Whenever I see images appearing on social media with what clearly looks to be a heavy vignette added I often wonder how it would look without one. Quite often I come to the conclusion that it would either have looked perfectly fine without or that it was an OK photo to begin with but that through adding a vignette the photographer thought that it would somehow elevate its aestheticity.
Of course, it all depends on the subject and style. If a photograph is already far removed from reality such as a long exposure black and black and white then applying a heavy vignette (along with, perhaps, a heavily graduated filtered sky) doesn't look entirely out of place. Moody coastal scenes, woodlands, and close-ups of plants tend to be those that photographers most feel the need to heavily darken the edges.
The Radial Filter version (below) gives you better control of your vignette placement.
Don't get me wrong, I fully understand that it can give a sense of mystery and that it forces your eye into the centre as opposed to wandering to the brighter edges, and then, of course, there's artistic licence. All of these I appreciate but shouldn't we be taking a closer look at our work and assessing whether such tools are applied a little too often and too strong and even whether we are masking what is, essentially, an OK photograph?
Below, a Radial filter has been subtly applied and has helped, greatly, in not only drawing your eye into the frame but darkening the bright top-left corner.
Personally, I feel that like most tools that I use in Lightroom and Photoshop, subtlety is the key and when used judiciously, applying a vignette can greatly enhance the photo, and If the viewer can't see that one has been applied then I have succeeded.
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