Forever ago I said I'd do a tutorial on Photoshop blend modes. Finally, here it is. I use blend modes a lot in my portraiture, but wanted to show some more fun, creative uses.
I started with an image of my assistant, shot by my second-shooter at my last wedding. This image was quickly adjusted in Lightroom and then (shown) opened in Photoshop CS5.
Our first step is to add a bit of "pop", because it all looks a bit flat. In the layers pallette (Window-Layers if it isn't already showing) click on your background layer and drag it down to the new layer icon as shown, to duplicate it:
With your new duplicate layer selected (background copy) select the dropdown menu above (shaded in blue) and choose a blending mode. I chose Soft Light, and usually this is going to be suitable for a bit of a "colour-pop" of your image. Great for red-heads! Try the others though, so you get a feel for what they do:
100% was way too much pop (it can cause artifacting and gamut clipping on really vivid colours) so grab the opacity slider and drag it down until you're happy with the effect. I went for 70% in this example. For better control, you can actually click on the "Opacity" text and move left or right from there - neat trick they don't document:
Our photo with our soft light blend. Notice how the colours are more vivid? This is also a fantastic way of making sunsets really pop:
Here I decided to texture my image. I'm going for an aged, distressed photo (like an old polaroid or something) so chose one that will give me some strange colourations and scratches:
I dropped the texture in as a new layer over the top, set the blend mode to "Screen" and dropped the opacity to 50%. We've lost some of our "pop", but we can recover it in the next step:
Click on the layer mask icon as shown to make a white mask (if you get a black one just ctrl-i to switch it), and then select a soft-edged black brush. Make sure the layer mask itself is selected so you paint on the mask and not on your image. You can now "paint out" wherever you don't want the texture effect. I suggest using a low "flow" (top menu when you have brush selected), like around 6%, and brush over several times so you can blend your brush strokes and make your brushing invisible - you don't want to be able to see where it is you brushed:
I decided to add another texture - this one a purple one - and used Overlay blend mode. This is starting to make the photo look a little bit "SX-70" and a bit more distressed:
Our subject's hair doesn't quite look right in one spot (regrowth perhaps) so now I'm going to use a blend mode to fix it. You can use the same method to remove a colour cast from someone's skin, or to remove the red from acne etc. First, make a new (blank) layer by selecting that little square icon down the bottom (the one you used to duplicate your layer before), and then select "Color" from the dropdown menu (where you selected Soft Light etc earlier). Then select your brush tool again:
First, you need to select a colour to which you want to change the hair (or skin, or whatever looks wrong). Press alt-click (press and hold the alt key to get an eyedropper tool and left click your mouse where you have a good colour). Your brush will now be the colour you clicked. Simply paint in where you want to change to that colour. If you make a mess of it, you can just add a layer mask to your new layer and paint it in or out with black or white brushes. Press "d" if you need to change your brush back to default "black and white":
Here it is with the regrowth fixed:
I should add that I also used a couple of adjustment layers in between the texture layers, to set the contrast and such exactly how I wanted it. I didn't document that aspect because it is just run-of-the-mill editing that I do to all photos.
I really want to try this - but you didn't explain how to make the scratchy layer that you added! (Or if you did, I missed it - I'm tired, and now wearing my glasses!)
@manek43509 Oh! I should have mentioned about that - I tend to forget those details and assume people know what I'm going on about. Basically, it's another photo you open and place over the top (copy and paste as a new layer). You can create textures yourself - you could take a photo of some badly scratched glass, for example, or a brick wall, or some cracked stucco or suchlike. You could then, if you were inclined, use a blend mode to mix that with another texture image, or just a blank fill colour (say, if you wanted a purple texture for example), add a vignette, wallpaper patterns, or anything else that takes your fancy. Once you have the texture how you want it, it is fairly easy to change its colour, vibrance, etc and use it with a photograph. If you're lazy like me, you can just buy texture packs. There are free ones too, but I find most of those are a bit rubbish. I might, though, make my next tutorial about making your own textures, to show that it can be much, much more than just taking photos of fences and dirt. :)
Thank you so much for sharing this. I hardly ever used Photoshop before I joined this project as I was quite intimidated by it. I have dabbled with it a bit over the past few months but a tutorial like this is just what I needed. I never really knew what the blend modes were all about. I will be sure to experiment with this.
@halkia You're welcome Judith. :) I've been using Photoshop in a professional capacity for years now, and still feel as though I'm just scratching the surface. There is so much potential in the software, and so many ways you can approach a goal. Of course, there are things Adobe totally messed up too, but I won't get into that here..... ;)
@andifree Depends on exactly what I'm doing. I flattened each time in this case because my system's memory was chewed up running Firefox, Lightroom, Photoshop, and the clipboard full of screencaptures. Usually though, I work in sets, so I might run my corrective plugins and actions, (skin toning, smoothing, noise reduction etc) and then merge visible on those, then run my main edits (all those adjustment layers and such) and sharpening, flatten again, then any texturing etc. I rarely keep all my layers, as files quickly exceed 3GB and then the computer starts to grind to a halt. I don't save layered files, either, unless I know I want a couple of variations after a certain edit point (such as colour and b&w versions, but usually I do a total re-edit because I don't just edit then convert but actually edit with the specific goal in mind). So, I guess the answer is, "It depends." Probably not entirely helpful, but hopefully that answers it. :)
You're so awesome! When I first discovered this wonderful community, I was very impressed with how helpful you were/are. I still use your eye tutorial for most of my portraits! So please please do that texture tutorial you mentioned?
@marisiil I'm not sure it is possible to "master" PS - there is so much depth to the software. I'm fairly certain that after so many years I am just scratching the surface. :) You're welcome.
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Here I decided to texture my image. I'm going for an aged, distressed photo (like an old polaroid or something) so chose one that will give me some strange colourations and scratches:
I dropped the texture in as a new layer over the top, set the blend mode to "Screen" and dropped the opacity to 50%. We've lost some of our "pop", but we can recover it in the next step:
Click on the layer mask icon as shown to make a white mask (if you get a black one just ctrl-i to switch it), and then select a soft-edged black brush. Make sure the layer mask itself is selected so you paint on the mask and not on your image. You can now "paint out" wherever you don't want the texture effect. I suggest using a low "flow" (top menu when you have brush selected), like around 6%, and brush over several times so you can blend your brush strokes and make your brushing invisible - you don't want to be able to see where it is you brushed:
Our subject's hair doesn't quite look right in one spot (regrowth perhaps) so now I'm going to use a blend mode to fix it. You can use the same method to remove a colour cast from someone's skin, or to remove the red from acne etc. First, make a new (blank) layer by selecting that little square icon down the bottom (the one you used to duplicate your layer before), and then select "Color" from the dropdown menu (where you selected Soft Light etc earlier). Then select your brush tool again:
First, you need to select a colour to which you want to change the hair (or skin, or whatever looks wrong). Press alt-click (press and hold the alt key to get an eyedropper tool and left click your mouse where you have a good colour). Your brush will now be the colour you clicked. Simply paint in where you want to change to that colour. If you make a mess of it, you can just add a layer mask to your new layer and paint it in or out with black or white brushes. Press "d" if you need to change your brush back to default "black and white":
Here it is with the regrowth fixed:
I should add that I also used a couple of adjustment layers in between the texture layers, to set the contrast and such exactly how I wanted it. I didn't document that aspect because it is just run-of-the-mill editing that I do to all photos.
So, we've completely edited a photo using almost nothing but blend modes. Yay!
But if you didn't, could you, please? Thanks. :)
@manek43509 Oh! I should have mentioned about that - I tend to forget those details and assume people know what I'm going on about. Basically, it's another photo you open and place over the top (copy and paste as a new layer). You can create textures yourself - you could take a photo of some badly scratched glass, for example, or a brick wall, or some cracked stucco or suchlike. You could then, if you were inclined, use a blend mode to mix that with another texture image, or just a blank fill colour (say, if you wanted a purple texture for example), add a vignette, wallpaper patterns, or anything else that takes your fancy. Once you have the texture how you want it, it is fairly easy to change its colour, vibrance, etc and use it with a photograph. If you're lazy like me, you can just buy texture packs. There are free ones too, but I find most of those are a bit rubbish. I might, though, make my next tutorial about making your own textures, to show that it can be much, much more than just taking photos of fences and dirt. :)
@lislee75 No problem - glad to be of help. :)
@jenni3lynn How did it go? :)
@marisiil I'm not sure it is possible to "master" PS - there is so much depth to the software. I'm fairly certain that after so many years I am just scratching the surface. :) You're welcome.