Add sophistication to your vignettes

Use a Radial Gradient in Lightroom to draw the viewer's attention to a part of your image

Sean McCormack

Sean McCormack is a photographer and writer, based in Galway. He's the author of The Indispensable Guide to Lightroom CC.

There are many many ways to help focus attention in your photos. Sharpness is one, and you often see this effectively done in camera using a shallow depth of field. Your eye is drawn to areas of sharpness and tends to ignore things that are out of focus. It's why so much money is spent on f/1.2 lenses by portrait photographers.

Another way is using light and dark. Your eye naturally goes to the brightest part of the frame, and pays less attention to the darker parts. That's part of the reason why it's important to retain detail in the highlights, while it's not as critical to keep it in the shadows. It's not that you shouldn't; it's just less important.