Media Composer includes a powerful set of color correction tools that you can use to dramatically improve the look of your footage.  This tutorial assumes that you are familiar with the Media Composer color correction toolset.  If not, there are excellent tutorials available online here and on YouTube.

Top editors and colorist have known for years that the secret final step in the color correction process, more accurately referred to as "color grading," is to add vignettes.  A vignette is a soft gradient, typically oval-shaped gradient that darkens the edges of the frame:

Adding vignettes to shots gives them a polished look.  They can be applied to almost any type of shot, including title cards.  When kept subtle, they help direct the viewers eye to the most important parts of the image, while remaining completely invisible to the viewer.

Here are a couple examples of before and after images using vignettes. 

See the difference?  It can be subtle, but you should notice that your eye is more naturally drawn to the subject of the shot that contains the vignette.

Creating vignettes in Media Composer is quick and easy.  Best of all, in Media Composer 5, they can be played back in real time.  So, let's get started!

To create the vignette we're going to use the Paint effect.  The Paint effect is found in the Image category of the Effect Palette: 
         

1. Add the Paint effect to your color-corrected shot by holding the Alt (Windows) / Option (Mac) key, and dragging the Paint effect onto the clip in the timeline.  (Note:  It's important to hold the modifier key when you drag it over, otherwise you'll replace the color correction effect.)

2. Next, open the Effect editor. 

Speaking broadly, the way the Paint effect is used, you first draw a shape over the image, then you change the look of the image inside the shape.  For this effect, we'll create our vignette using two shapes:  first, we'll darken the whole image; second, we'll "erase" the dark filter from the part of the image that we want to appear lighter.

3.    Use the zoom controls to zoom out so you can see the area outside the video frame.

4.    Use the rectangle tool (highlighted below in the screenshot) to draw a large box covering the entire frame. 

By default, this will turn the whole image bright red -- don't worry, that's normal.  At this point, you should see something like this: 

5.    Use the drop-down menu to change the effect mode on the rectangle to Darken.


6.    (Optional) Depending on how strong you want the effect, you can use the slider to increase the amount of darkening.  Remember, this will only be on the edges of the image.
7.    Click the Oval tool, and draw a large oval over the majority of the image. 

8.    Change the mode again, this time to Erase.
⁃    Effectively, you are "erasing" that portion of the dark rectangle underneath, revealing the shot at its natural luminance values. 

9.    Finally, soften the edges using the Feather parameters.
Note: "Bias" controls whether the feather is stronger inside the oval or outside.


10.     Exit the effect editor and admire your work!

Remember, you can easily save this effect as a template and apply it to other clips in your timeline. This will save you a lot of time.  Then, you would only need to adjust the oval on each shot to center the vignette on the important element.

Hi...thanks for this tutorial.

I have tried this on both Media Composer 5 and Symphony 5 with Nitris DX and they won't play in realtime??

I am on DNxHD185 with a 10GB network link to storage.

Any ideas please.

Howard

AVI New Zealand

Hi Howard,

The Paint effect is a real-time effect, but like any real-time effect, the system may not be able to reproduce it in real-time because of how much else is going on the in timeline.  Try rendering the clips and effects on the timeline first, before adding the Paint effect to create the vignette.  If it works, then you know you just had too many other streams, or too many other effects in place to process that effect on-the-fly.

Good luck,

Bryan

So simple - thank you