GIMP: How to feather a vignette?

[Mike Buckley]

After creating a vignette in GIMP, I'm using the Feather command located in the Edit menu. However, no feathering is being created. Any ideas what I'm doing wrong?

[Donald]

Mike - Although a GIMP user, I do any vignetting in Silver Efex Pro 2 prior to exporting into GIMP for finishing. What your post made me realise is that I don't know how to do a vignette with the GIMP. So, sorry for not being helpful.

I did go into it and pick an image and try to do what you are trying. You say "... the Feather command located in the Edit menu." I'm not seeing a feather command in the 'Edit' menu. Can you give some more details of the path to this command. Also, how are you putting the vignette on? Are you creating a mask on a layer, etc?

[Mike Buckley]

Sorry about that, Donald. The Feather command is in the Select menu, not the Edit menu. Thanks for trying to figure this out!

I'm creating a new layer, selecting the Ellipse tool, and creating the vignette by dragging within the image. I then use the Invert command located within the Edit menu. I then use the Fill command located also within the Edit menu to fill with the color black. I lower the opacity using that adjustment located in the Layers palette. I then use the Feather command located in the Select menu, but to no avail.

[oldgreygary]

Mike,

The text below is extracted from an online manual, does that help?

'You will not see the feather right away. To see what you have done, click "Edit" > "Cut" (or "Copy") and then paste the selection into a new Gimp document. You will immediately see the faded edges created by the feather tool'

Cheers for now

Gary

[Donald]

Sorry about that, Donald. The Feather command is in the Select menu, not the Edit menu. Thanks for trying to figure this out!

I'm creating a new layer, selecting the Ellipse tool, and creating the vignette by dragging within the image. I then use the Invert command located within the Edit menu. I then use the Fill command located also within the Edit menu to fill with the color black. I lower the opacity using that adjustment located in the Layers palette. I then use the Feather command located in the Select menu, but to no avail.

Now, I'm guessing a bit here and Gary may have already provided the answer.

Is it because you are not actually making a selection on which to apply the feathering. Is the Elipse tool still active at the time you are trying to use the feather tool? The feather tool is a select tool, so you need to have selected something in order for it to work.

[oldgreygary]

Is it because you are not actually making a selection on which to apply the feathering. Is the Elipse tool still active at the time you are trying to use the feather tool? The feather tool is a select tool, so you need to have selected something in order for it to work.

Donalds right. I initially used the selection tool, applied a feather and cut and pasted to a new file and nothing happened. When I tried again, used the selection tool, then clicked on that selection then applied a feather, cut and paste into a new file it worked ok. I have to admit it is why I don't feel that comfortable using GIMP as sometimes things seem to be a bit confusing and long-winded. Below is not a great example but quickly done (well that's my excuse) which shows that it works!

Cheers for now

Gary

[Mike Buckley]

Thanks so much to both of you for trying to help me out. I agree with Gary that this really is unnecessarily convoluted. Worse yet, the fade doesn't seem to begin at 0% opacity. As a result, there is a distinct line in the image indicating where the vignette begins. This doesn't seem to be apparent in Gary's example, probably because he used a white fill. However, when using a black fill, I easily see the distinct line even when the opacity is very low.

Unless you can think of something I'm not getting right, I'm back to using Photoshop Elements for vignettes just when I was beginning to think GIMP would work fine as a free alternative.

Thanks again!

[Donald]

Another way of tackling this is to look for a tutorial.

I taught myself how to use the GIMP thanks to the series of video tutorials made by Rolf Steinort at www.meetthegimp.org.

If, on the homepage, you go to Table of Contents/Getting the older Shows, show #147 has a section on 'Adding a vignette'. Don't know if that would take you any further.

[Mike Buckley]

Thanks for trying to help, Donald. I downloaded and installed a bittorrent client called Free Download Manager, loaded the URL of the file into it and a message indicated that the download manager couldn't find it. Maybe Free Download Manager isn't even a bittorrent client, as stuff about that isn't any clearer than GIMP's documentation, at least not to me. The result is that I'm spending a lot of time trying to figure out how to do something I already know how to do in PSE only because PSE is on another computer. I've decided to cut my losses and continue using PSE on that other computer for the relatively rare times that I need to use it.

The good thing that has come of this exercise is that My Start is now installed into Firefox. I have no idea how that happened, but it seems pretty cool.

Thanks again!

[Mike Buckley]

Donald and Allan,

I woke up this morning not believing that a product that is so fully developed as GIMP would actually create a distinct line at the edge of a feathered vignette. So I went through the exact same steps, which I had written, and everything worked fine this time -- repeatedly! I wonder if there was simply a glitch yesterday, such as when opening GIMP doesn't always automatically display the docked palettes on my system.

In fact, I posted the following tutorial: Creating an Elliptical Vignette in GIMP

[Donald]

Mike

I have just posted a message in that other thread.