From the course: Photoshop 2021 Quick Start

Blending layers together with blending modes - Photoshop Tutorial

From the course: Photoshop 2021 Quick Start

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Blending layers together with blending modes

- [Instructor] Next, I'm going to show you how to blend layers together with blending modes. In a previous movie, we created a pattern fill layer on top of a color fill layer to create the background. But notice that if we change the background color the foreground color will not change. That's because the pixels on top cover the pixels below. But you can blend layers so that certain parts of each layer shows. One way of doing this is by reducing the opacity so that the layers below are more visible. By the way, in Photoshop you can use a control slider to make an adjustment but I prefer to scrub on the label. This is a great feature that allows you to make changes faster and easier. A better way of blending layers is to use blending modes. You can find them here under this dropdown. And as you hover over the blending modes, Photoshop will give you a live preview of how your layers will blend. Notice that the blending modes are divided into categories. I'll focus on the categories that we will probably use. The first group has two blending modes, and they actually do not blend with the layers below unless you change the opacity. Next, we have the darken blending modes which keep the dark pixels of your layer and make the bright pixels disappear. The multiply blending mode is one that you'll use often. Notice that the white disappears but we keep the black lines. The next category is lighten. These blending modes keep bright pixels and hide black pixels. The screen blending mode is one that you'll probably use often. Notice how it only kept the white pixels from the layer on top and the pixels from the layer below show through. Then we have the contrast category. These blending modes either darken or brighten your image depending on the layers' brightness. Overlay and soft light are probably the most used blending modes in this category. In this case, you can select the multiply blending mode and bring down the opacity. Next, double click on the color fill layer thumbnail and change it to any color. The color will come through and you can still see the lines generated by the pattern fill layer. I'll select an off-white color with a blue tint. Blending modes also work great on pixel layers. I'll go into file, place embedded, and bring in this image of a lens flare. Then press enter on windows, return on the Mac, to place the image. If you place it underneath other layers then drag it up on top of the layer stack. Notice that the background is entirely black but the lens flare is bright. We can use blending modes to make the black disappear and only leave the lens flare behind. Remember, to hide black pixels we need to use blending modes in the lighten category, and the best blending mode in this case will be screen. Now we have the lens flare with no black background. You can now select the move tool and drag it over on top of this light, giving the illusion that the light is on. If you want to decrease or increase the brightness of this light, you can go into image, adjustments, levels, and you can adjust the brightness of this layer. Press okay when you're done. Next let's spend a few moments organizing our layers.

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