Hello, I’m Helen Bradley. Welcome to this
video tutorial. In this tutorial I’ll introduce
you to the three must know blend
modes in Photoshop. I’ll explain how they
work and how you might put them to
use.
There are three blend modes that it’s really
handy to know how to use in Photoshop, and
we’re going to look at those three blend
modes in this video tutorial.
In this particular image I have a
picture of a building in Darwin and
over the top of it
I have a second layer. And on the right
hand side is the exact duplicate of the
layer below.
And on the left hand side is just the
color pink because we're going to have a
look and see how these blend modes
work not only with images where you've
got two layers that are identical but
also what happens when you have for
example a layer that is different.
And the three blend modes that are really
handy to use
are got to by
clicking this blend mode dropdown list in
the layers panel in Photoshop. If you can’t
see your layers panel choose Window and then
Layers and that will show you your
layers panel.
When you're using blend modes you’ll
always use the blend mode on the
topmost layer or the layer that you want to
affect. And it will affect how this
particular layer blends in with the layer
or layers below. The first blend mode we’re
going to look at it is this one here.
It's Screen.
Now you'll see that the blend modes
here are grouped together.
The blend modes in this particular
group are the lightening blend modes.
They are lighten, screen color, dodge, linear
dodge and lighter color.
And we're going to look at screen in
this particular group.
And screen always lightens an image.
So you can see here that the image
is lighter then it was in the original.
Here it's colored this sort of pink
tone.
And here we’ve just got the original
image over again, but it's a
lighter version.
This is a blend mode that you can use
to salvage an underexposed image.
If you've got an image that doesn't have
enough light in
it, you could use the image
on each of the layers
and then blend the top one into the
bottom using the screen blend mode. And
that will lighten the image and bring
detail out of it.
The next blend mode we’re going to look
at is
similar but works in the opposite way.
This is a darkening blend mode.
And it's accessible from this darken
group of
blend modes:
darken, multiply color burn, linear burn and
darker color.
And in this case the one we’re going to use is
multiply.
And multiply darkens the image.
You can see that we've got a darker
version of the image with this sort of
pink overlay.
But here where we had the image on
the
two layers, the exact same image on
each of the two layers,
you can see that we've got a darkening of
the image. This would be useful if we had
an overexposed image.
If we put the overexposed image on two
layers and then blend them together with
the multiply blend mode,
we’ll bring back some of the detail
in the overexposed image.
The other of the blend modes that
you’ll typically use in
Photoshop
is overlay. It's in this group of
blend modes, and it’s one of the
contrasty blend modes.
What this does is it lightens
everything that is lighter than a mid
gray and it darkens everything that is
darker than mid gray.
So it’s a nice contrasty blend mode.
Let's have a look here at what it's doing to
the image on the right.
You can see that this is a flatter sort
of image. And when I turn on this layer
we’re getting a lot more contrasty
image.
And that's what's happening on the left
too is we’re getting a contrasty, a
colored version,
of the original image. Anytime you want
to boost the contrast in an image you can
use the overlay blend mode.
So the three blend modes that I suggest
that you look at using with your photos
in particular are multiply to darken,
screen to lighten, and overlay to
add some contrast and punch.
Now if you find that a certain
blend mode is too much let's just get rid
of this particular layer and let's
duplicate
the image itself.
And let's go and use the overlay
blend mode.
And if this is too much of a contrast
enhancement to the image all you need do is to
back off the opacity of this layer.
This will give you some of the layer below
and some of this additionally contrasty
layer
so that your image gets more contrast
but perhaps not as much as it would have
if you'd had this layer at 100
percent opacity.
I’m Helen Bradley. Thank you for joining
me for this video tutorial. Look out for
more of my tutorials on this YouTube
channel.
Comment on the video and like it if you
like it.
And look out for more tips, tricks and
tutorials on Photoshop, Lightroom,
Illustrator and a whole lot more
at my website projectwoman.com.
