Digital Camera World » Photoshop blending

Blend Modes: the 10 best blends for photographers (and how to use them)

jmeyer — Thu, 11 Oct 2012 01:00:05 +0000

When it comes to digital photography and combining or enhancing images, there are two essential components – your layers and the Blend Mode you choose to work with. We’ll talk about layers in a later post; today we want to focus on the Photoshop Blend Modes and identify some of the best blends for photographers. In this post we’ll first look at some of the ways you can blend your layers together, and then we’ll list the 10 best Blend Modes you can use to enhance your photos

Essentially, a Blend Mode is based on complicated mathematics performed by Photoshop, in which the software calculates the differences or similarities between image information on the target layer (Blend) and the one below it (Base). Then, depending on the chosen type of Blend Mode, it blends these two layers in a particular way.

As you’ll see further on in this post, there are many flavours of Blend Modes, useful for distinctly different image-editing scenarios. Some modes use the tones and colours from one layer to darken the other, while different modes do the exact opposite.

There are some Blending Modes that will have a striking effect on contrast, while there are others that affect only colour information.

On the next page we’ll look at how you can use these various Blending Modes to their best advantage. We’ll show you what each one does, and how they can be used to great effect in your digital photography workflow.

PAGE 1: What is a Blend Mode?
PAGE 2: Start using your Blend Modes
PAGE 3: Get to know the Blend Mode menu
PAGE 4: The 10 best blends for photographers 1-5
PAGE 5: The 10 best blends for photographers 6-10

Use Layer Blending to enhance portraits

dcworld — Thu, 07 Apr 2011 15:27:08 +0000

Give your portrait photographs more impact using Blending Modes in Photoshop Elements

Digital Camera’s 10-part series ‘Teach Yourself Photoshop’ builds into a complete video reference library. These easy-to-follow video guides will take you on a start-to-finish journey through perfecting your photos in the digital darkroom. In this tutorial video you’ll find out how to use Layers to create a desaturated, high-contrast fashion shot. Discover how to use Layers, Shadow/Highlights, Levels, Blending Modes and more. Click the links to the right and build up the complete collection with each new issue of Digital Camera.

Photoshop: how to use textures and layer blending

dcworld — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 15:48:25 +0000

In this Photoshop tutorial you’ll find out how to get creative with Layers, Layer Masks, Blending Modes and Adjustment Layers to apply stylish texture effects to your photos

Combining or ‘layering’ several images together is an excellent way to achieve a photo with real sense of mood, and is a great way to add another dimension to your work. The process used to involve complicated in-camera multiple exposures or even more difficult-to-master darkroom skills. These days, the digital darkroom makes things simple and in this Photoshop tutorial we’ll show you how easy it is to get amazing results with the minimum hassle. This video will show you to combine the imain image with a textured abstract image and a film effect border. Once you’ve mastered the art, don’t forget you can download 100 free textures and 50 free photo frames and borders – just follow the links on the right.