Month: January 2019

In this blog post, I will explain the six blend modes in Photoshop, accompanied by example images.

Normal Blending Modes

Normal (Original Images)

  

This is the mode where the overlying layer remains untouched – all pixels are opaque and the top image completely covers the bottom one.

Dissolve (50% Opacity)

Dissolve also doesn’t change the image except for the opacity of the top layer, which reveals some of the bottom layer depending on the chosen opacity.

Darken Blending Modes

Darken

Darken takes the base or blend color and depending which is the darker one, keeps that color as the result.

Multiply

This multiplies the base color by the blend color, and this always results in a darker color.

Color Burn

This increases the contrast between the base and blend colors which reduced highlights and saturates midtones.

Linear Burn

This decreases the brightness of the base color based on the value of the blend color, and produces the most contrast in darker colors than the other darken blending modes.

Darker Color

This compares the total of all channel values for the blend and base color and displays the lower value color.

 

Lighten Blending Modes

Lighten

This selects the lighter of the base and blend colors to use in the resulting color.

Screen

This multiplies the inverse of the base and blend colors, always resulting in a lighter color.

Color Dodge

Brightens the base color to reflect the blend color by decreasing contrast between the two.

Linear Dodge (Add)

Brightens the base color to reflect the blend color by increasing the brightness.

Lighter Color

Compares the total of all channel values for the blend and base color and displays the higher value color.

 

Contrast Blending Modes

Overlay

Multiplies or screens the colors, depending on the base color. Preserves the highlights and shadows of the base color and mixes it 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. If the blend color 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.

Hard Light

Multiplies or screens the colors, depending on the blend color. If the blend color 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

Vivid Light

Burns or dodges the colors by increasing or decreasing the contrast, depending on the blend color. If the blend color 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 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 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.

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 and if less than 255, a value of 0.

 

Inversion Blending Modes

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.

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.

 

Component Blending Modes

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.

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.

Luminosity

This creates a result color with the hue and saturation of the base color and the luminance of the blend color.

This is the Tiny World image I made. Both of the pictures I used, the panorama and the one of myself, were taken when I studied abroad in South Korea last semester. That semester, more than anything, taught me that location is absolutely not limited by geography. I definitely feel a lot of the time that even though I am physically back in Ohio, a huge part of myself still lives in Seoul with everyone I met there. The space that I made for myself in Korea was unlike any I’ve occupied before in my life. Now, thinking back to it, I’m always brought back to the feelings of warmth and excitement that every day brought when I explored the country with the close friends I made there.

The experience of editing this image was both enjoyable and frustrating at different times. Following the tutorial gave me a satisfying sense of checking things off a list as I edited the image, but since the image of myself was not taken from above like in the tutorial, I don’t think that I achieved quite the same effect in the end, which was a bit unfortunate. However, looking at this image still immediately takes me back to two different places I loved being in in Korea, so I’m happy I could take the panorama and picture of myself and turn them into something new that still represents my experience last semester.

Part 1 – Lava Field

Here is my first edited version of “Lava Field”. In it, I chose to replace the plants growing in the rocks with water from another image, and the sky with a different image’s sky. What gave me the most trouble by far was when I realized I hadn’t properly erased the parts I wanted to erase from the original image. This caused parts from the background to peek through into the other layers and added a lot more difficulty overall until I finally determined how to fix it. However, the whole process helped me become very well-acquainted with the Magic Wand selection tool, which is a useful skill to have for future projects, I think.

Edited versions –

Posterize:

Greyscale:

Invert:

 

Part 2 – Freckles and Tattoos

This is my edited version of “Freckles and Tattoos”. I became very familiar with the healing and stamp tools here. The overall image took me a very long time to edit and was pretty difficult. This was mainly because the editing left the woman’s skin tone still looking fairly speckled and uneven even after removing the freckles and tattoos. It was difficult trying to get rid of the random lighter spots without erasing the texture of her skin, so I kind of gave it my best effort and stopped after a while. I like how the new background fits with the image a lot though.

   

Today in class I followed a Youtube tutorial on how to change the colors of objects in Photoshop. This was my first time ever using Photoshop so there was a bit of a learning curve, but I’m still pretty happy with how the picture turned out. It was also really cool and super fun to do!