The magic of Blend Modes in Photoshop

 

For creating digital images as art, Photoshop offers so many features that it would be difficult to single out any particular one as being the most essential or most useful. And what you use also depends on the type of art you're doing. Of course, it's knowing how to use the ensemble of Photoshop's fantastic tools that lets you realize your vision. Or, not infrequently, conjure up an image that comes as a complete surprise.

Blend modes – how a layer interacts or blends with the layer underneath — are basic to using Photoshop effectively and achieving seemingly infinite effects. Everyone who uses Photoshop regularly probably knows the groups of blend modes that darken, that lighten, that affect midtones, etc. But what I find addictive is simply running through all the blend modes on a layer to see what magic might occur.

Which is what more or less happened with the Jardin du Luxembourg image above. 

To begin, above the white background layer, I have a handmade paper texture layer in Normal mode set to 50% opacity. Above that, a French Kiss texture layer, Darker Color mode, 76% opacity. Next, a French Kiss handwritten script set to Color Burn, 30% opacity.

Then I overlaid my photo of the Palais du Luxembourg, Vivid Light mode, 100% opacity, with some of the top and bottom masked out, followed by another copy of the photo set to Multiply, 100% opacity, but with everything masked out but the building itself.

There are several copies of the photo of the statue (Marguerite D'Angoulême, Reine de Navarre), set to Hard Mix, Screen, Hard Light and Normal, at varying opacities and with various parts masked out, so that the statue itself is opaque while other parts of the photo blend with the background.

The frame and the bench also consist of multiple copies at different blend modes with areas masked out.

Perhaps the trickiest part was deciding which effect I liked the best and when to stop trying out intriguing combinations of layers and blend modes.

All this might sound like I know what I doing, but “sort of” would be more honest. Someone who definitely does know what he's doing is Jesús Ramirez of the Photoshop Training Channel. I recently watched his excellent video: Complete Guide to Photoshop Blend Modes. For those of you who like to look under Photoshop's hood, it's fascinating. (Okay, you really have to be a Photoshop aficionado to find it fascinating.)

In this 40-minute plus video he goes through each blend mode, showing exactly how dark, light and midtone pixels (or colors) interact with those of an image below. One thing I didn't know is that nine blend modes – Color Burn, Linear Burn, Color Dodge, Linear Dodge, Vivid Light, Linear Light, Hard Mix and Difference – give a different result when Fill rather than Opactiy is used to adjust the layer any of them are applied to. There is such a lot of info in this video that it's worth watching more than once. And I hope on my next image, where blend modes are concerned, I'll have more control than mere luck.