Create a Heart-Shaped Vignette in Photoshop

Here's a quick, easy and sweet project you can make in Photoshop or Photoshop Elements.

The girls' pose suggested a heart to me, so I used a vignette to emphasize that subtly.

Create this vignette as the next-to-the-last step in your Photoshop workflow (after editing and before sharpening).

Select the shape tool from the Tool box and locate the heart shape in the drop-down menu.
Drag a heart over the area of your picture that you don't want to be darkened.
Press control and click on the resulting layer thumbnail to load the selection.
Go to Select/Feather to soften the vignette. I used a value of 30 in this image.
Delete the shape layer.
Create a new blank layer.
Hit shift+control+I to select the heart's inverse.
Press D to select default black and white colors.
Press X until black is the foreground color, if it's not already.
Press alt+backspace to fill this selection with black.
Adjust opacity to taste.

That's it!

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