Hard Mix Highlights
Hidden away in Photoshop's Layer Styles are a pair of Blend If sliders. These control how much of the image comes from the current layer and how much from below. Simply by dragging the slider, you can exclude some tones from the composite image. Here's a recipe that has a blurred Hard Mix layer to transform the picture, and then takes advantage of Blend If to restore the original image's shadow tones. Notice how the Hard Mix layer's halo emphasizes the shape of the bridge 1 In the Layers...
Hard Shadows
Lock J lt i lt a Fill 100 gt l In the Layers palette, duplicate the original image layer by dragging the background layer onto the Create a new layer icon, or use Ctrl Cmd-J 2 Select Image gt Adjustments gt Desaturate to desaturate the new layer, or use Ctrl Cmd-Shift-U Name the layer Desturated 3 In the Layers palette, duplicate the Desaturated layer using Ctrl Cmd-J 4 Using the pull-down blending mode menu in the Layers palette or the shortcut Alt Opt-Shift-L, change the new layer's blending...
Ice Cold
've called this recipe Ice Cold after the effect it has on the picture of the architecture, right. The effect works especially well when the picture has lots of blues and greens. The first ingredient is a blurred, inverted Luminosity layer that inverts the highlights and shadows, but tends to leave midtones unaffected. A Hard Mix layer at 10-50 fill opacity restores the image's shape and a Screen layer chills the final result. Experiment with inverting or desaturating any or all of the layers,...
Lighten 2
The next four blending modes Lighten, Screen, Color Dodge, and Linear Dodge all lighten the underlying image, and for this reason they are often referred to as the Lighten group. Just as the Darken modes have white as their neutral color, the Lighten group of modes have black as their neutral color, which is why they are also sometimes known as the neutral black group. The Lighten blending mode is the exact opposite of the Darken mode. Both create a new output color by comparing the base and...
Screen 2
Screen, the second of the Lighten group of blend modes, is often likened to projecting multiple transparencies onto the same screen. As Screen's neutral color is black, this blending mode will leave black unchanged. Dark colors marginally brighten the picture, but as the blend color lightens, the image becomes increasingly lighter. This can make certain images look bleached or overexposed. Self-blends and changing the opacity A self-blend simply lightens the image, especially in brighter areas,...
Overlay and Hard Light
Having looked at groups of modes that either lighten or darken, let's move on to a group of blending modes that both lighten and darken at the same time known as the Contrast group. The first two in the group, Overlay and Hard Light, are so similar that it makes sense to look at them together, but you should also bear in mind that much of what applies to Overlay and Hard Light applies to Soft Light too. All three belong to the contrast-increasing group of blending modes. These darken shadows,...
Reducing Digital Noise
lIn the Layers palette, duplicate the original image layer by dragging the background layer onto the Create a new layer icon, or use Ctrl Cmd-J 2 Using either the pulldown blending mode menu in the Layers palette or the shortcut Alt Opt-Shift-L, change the duplicate layer's blending mode to Color and rename it Color. 3 Zoom in to ioo using View gt Actual Pixels or Ctrl Cmd-Alt Option-Zero and move around the screen to an area where the digital noise is clearly visible 4 Apply some Gaussian Blur...
Linear Dodge 2
Linear Dodge also belongs to the Lighten group of blending modes it will always lighten the picture and blending with black has no effect. Linear Dodge can be seen as a combination of Color Dodge and Screen, but it's a more powerful blending mode than either. Like Color Dodge, Linear Dodge can clip highlights, which does not happen with Screen, but Linear Dodge differs from Color Dodge in that it lightens black. Linear Dodge inspects each color channel and brightens the base color to reflect...
Neon Posterization
Posterization reduces an image to a limited number of tonal values. Photoshop has the command Image gt Adjustments gt Posterize, which changes the image pixels themselves, or you can use a Posterize adjustment layer instead. In either case, the Posterize dialog box lets you choose the number of levels that should remain in the image. But an adjustment layer lets you change your mind later and experiment with combining posterization with blending modes. l In the Layers palette, click the Create...
Hue, Saturation, and Luminance (HSL)
Hue, along with Saturation, Color, and Luminosity, belongs to a group of blend modes that some call the Hue, Saturation, and Luminance group or HSL . Others call the group Neutral, because none of these modes has a neutral color. My preference is the former, HSL, because it refers to the color space they all use to generate the output color. Windows Alt Shift U Mac Option Shift U The Hue blending mode colorizes an image with the blend color's hue, but leaves the base color's luminance and...
Color Dodge 2
Blending the base layer with an exact but inverted copy of itself results in an all-white image However, apply a little Gaussian blur to the picture and things become a little more interesting Because blacks are preserved, using a small Gaussian blur radius with an inverted copy of the image will result in a line-drawing effect Color Dodge therefore allows you to build your own Find Edges filter that to some extent you can fine-tune afterward by increasing the blur Once it's applied, you can...
Contents
Photoshop Blending Mode Lookbook for Digital Photographers Copyright 2005 The lle gt Press Limited First published in the United Kingdom by 3 St Andrews Place Lewes East Sussex BN71UP ILEX is an imprint of The lle gt Press Ltd Visit us on the web at www ilex-press corn This book was conceived by ILEX, Cambridge, England LEx Editorial, Lewes Publisher Alastair Campbell Executive Publisher Sophie Collins Creative Director PeterBridgewater Managing Editor Torn Mugridge Editor hylie Johnston Art...