How to Use Blending Mode With Layers in Adobe Photoshop Elements 15
During this Photoshop Elements 15 tutorial video, we will take a look at the use of blending modes. We will show you the effects of blending to an image and demonstrate some examples of the blending modes such as darken, color burn, vivid, soft light and more.
Hello again and welcome back to our course on PSE 15.
In this section, we’re going to look at another very important topic and I’m going to relate this directly to the use of layers, although it actually occurs in a number of different situations in PSE, not just in working with layers. And what we’re going to look at is blending or the use of blending modes.
I’ve created here what was initially a completely empty document, white background etcetera, and I’ve pasted onto it a layer with the flowers and a little bit of green from an iris. And a very important aspect of the use of PSE, particularly in terms of achieving effects is how an object such as this iris flower blends with the background, which might well be for example layers beneath the iris flower in this case. Let’s take a look at Blending Modes.
Now one very important point to make here is that blending mode is not to be confused with opacity. If I adjust the opacity of the iris layer here you certainly can start to see through the iris but what’s behind it doesn’t really have an effect on the iris itself. It only starts to become visible. When we’re dealing with blending mode we’re talking about how the color of the iris and the color of what’s behind it interact with each other. So far when we’ve been using layers we’ve had this setting here set to normal. And this is the setting that we use to specify blending mode.
Let’s try an alternative. And the first one I’m going to try is darken. You may be a little bit surprised to find that darken had no effect whatsoever and you’ll understand why in just a moment. Let’s try a different one. This time I’m going to try color burn. Now this one has quite a dramatic effect in that you can’t see the iris at all. Again you’ll understand why in a moment.
Want More? Get Started With a Free Photoshop Elements 15 Course! Click Here
Let’s talk now about some terminology. When we’re blending we’re dealing with two colors. We’re dealing with the base color or in this case the base layer and we’re dealing with the blend color or the blend layer. In our particular situation here the base layer is the background copy layer which is white and the blend layer contains the iris which is far from white.
And when we’re talking about blending modes we’re talking about the way that the blend layer here and the base layer here interact with each other. One of the reasons that the two effects that you saw just now were so extreme, i.e., one of them had no effect whatsoever and the other one caused the iris to disappear is because our base layer here is white. What I’m going to do is to select that base layer and change its color.
So let me choose the foreground color for this layer. It’s currently black. Let’s go for something. That should do the job. And now what I’m going to use is the paint bucket tool to fill the whole of the background copy layer. What you can see here is the image as it appears looking down from the top.
So although I’ve got the background copy layer selected I’m still looking down through the iris layer. The background copy layer its blend mode is normal but the iris layer its blend mode is color burn. So what you can see is effectively the interaction between the blend layer, that’s the original iris, and the background copy layer which is our base layer which has had its color changed. So what you’re looking at here is the effect of color burn.
Do you remember the one that had no effect before? That was the darken blend mode. Let’s try that again now. And now you can see it has a very, very noticeable effect. It’s quite a nice effect actually. And although as I pointed out earlier it’s important not to confuse opacity with blend mode the effect of blend mode can be significantly affected by opacity. So if for instance with the iris layer still selected I adjust the opacity look at what happens to that.
The iris is becoming less opaque and again the effect is changing. So although these are two different aspects of images you can use them together to achieve pretty much an infinite range of possible effects.
Now if I click on that dropdown list of blend modes there are many of them. And if you take into account not only the many blend modes but the many settings for opacity then as I’m sure you can imagine you can get some pretty varied effects using blending modes. And it would take me a very long time to go through all of these effects and demonstrate them with all the available settings for opacity, etcetera.
However, the Photoshop Elements PDF comes to the rescue here. There’s a section called Opacity and Blending Modes. That largely explains what I’ve been explaining here but in a different way. And there’s another section about Blending Modes which goes through that long, long list of blending modes and describes what each of them is and does. So really your source for information about those blending modes is the PDF. But I do suggest you try and find some time to experiment with the options that are available.
And as if that wasn’t enough for you to do I did mention that we’re not just talking about blend modes between layers. And many of the tools that we use in PSE have their own blend settings. One of the ones that you’ll probably use quite a bit is the paintbrush.
Want More? Get Started With a Free Photoshop Elements 15 Course! Click Here
So I’ve just got a regular paintbrush here. I have made the iris layer invisible. I’ve got the background copy layer selected in this image. And what I’m going to do is to just brush onto that background copy layer using the current foreground color. So no surprises there. But I have a blend mode for the brush.
So for instance I could choose color burn as the blend mode for the brush. Watch what happens now when I paint on. I get that color burn effect. Try another one. What about vivid light? And if you want to try those different bend modes you might try using them with a brush. It’s a good way of seeing the effect of each of them. Although of course the effect is a combination of both the blend color and the base color. So there’s quite a bit of experimentation needed to get a good feel for them.
That’s it for this section. I’ll see you in the next one.
Simon Calder
Chris “Simon” Calder was working as a Project Manager in IT for one of Los Angeles’ most prestigious cultural institutions, LACMA. He taught himself to use Microsoft Project from a giant textbook and hated every moment of it. Online learning was in its infancy then, but he spotted an opportunity and made an online MS Project course - the rest, as they say, is history!