Ansel Adams liked to darken the corners ("Burn in the Corners") of a print, so that the viewer's attention was drawn toward the center of the frame. The following are a few ways to do this in Photoshop.

Burning in the Corners

Many prints will look better if you apply the old Ansel Adams technique of burning in the corners of the frame. This can be done two ways: Using the Gradient tools, or using the ellipse to select a section.

The gradient tool is a better approach if you just want to impact the corners. The ellipse is better if the subject is off center and you want to darken the area around the subject’s position.

Using the Gradient tool

1) Create a Curves adjustment layer.

2) Pull down the upper right hand corner of the curve line to the bottom of the first grid (this can be adjusted later). Hit ok

3) Select a gradient tool and then select a radial gradient from the five choices on top.

4) Open the gradient editor by clicking on the Gradient Editor (the large box to the left of the five gradient selections up top.

5) Select a black white preset.

6) Move the bottom left slider until it is about 65% (this will leave 65% of the gradient applied to the image alone and apply the effect to the remaining 35%). Hit ok.

7) Draw a line (you have the gradient tool selected) from the center of the image to the lower right corner. This will now apply the curves adjustment from the curves adjustment layer to the edges of the image.

8) You can now adjust the impact by clicking on the “layer thumbnail” icon in the Layers – Adjustment Layer window. Move the upper right hand corner of the curves line to adjust the effect as desired.

Using the Ellipse

Use the ellipse tool to draw an ellipse over the center of the image (you can fine tune to position of the ellipse with the move tool.

The ellipse has selected the center, select the inverse by going up top to “Select” and then “Inverse”

Now create a Curves adjustment layer and adjust the line as in step 2 above.

The effect is too obvious so you have to blur the layer. Go to Filter, Blur Gaussian Blur, and set it to about 60%-65%.

You can adjust the impact using the approach outlined in step 8 above.