Paint.NET

how do you fade the corner of the pic's to black and keep the center color

In the color window, select black for your primary color, then select black for your secondary color. Change the Alpha for the secondary color to 0. Select the gradient tool and draw a radial gradient from the center of your image to the edge. If the gradient comes out backwards, just right-click on one of the gradient's nubs.

Is that what you want?

BTW, there are better ways to do this, but this is a simple, "built-in to Paint.NET" way.

yeah kind of, but i think what i am looking for is more of a vintage photo more like this pic

Here is few simple steps to achieve what you are looking for.

Step 1:
duplicate the color photo.
Step 2:
run black and white on the duplicated layer.
Step 3:
select the gradient tool(make sure primary color is black and secondary is white) make a transparent radial gradient on the black and white layer from the center to the outer edges.
Step 4:
on a new layer above them all.. fill this layer with black and use a transparent radial gradient from the center to the edges.
if everything looks good now flatten your image by pressing ctrl+shift+f and save

I hope that helps mate.

That is called a vignette. Ed Harvey has a vignette plugin as part of his plugin pack: viewtopic.php?f=16&t=26244