Photoshop Layer BLEND MODES made easy

Credit by : photoshopCAFE

How To Use Blend Modes in Photoshop Explained and TutorialHey CAFE crew, it's Colin Smith here from PhotoshopCAFE and today I'm going to show you how to useLayer Blend Modes inside of Photoshop. So this tutorial is well overdue.  I've had quite a few requests for Blend Modes in Photoshop. I'm going to show you what the different Blend Modes are.  They 're actually in different families.  I'm going to explain that to you.  And then, I'm also going to show you how to use them.  Now, there's a ton more information at PhotoshopCAFE. com, including an eBook. I've created a free eBook on Layer Blend Modes.  So what I do is I actually give you an example of every single Blend Mode.  I show you how it works and then I'll give you a few examples using Blend Modes, and I've got that for free, so just click that link underneath and grab that eBook right now. So let's just talk about Blend Modes.  I'm going to give you a 20-second explanation and then we're going to start with three different examples.  So, when we go on a layer, we see the blend layer on top and there's another one underneath, so we can see that there'layers above it, and then we click on where it says Normal, we see our Blend Modes.  Now, to help you out, there are six different types or six different families of Blend Modes. The first two at the top are the normal modes and the only thing that would change is theTransparency.  So, Dissolve will actually create a chalky effect and let's go down a little bit here into the next mode. This is the Darken Mode.  In the Darken Mode, the result darkens the image, but white becomes invisible.  On the Lighten Mode, it's the opposite of the Darken Mode.  With this, the result is lighter, like two projectors pointing at the same screen.  And then, what will happens black becomes invisible on the top layer, so that's a way of hiding black.  And in thefourth group right here is what's known as the Contrast group.  Contrast is increased between the two layers and anything that's 50% gray is going to be hidden, so these are different ways of working to do things. Then we've got the Comparative Modes.  These are more utilitarian and these are great for comparing layers for aligning them for different purposes.  Then, finally, we've got the ColorModes, and these will do different things with colors, so each one of these BlendingModes will enable us to do something different in Photoshop in the click of essentially just one click.  All right, so let's have a look at this example here.  We've got these two text files over this image.  So here's a text file here, we've got the black versus the white.  Now, you could go and select the white and get rid of it or you could use a LayerBlend Mode.  So let's just give you an example we've talked about these Blend Modes, so lets grab that white layer right there, and remember what we talked about some of these Blend Modes. The Darken Blend Modes at the top, they hide white.  So we choose that mode.  Look at this. Right away, we can see that we've got our black there and the white is hidden.  Now, Darken is the first one, but, actually, Multiply tends to work quite well.  So go between Multiply and Darken to get the result and you can see there, it's perfectly hidden without any selections. Let's move up to the next one.  We've got this white text with the black.  We want to hide the black.  We don't want to select and delete the black; it would take too long.  So if you remember the Blend Modes, the second group of Blend Modes, yes, that's right, we'll hide that.  So if we go down to Lighten, it will hide black, and, typically, Screen works best for this one, and it just gives a cleaner result, so we can see that right there.  Alright, that's the first two blend modes.  So let's move along to a different type of blend mode here.  So here we've got the superhero image and in here, we've got this kind cool effect here.  So I'm just going to drag that into that layer and release, and itis going to put it on the top.  So we want to create some kind of an effect.  Now we could spend a lot of time selecting this or we could go to Blend Modes and we could go into some of the middle ones.  We could try this to have the Overlay.  Well, it kind of makes it look little dull.  We want these brighter parts to show, so how are we going to do that? If we go up into the Lighten Modes, notice that we can see the Lighten Mode there.  We can go to Screen.  We can go to Color Dodge, and we can try some of the different ones.  And notice, while we're clicking through them, we're seeing different results. Here's a quick little tip here.  If you want to cycle through the Blend Modes, make sure you move the Move Tool.  Choose the Move Tool, that's the V key, and then, we can hit theShift and the plus (+) key, and notice, as we do this, now we can cycle through these different Blend Modes.  And if we look there, the Lighten color actually cuts that out pretty good.  And we can also go down and try some different modes here.  So the Shift plus (+)or the Shift minus (-) enables us to cycle through them.  So, right now, I kind of like this one.  I'm going to actually just hit Ctrl-T and we're going to flip this around, just to kind of create a different kind of effect here.  Now, we can also refine this by using levels or curves.  So, I'm going to do is select that layer and hit Ctrl-L for levels, and notice as I pull in the blacks here, notice how that will just clean up some of those edges, and, of course, we can force the whites this way.  See that? And the mid tones here will also change how this blends between some of these different areas.  See that? So we can do that as well. Now you could also mask out those little edges to create a slightly different effect.  So let's just create a mask quickly, grab a black brushóSoft Edge Brush thereóand we could just kind of, you know, blend these edges in if we want to, so we don't want to have this harsh kind of blend there, so you can see that.  And you could do all kinds of different things with this, you know, with these Blend Modes.  But let's move on to the next BlendMode.  All right, so let's go here and we have a woman here relaxing at the beach, but it doesn't look very warm, so why don't we create some kind of a flare or some kind of a effect.  So what we're going to do is we're going to create a new layer, and with that new layer selected, we're going to grab yellow for the foreground and we're going to grab your Gradient Tool.  But what we're going to do is we're going to change our Gradient Tool here to show our foreground to Transparent.  So let's just grab that right now, and then,we can just click and drag.  And as we do that, notice we just add that yellow there.  Now it's just a yellow gradient going over the top, so it's not really doing a lot of manic right now, but there are different things. If we just want the color, go down to Color Mode, notice it will protect all the luminosity and we just changed the color there.  It doesn't necessarily create the best flare though. So other things that tend to work quite well could be the Soft Light.  It's a good result,look at that.  See that's kind of nice, it gives it a nice flavor.  We could also tryOverlay.  Notice the Overlay Blend Mode is another one that works well.  And we can also,you know, play around with Opacity.  We can reduce that as well.  And then, other ones that seem to work quite well for this is sometimes a Color Dodge can create a real bright flare. See that? Notice how it kind of changes the effect, and you can even put a littleLens Flare or something in there, and in Screen Mode could also work quite well.  So just feel free to experiment with these Blend Modes here and you can see how we get a different result using each Blend Mode. So thanks for watching.  If you want to become a CAFE crew, hit that Subscribe button right now, you'll get new tutorials every week.  So that was the Layer Blend Mode.  Don't forget,I've got a free eBook for you.  Check it out there on that link and that shows you an example of every single Blend Mode, how they work inside of Photoshop, and different examples of things that you can do the blend modes.  So I hope you enjoyed it.  If you did,add a Like and add a comment.  Let's get a discussion going.  Let me know because this actual tutorial was requested by a member, so why don't you make a request and maybeI'll do your tutorial next week.  We'll see. All right, thanks guys.  Until next time, I'll see you at the CAFE.