A vignette is a gradual darkening or lightening of the edges and corners of an image or video frame, with the effect fading toward the center to create a soft, focused quality that draws the eye inward. The most common form is a dark vignette where the periphery of the frame dims, creating a subtle circular or oval zone of attention around the center of the image.

Vignettes originally appeared as a natural optical artifact in photography, produced by lens characteristics, lens hoods, or the physical geometry of light passing through optical systems - older and faster lenses in particular tended to produce noticeable corner darkening at wide apertures. This association with film photography and vintage optical systems gave vignettes a nostalgic, cinematic quality that has made them a widely used deliberate stylistic choice in both photography post-processing and cinematographic color grading. A subtle vignette applied in post-production adds a sense of depth, intimacy, and focused attention that makes images feel more considered and cinematic. Heavy vignettes create a more dramatic, theatrical quality, while very subtle ones operate almost subconsciously to guide the viewer's gaze without drawing attention to the effect itself.

In AI generation prompts, referencing a vignette can influence the tonal treatment of the output's edges. Terms like "soft vignette," "darkened edges," "vintage optical vignetting," or "cinematic vignette" communicate this quality. Vignettes can also be added or adjusted in post-production with precise control over the shape, intensity, and feathering of the effect, making it often more practical to apply them after generation than to rely on prompting alone.