An Explanation of Photoshop Blend Modes

The definitions used here are from the Photoshop help files, with a few bits of added explanation where I saw fit to add them.

The Blend Modes specified in the options bar control how pixels in two separate layers interact with and effect each other. It’s helpful to think in terms of the following colors when visualizing a blending mode’s effect:

• The base color is the original color in the bottom layer.
• The blend color is the color being applied by the upper layer.
• The result color is the color resulting from the blend.

I decided to use two different examples for this demonstration. The first gives you an example of a simple photo with a complex and colorful texture while the second gives you a complex photo with a simple texture. This should give you a better visual of exactly what each mode does.

Remember that to get better results you can also adjust the opacity of the upper layer.

Download Texture | Download Image

Download Texture | Download Image

Basic Modes

Normal

Normal edits or paints each pixel to make it the result color. Basically, we aren’t getting any kind of effect here since both of our images are fully opaque. We’re just seeing the image on the upper layer. This is the default mode for every new layer.

Dissolve

Dissolve edits or paints each pixel to make it the result color. However, the result color is a random replacement of the pixels with the base color or the blend color, depending on the opacity at any pixel location. Dissolve only effects images with semi-transparent pixels, if the entire layer is opaque (as our images are) it will have no effect. This isn’t an option I ever use and figure most other designers are the same.

Darken Modes

Each of these blend modes gives the effect of darkening the image. You’ll notice that the darken modes tend to work better for the simple photo / complex texture combination.

Darken

Darken looks at the color information in each channel and selects the base or blend color – whichever is darker – as the result color. Pixels lighter than the blend color are replaced, and pixels darker than the blend color do not change.

Multiply

Multiply looks at the color information in each channel and multiplies the base color by the blend color. The result color is always a darker color. Multiplying any color with black produces black. Multiplying any color with white leaves the color unchanged.

Color Burn

Color Burn looks at the color information in each channel and darkens the base color to reflect the blend color by increasing the contrast. Blending with white produces no change.

Linear Burn

Linear Burn looks at the color information in each channel and darkens the base color to reflect the blend color by decreasing the brightness. Blending with white produces no change.

Lighten Modes

Each of these blend modes gives the effect of lightening the image. You’ll notice that the lighten modes tend to work better for the complex photo / simple texture combination.

Lighten

Lighten looks at the color information in each channel and selects the base or blend color – whichever is lighter – as the result color. Pixels darker than the blend color are replaced, and pixels lighter than the blend color do not change.

Screen

Screen looks at each channel’s color information and multiplies the inverse of the blend and base colors. The result color is always a lighter color. Screening with black leaves the color unchanged. Screening with white produces white. The effect is similar to projecting multiple photographic slides on top of each other.

Color Dodge

Color Dodge looks at the color information in each channel and brightens the base color to reflect the blend color by decreasing the contrast. Blending with black produces no change.

Linear Dodge (Add)

Linear Dodge (Add) looks at the color information in each channel and brightens the base color to reflect the blend color by increasing the brightness. Blending with black produces no change.

Contrast Modes

Each of these blend modes both darken and lighten aspects of the image, boosting the contrast.

Overlay

Overlay multiplies or screens the colors, depending on the base color. Patterns or colors overlay the existing pixels while preserving the highlights and shadows of the base color. The base color is not replaced, but mixed with the blend color to reflect the lightness or darkness of the original color.

Soft Light

Soft Light darkens or lightens the colors, depending on the blend color. The effect is similar to shining a diffused spotlight on the image. If the blend color (light source) is lighter than 50% gray, the image is lightened as if it were dodged. If the blend color is darker than 50% gray, the image is darkened as if it were burned in. Pure black or white produces a distinctly darker or lighter area, but does not result in pure black or white.

Hard Light

Hard Light multiplies or screens the colors, depending on the blend color. The effect is similar to shining a harsh spotlight on the image. If the blend color (light source) is lighter than 50% gray, the image is lightened, as if it were screened. This is useful for adding highlights to an image. If the blend color is darker than 50% gray, the image is darkened, as if it were multiplied. This is useful for adding shadows to an image. Pure black or white results in pure black or white.

Vivid Light

Vivid Light burns or dodges the colors by increasing or decreasing the contrast, depending on the blend color. If the blend color (light source) is lighter than 50% gray, the image is lightened by decreasing the contrast. If the blend color is darker than 50% gray, the image is darkened by increasing the contrast.

Linear Light

Linear Light burns or dodges the colors by decreasing or increasing the brightness, depending on the blend color. If the blend color (light source) is lighter than 50% gray, the image is lightened by increasing the brightness. If the blend color is darker than 50% gray, the image is darkened by decreasing the brightness.

Pin Light

Pin Light replaces the colors, depending on the blend color. If the blend color (light source) is lighter than 50% gray, pixels darker than the blend color are replaced, and pixels lighter than the blend color do not change. If the blend color is darker than 50% gray, pixels lighter than the blend color are replaced, and pixels darker than the blend color do not change. This is useful for adding special effects to an image.

Hard Mix

Hard Mix adds the red, green and blue channel values of the blend color to the RGB values of the base color. If the resulting sum for a channel is 255 or greater, it receives a value of 255; if less than 255, a value of 0. Therefore, all blended pixels have red, green, and blue channel values of either 0 or 255. This changes all pixels to primary colors: red, green, blue, cyan, yellow, magenta, white, or black.

Comparative Modes

Each of these blend modes compare the two layers looking for areas that are identical in both.

Difference

Difference looks at the color information in each channel and subtracts either the blend color from the base color or the base color from the blend color, depending on which has the greater brightness value. Blending with white inverts the base color values; blending with black produces no change.

Exclusion

Exclusion creates an effect similar to but lower in contrast than the Difference mode. Blending with white inverts the base color values. Blending with black produces no change.

Photoshop Blending Modes: Beginner’s Tips and Tricks

Photoshop’s blending modes are a source of constant confusion for many designers. There aren’t really any sort of built-in examples for you to see and the blending mode names are no where near intuitive suggestions of what the effect actually does to the appearance of your document.

Today we’ll help remove a little of the mystery by discussing how a few key blending modes work in addition to some hints for how to use them effectively.

Multiply: A Good Place To Start

We’ll start off our discussion with the quintessential blending mode: Multiply. If you only learn about one blending mode, make it Multiply.

The best way to learn what something is in Photoshop is to look to the Help menu. From here we find this description of the Multiply blending mode:

“Looks at the color information in each channel and multiplies the base color by the blend color. The result color is always a darker color. Multiplying any color with black produces black. Multiplying any color with white leaves the color unchanged. When you’re painting with a color other than black or white, successive strokes with a painting tool produce progressively darker colors. The effect is similar to drawing on the image with multiple marking pens.”

This helps a little, but now we’re wondering how to multiply colors in our head! To make this a little less abstract, let’s see it in practice with a few helpful examples.

One of the many ways you can use Multiply is to remove the white from an image. Consider the following example:

Above you see two identical layers thrown onto a colored background. Both have a white background and a simple black logo. The top version’s blending mode is set to Normal and the bottom’s is set to Multiply. Magically, the white background disappears! We didn’t have to make a selection or anything else fancy, the only step is to change the blending mode.

Another thing that Multiply is great for is inserting Photoshop graphics into a photographic scene with a certain degree of believability. Let’s say you have a graphic that you’re trying to stick on a golf ball. You could simply lower the opacity of the layer, but it’s not going to blend well with the background.

Notice that the version set to multiply does a much better job of appearing like it’s actually printed on the ball. The illusion isn’t complete and could definitely use a bump map, but it’s a solid start.

Things To Keep in Mind

I find myself using Multiply mostly when I’m working with very simple graphics and lots of solid colors. The thing to keep in mind is that any white on the Multiplied layer will disappear completely. For this reason, it makes a great tool to replace what would be white pixels in a layer with a light colored background in a another layer.

Screen: The Opposite of Multiply

Another extremely useful blending mode is Screen. Here’s Adobe’s description:

“Looks at each channel’s color information and multiplies the inverse of the blend and base colors. The result color is always a lighter color. Screening with black leaves the color unchanged. Screening with white produces white. The effect is similar to projecting multiple photographic slides on top of each other.”

I like to think of Screen as the opposite of Multiply. So where Multiply always produces a darker color, Screen always produces a lighter color. Where Multiply makes white pixels disappear, Screen makes black pixels disappear.

To see this in action, we’ll use a slightly altered version of the example above.

So on a more practical level, how would you use screen? Consider giving screen a shot any time you have something that you want to quickly remove from a black background and making a selection is too tedious. For instance, one of the most common tricks you’ll see online is to apply a lens flare to a black layer and then set that layer to Screen.

The reason you would do this is to have the lens flare on its on layer. The Photoshop lens flare filter won’t work on an empty layer so you’re normally stuck applying it to the photographic layer, where it won’t be re-positionable. With this method, you can keep the lens flare separate and tweak the position, opacity, etc. as you please!

One thing to keep in mind, Photoshop lens flares are a bit passé and easily misused. In my example above, why would grass be reflecting enough light back at the camera to cause a flare? It wouldn’t, but now you know how screen works don’t you?

Beautiful Grunge: Color Burn

The examples above are nice, but you want something more fun right? Enter Color Burn: the key to awesome grunge graphics. Here’s Adobe’s explanation:

“Looks at the color information in each channel and darkens the base color to reflect the blend color by increasing the contrast between the two. Blending with white produces no change.”

The key here is that Color Burn adds contrast. I find that it works superbly when I have a fairly light background and dark text or graphics. As an example, let’s start with the following image:

It’s fairly grungy by it’s own merit but the text and the background don’t really feel like they’ve been integrated at all. We’re covering up a lot of that amazing texture from the background photo.

To fix this, we need only to set a few layers to Color Burn. Now all of a sudden the contrast shoots through the roof and the texture is showing through. The result is much more visually interesting than the original image.

Fill Vs. Opacity

There are plenty of more blending modes to look at and experiment with, but I want to focus on a topic that I haven’t seen discussed as much elsewhere: how layer opacity differs from layer fill in respect to blending modes.

If you Google the difference between layer opacity and layer fill in Photoshop, you’re likely to see a discussion about layer effects. In this regard, reducing the opacity of the layer will dim both the layer and all its included effects. Conversely, reducing the layer’s fill will dim the layer without affecting the appearance of the effects.

So if we have some text with a drop shadow applied to it, reducing the opacity will affect both the layer and the drop shadow whereas reducing the fill will leave the appearance of the drop shadow in tact.

However, what most people won’t tell you is that layer opacity and fill will also produce different results in some blending modes. To illustrate, consider the example below:

Here we have two identical layer setups with the same blending mode. The only difference is that one uses Opacity to dim the layer and the other users Fill.

Notice how reducing the layer’s fill picks up much more of the background subtleties than reducing the layer’s opacity. Before I figured out this difference I would frequently find myself disappointed in the results that I was getting while toying around with blending modes.

Now as a rule of thumb, I generally compare the difference between layer fill and opacity on each project to see which results I like better (fill is almost always the winner).

Conclusion

To sum up, if you’re new to blending modes, at the very least you should be familiar with Multiply and Screen. These are practical workhorses and you will find tons of potential uses for them if you work in Photoshop for long enough.

Some other fun blending modes to try out include Color Burn, Overlay, and Color Dodge. To see what each does, create a document with a light background and some dark text (and another with the inverse) and then apply each of the blending modes while varying the Opacity and/or Fill of the layer.

Leave a comment below and let us know what blending modes you use most often and how you implement them. 

blending modes practice,Blending mode descriptions,Blending mode examples

blending modes practice,Blending mode descriptions,Blending mode examples

Original Image	Normal, 100% opacity	Normal, 50% opacity	Dissolve, 50% opacity
Behind	Clear	Darken	Multiply
Color Burn	Linear Burn	Lighten	Screen
Color Dodge	Linear Dodge (Add)	Overlay	Soft Light
Hard Light	Vivid Light	Linear Light	Pin Light
Hard Mix	Difference	Exclusion	Subtract
Divide	Hue	Saturation	Color
Luminosity, 80% opacity	Lighter Color	Darker Color

The blending mode specified in the options bar controls how pixels in the image are affected by a painting or editing tool. It’s helpful to think in terms of the following colors when visualizing a blending mode’s effect:

The base color is the original color in the image.

The blend color is the color being applied with the painting or editing tool.

The result color is the color resulting from the blend.

To the top
Blending mode descriptions

Choose from the Mode pop‑up menu in the options bar.

Note: Only the Normal, Dissolve, Darken, Multiply, Lighten, Linear Dodge (Add), Difference, Hue, Saturation, Color, Luminosity, Lighter Color, and Darker Color blending modes are available for 32‑bit images.
Normal Edits or paints each pixel to make it the result color. This is the default mode. (Normal mode is called Threshold when you’re working with a bitmapped or indexed-color image.)
Dissolve Edits or paints each pixel to make it the result color. However, the result color is a random replacement of the pixels with the base color or the blend color, depending on the opacity at any pixel location.
Behind Edits or paints only on the transparent part of a layer. This mode works only in layers with Lock Transparency deselected and is analogous to painting on the back of transparent areas on a sheet of acetate.
Clear Edits or paints each pixel and makes it transparent. This mode is available for the Shape tools (when fill region  is selected), Paint Bucket tool , Brush tool , Pencil tool , Fill command, and Stroke command. You must be in a layer with Lock Transparency deselected to use this mode.
Darken Looks at the color information in each channel and selects the base or blend color—whichever is darker—as the result color. Pixels lighter than the blend color are replaced, and pixels darker than the blend color do not change.
Multiply Looks at the color information in each channel and multiplies the base color by the blend color. The result color is always a darker color. Multiplying any color with black produces black. Multiplying any color with white leaves the color unchanged. When you’re painting with a color other than black or white, successive strokes with a painting tool produce progressively darker colors. The effect is similar to drawing on the image with multiple marking pens.
Color Burn Looks at the color information in each channel and darkens the base color to reflect the blend color by increasing the contrast between the two. Blending with white produces no change.
Linear Burn Looks at the color information in each channel and darkens the base color to reflect the blend color by decreasing the brightness. Blending with white produces no change.
Lighten Looks at the color information in each channel and selects the base or blend color—whichever is lighter—as the result color. Pixels darker than the blend color are replaced, and pixels lighter than the blend color do not change.
Screen Looks at each channel’s color information and multiplies the inverse of the blend and base colors. The result color is always a lighter color. Screening with black leaves the color unchanged. Screening with white produces white. The effect is similar to projecting multiple photographic slides on top of each other.
Color Dodge Looks at the color information in each channel and brightens the base color to reflect the blend color by decreasing contrast between the two. Blending with black produces no change.
Linear Dodge (Add) Looks at the color information in each channel and brightens the base color to reflect the blend color by increasing the brightness. Blending with black produces no change.
Overlay Multiplies or screens the colors, depending on the base color. Patterns or colors overlay the existing pixels while preserving the highlights and shadows of the base color. The base color is not replaced, but mixed with the blend color to reflect the lightness or darkness of the original color.
Soft Light Darkens or lightens the colors, depending on the blend color. The effect is similar to shining a diffused spotlight on the image. If the blend color (light source) is lighter than 50% gray, the image is lightened as if it were dodged. If the blend color is darker than 50% gray, the image is darkened as if it were burned in. Painting with pure black or white produces a distinctly darker or lighter area, but does not result in pure black or white.
Hard Light Multiplies or screens the colors, depending on the blend color. The effect is similar to shining a harsh spotlight on the image. If the blend color (light source) is lighter than 50% gray, the image is lightened, as if it were screened. This is useful for adding highlights to an image. If the blend color is darker than 50% gray, the image is darkened, as if it were multiplied. This is useful for adding shadows to an image. Painting with pure black or white results in pure black or white.
Vivid Light Burns or dodges the colors by increasing or decreasing the contrast, depending on the blend color. If the blend color (light source) is lighter than 50% gray, the image is lightened by decreasing the contrast. If the blend color is darker than 50% gray, the image is darkened by increasing the contrast.
Linear Light Burns or dodges the colors by decreasing or increasing the brightness, depending on the blend color. If the blend color (light source) is lighter than 50% gray, the image is lightened by increasing the brightness. If the blend color is darker than 50% gray, the image is darkened by decreasing the brightness.
Pin Light Replaces the colors, depending on the blend color. If the blend color (light source) is lighter than 50% gray, pixels darker than the blend color are replaced, and pixels lighter than the blend color do not change. If the blend color is darker than 50% gray, pixels lighter than the blend color are replaced, and pixels darker than the blend color do not change. This is useful for adding special effects to an image.
Hard Mix Adds the red, green and blue channel values of the blend color to the RGB values of the base color. If the resulting sum for a channel is 255 or greater, it receives a value of 255; if less than 255, a value of 0. Therefore, all blended pixels have red, green, and blue channel values of either 0 or 255. This changes all pixels to primary additive colors (red, green, or blue), white, or black.
Note: For CMYK images, Hard Mix changes all pixels to the primary subtractive colors (cyan, yellow, or magenta), white, or black. The maximum color value is 100.
Difference Looks at the color information in each channel and subtracts either the blend color from the base color or the base color from the blend color, depending on which has the greater brightness value. Blending with white inverts the base color values; blending with black produces no change.
Exclusion Creates an effect similar to but lower in contrast than the Difference mode. Blending with white inverts the base color values. Blending with black produces no change.
Subtract Looks at the color information in each channel and subtracts the blend color from the base color. In 8- and 16-bit images, any resulting negative values are clipped to zero.
Divide Looks at the color information in each channel and divides the blend color from the base color.
Hue Creates a result color with the luminance and saturation of the base color and the hue of the blend color.
Saturation Creates a result color with the luminance and hue of the base color and the saturation of the blend color. Painting with this mode in an area with no (0) saturation (gray) causes no change.
Color Creates a result color with the luminance of the base color and the hue and saturation of the blend color. This preserves the gray levels in the image and is useful for coloring monochrome images and for tinting color images.
Luminosity Creates a result color with the hue and saturation of the base color and the luminance of the blend color. This mode creates the inverse effect of Color mode.
Lighter Color Compares the total of all channel values for the blend and base color and displays the higher value color. Lighter Color does not produce a third color, which can result from the Lighten blend, because it chooses the highest channel values from both the base and blend color to create the result color.
Darker Color Compares the total of all channel values for the blend and base color and displays the lower value color. Darker Color does not produce a third color, which can result from the Darken blend, because it chooses the lowest channel values from both the base and the blend color to create the result color.

Trying to figure out "Refine Mask" in CS6

 Trying to figure out "Refine Mask" in CS6

 Trying to figure out "Refine Mask" in CS6



I just upgraded from CS4 to CS6 and have been looking forward to using the incredible masking tools. I found a video by Russell Brown on Adobe TV that was very good....but it was for CS5 and I just wasted an hour of my life trying to figure out where the "Refine Mask" window was in CS6. I finally called support and AFTER the support person watched the video while I was on hold, she was able to tell me that in CS6, you double click on the mask to open the properties tab and have access to the sliders. They are different than in CS5, though, and I hope I can figure it all out.
 Bear in mind that Martin Evening's example is using Refine Edge against a background where the most difficult part of the selection is set aginst similar tones.  Refine Edge was one of the biggest Photoshop game changers when it came out with CS5, but there are definitely situations where it is not going to work. None the less, I had never thought to use it against the intended new background, as per ME's tutorial, but it makes a lot of sense, and I will definitely be using it that way, where I can, in future.
We need new tutorials for masking in CS6! Do you hear me Russell?

refine mask martin evening

REFINE EDGE HAIR MASKING IN PHOTOSHOP CS5