignette shape extraction process.

The Source Value, Source Aperture and Source Softness parameters below are only available when the “Mask Extraction” parameter is set to “Select luminance range”. The source for the extraction happens to be any media that you have currently assigned to the “Custom Media” parameter.

Source Value, Aperture and Softness
The effect is applied to a given range of pixels, based on their luminance value. Luminance values range from 0 (black) to 1 (white). The "Source Value", "Source Aperture" and "Source Softness" parameters give you precise controls to define this range:

The "Source Luminance" parameter specifies the center of the range of pixels. For example, a value of 0.5 means that the effect is applied to pixels that are 50% bright.

The "Source Aperture" parameter controls the width of this range. For example, a value of 0.5 with aperture of 0.2 means that all pixels between 40% and 60% brightness will be used as the source for the effect. An aperture value of 1.0 means that the effect is applied to the entire image.

It may be desirable to have a smooth transition between the pixels that are within the range and those that fall outside it. The "Source Softness" parameter defines the width of this smooth border. By adding soft borders to the range (one at the start, one at the end) you eliminate the sharp transition. A softness of 1.0 means that the range is smoothed over the entire image.

Edge Effect
This parameter lets you pick one of many built-in effects that are applied to the vignette shape:

• None – no light or color effect is applied. This option is useful if you are only interested in blurring the edges of the vignette with the “Edge Blurring” and “Radius” parameters.
• Darken – the default option causes the vignette shaped to be darkened.
• Overlay – a customizable color is applied to the vignette shaped and composited over the original image using and overlay blend mode.
• Add – a customizable color is applied to the vignette shaped and composited over the original image using and additive blend mode.
• Over – a customizable color is applied to the vignette shaped and composited over the original image using and source over blend mode.
• Difference – a customizable color is applied to the vignette shaped and composited over the original image using a difference blend mode.

Darkening
This parameter is available to control the amount of darkening applied to the vignette shape when the “Edge Effect” parameter is set to the “Darken” option.

Color
The color used by the current edge effect. This parameter is only available when “Edge Effect” is set to “Overlay”, “Add”, “Over” or “Difference”.

Edge Blurring
Enable this parameter to blur pixels in the vignette shape according to their softness value. Blurring outer pixels helps more accurately simulate a lens-based vignette effect.

Radius
The maximum radius of the blur applied to the vignette area when the “Edge Blurring” option is on.

Color Space
This parameter allows you to choose a working color space for the effect. When the “Linear” option is selected, the plug-in will convert all color values to a non-gamma-corrected format. When the “Uncorrected” option is selected, the color values supplied by the host will be used directly, without conversion. It may help to choose “Uncorrected” when dealing with smooth gradients or vector-art backgrounds, or if you have already applied gamma correction to your source media in a previous step of your workflow.