[f. prec.] trans. To make a vignette of; spec. in Photogr., to produce (a picture or portrait) in the style of a vignette by softening away or shading off the edges, leaving only the central portion.
1853. De Morgan, in Graves, Life Hamilton (1889), III. 478. I shall remember to have an Hippopotamus neatly vignetted for the title-page.
1878. Abney, Photogr., 246. For outdoor portraiture an angle of a wall facing the north with a background formed by a blanket is suitable for producing pictures that can be vignetted.
1885. C. G. W. Lock, Workshop Receipts, Ser. IV. 401/2. A very good enlargement is made by vignetting the picture with the opal.
transf. and fig. 1883. Saintsbury, in Academy, 5 May, 307/2. Forgetting that its chief function is to finish off and vignette isolated sketches of manner, character, and thought with more precision … than is possible or suitable in prose.
1895. Athenæum, 5 Oct., 451/1. How happily is autumn vignetted here and there!
b. To take in or introduce as a vignette.
1892. Photogr. Ann., II. 54. Keep moving the mask so as to vignette in the clouds.
Hence Vignetted ppl. a.
1867. Routledge’s Ev. Boy’s Ann., March, 169. An album of ‘vignetted’ heads of all my bird friends.
1886. Athenæum, 18 Dec., 831/3. The Wrath of the Fay,… with vignetted designs in outline.
