Exploring Blend Modes

This was the original stock photo I used as my background layer.

This is the original stock image I used as the top layer to showcase different ways of blending.

This image uses the default blend mode of Normal and has the opacity of the top layer brought down to 59% in order to reveal the background image.

I used the blend mode of Vivid Light and set the opacity to 62%. The Vivid Light blend mode is a contrast mode that will darken things that are darker the 50% gray while lightening things that are lighter than 50% gray.

In this image, I used the Dissolve blend mode and set the opacity to 59%. The Dissolve mode is a type of Normal blending that will reveal pixels below the layer when the opacity is brought down.

The difference blending mode is a type of comparative blending. It uses the black/white difference of the base and layering pixels to blend the images. Here I lowered the opacity to 47%.

Here I used the Darken blend mode with the opacity at 76%. The Darken mode doesn’t blend pixels but instead will compare the colors of the background photo and the layered photo and keep the darkest of the two.

This image uses the Color Dodge blend mode – a type of lightening blend mode – with the opacity set at 84%. Color dodge decreases the contrast between the background image and layered image which creates more saturated mid-tones and highlights.

Here I used the component blend mode of Color with opacity at 84%. The color blend mode protects the luminosity of the background image but uses the hue and saturation of the layered image to create the blend.