Another Way to Spice Up Portraits
Learn to "vignette" photos for a classy, timeless effect.Dave Johnson
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Feature: Vignette Your Digital Portraits
Some photo effects are pretty common not just because they're easy to do, but also because they have withstood the test of time. Take the classic vignette effect, for instance. When you vignette a photo, you smoothly blend the image into a plain colored background. Photographers have created photo vignettes for over a century now, and the effect is as beautiful today as it was in 1905. You might also be happy to know that it's a snap to do.
You can vignette any photo, but the best subjects are usually portraits. Let's use a portrait of my cat, Molniya. Save the file to your computer and then open it in your image editing program. I'll use Corel's Paint Shop Pro 9, but you can get the same results with almost any popular image editor.
Select the Subject
Creating a vignette involves little more than selecting the subject and eliminating the background. Click the Selection tool, which lives in the fifth cubby from the top of the toolbar. It's rare that we use this particular tool, since it selects broad regions of the picture using simple geometric shapes--but that's exactly what we need this time.
If the Tool Options palette isn't already open at the top of the screen, toggle it on by choosing View, Palettes, Tool Options from the menu. Then select Rounded Rectangle from the Selection type drop-down menu. You can pick any sort of shape you like, but I think you'll find that ovals and rectangles usually work best. If you were vignetting a more traditional portrait of a person, the Ellipse option would probably be the right choice, since it would give the photo a classic oval appearance.
Next, set the feather level. This is what blends the picture smoothly into the background. Since feathering is measured in pixels, the amount of feather you need will depend upon the resolution of the picture you are starting with. For this image, which measures a small 800 by 600 pixels, pick a feather of 40 pixels. If you were creating a vignette from a much larger, 6-megapixel image, you might try a feather level of about 100 or 125 pixels.
Now that the feather level is selected, click and drag in the picture to create a rectangular outline around the subject. Create the rectangle a comfortable distance around the cat--not so close that it feels claustrophobic. This is a matter of taste, and you might need to experiment a little. Keep in mind that as soon as you release the mouse, the selection will appear to get bigger. This effect is normal--it includes an extra 40 pixels of feathering all the way around the selected area.
Punch Out the Background
Since we want to delete the background, now it's time to reverse the selection. Choose Selections, Invert. You'll see two selection lines in the image: one that goes all the way around the edge of the entire photo and another that outlines the subject. In other words, you've made a digital photo donut. Don't worry that your next action looks like it will delete part of the kitty's image. Just follow along: You're likely to be pleasantly surprised by the results. Press Delete. Most of the picture will fall away, leaving just your subject with a gently fading background.
That's pretty much it. At this point, you might want to use the crop tool to remove some of the background and perhaps fit the image to a standard frame size. Click the Crop tool (in the third cubby from the top of the toolbar) and choose a print size, like "8x10 in horizontal," from the Presets menu in the Tool Options palette (the "in" stands for "inches"). Resize the crop box by dragging at the edge, then center it properly by grabbing inside the box and moving it where you want it. Finally, click the check mark in Tool Options to make the change. You'll end up with something like this.
Dave's Favorites: Shrink Images With a PowerToy
Resizing your digital images--say, from 6 megapixels down to a Web- or e-mail-friendly 1 megapixel--has always been harder than it should be. Now it's one right-click away, thanks to Microsoft's free Image Resizer PowerToy. This little tool is a great addition to your software library. After installing it, right-click any photo icon and you'll see a new item in the context menu: Resize Pictures. Select it, and you can use the resulting dialog box to make a smaller copy of the picture in the same folder. You can pick a standard size or type in any arbitrary dimension.
PowerToys are "unofficial" utilities written by Microsoft employees who were apparently unhappy that they ran out of time to pack more features into Windows before it had to ship to the stores. There are a slew of XP PowerToys available, and you can download the whole lot from us.
Q&A: Cheap Ways to Resize Images
Are there any effective (and preferably free) ways to increase the size of an image, without losing image quality along the way?
--Tom Bell, Richmond, Virginia
Unfortunately, Tom, I don't know of any free programs that can smartly resize your image, using a technique sometimes referred to as "image interpolation." There's a lot of fancy mathematics behind image interpolation, and apparently there aren't many grad students out there willing to release a free image resizer that represents an entire junior year's worth of work in their calculus class.
That said, there are a lot of choices--some not too expensive--if you find a need to make a huge poster from a 5-megapixel image. Keep in mind that even though these programs can successfully increase the apparent resolution of many pictures, they generally do better at making a big photo (5 megapixel or more) huge rather than making a small image (1 megapixel) bigger. There's just no substitute for having lots of pixels in the photo to begin with.
In addition to high-end programs like Extensis pxl Smartscale (about $180) and LizardTech Genuine Fractals (about $135), you've got some inexpensive alternatives, including:
Hot Pic of the Week
Get published, get famous! Each week, we select our favorite reader-submitted photo based on creativity, originality, and technique. Every month, the best of the weekly winners gets a prize valued at between $15 and $50.
Here's how to enter: Send us your photograph in JPEG format, at a resolution no higher than 640 by 480 pixels. Entries at higher resolutions will be immediately disqualified. If necessary, use an image editing program to reduce the file size of your image before e-mailing it to us. Include the title of your photo along with a short description and how you photographed it. Don't forget to send your name, e-mail address, and postal address. Before entering, please read the full description of the contest rules and regulations.
This Week's Hot Pic: "Climbing," by Kim Baum, Ioma, Ontario
About this photo, Kim writes: "I took this picture of my son climbing a tree in our backyard. I thought the lighting was fantastic and used it to make a silhouette. I used a Konica Minolta DiMage Z5 digital camera."