"Blend If" Explained - Photoshop for Beginners | Lesson 8

have a look at this image imagine how hard it would be to select the sky behind it right so how do we do that first of all let's click on the lock to unlock the layer then double click on the right hand side of the layer right about there this will open the layer style dialog box inside of that we have to wonder what do we want to remove first of all we want to remove the blues now where do you want to remove it from we want to remove it from the bright areas so in the Blended section instead of the Grays click on the drop down choose blue because that's what we want to remove which area do we want to remove it from from the bright areas or the dark areas the bright areas right we want to remove the brighter Blues the right hand side represent the bright areas the left hand side represent the dark areas so as soon as you begin to take the slider to the left have a look at it you've got a transparent background so cool isn't it have a look at it this is a little harsh right the more you take this ladder to the left the kind of harsher it gets so how do you make the transition between the areas that show up and the areas that are transparent smoother how do you make this transition alright so this area shows up this area doesn't show up there's a very harsh transition so how do you make the transition smoother you hold the ALT key or the option key click on the slider to break it apart and take it apart this makes the transition smoother you can take it apart like this take it a little more to the right and have a look at it this is so darn amazing isn't it and that my friend is the magic of blendif if none of this is making sense don't worry we're gonna get through it together so what is plentif in the first place the easiest way to understand blendif is this blend if controls which area show up and which areas hide based on brightness levels that's all there is to it here's a super easy example to illustrate that so here in layer one we have a simple gradient from black to white on layer 2 we have bright orange to a slightly darker orange simple ingredients alright now let's open up the blendif for Layer Two and how do we do that we double click on the right hand side of the layer this opens up the layer file dialog box inside of that at the bottom you'll find the blendif section now let's say you want to remove the bright areas of layer 1 from layer 2. does that make sense no let us make it clear so this is layer one right let's say you want to remove these bright areas of layer 1 from layer 2. keep in mind we have opened the blender for layer 2. so whatever we do will happen to layer 2 anyway but we want to remove the bright areas of layer 1 from layer 2. now what is layer 1 in relation to layer 2 this is layer 1 this is Layer Two now what is layer 1's relation to layer two layer one is a layer under layer 2 right so in other words we can say that layer 1 is an underlying layer right so we want to remove the bright areas of layer 1 from layer 2 so we have to work with the underlying layer sliders now what do we want to remove we want to remove the bright areas the right hand side is for the bright areas the left hand side is for the dark areas very clearly shown right here so we have to take the slider from the right let's make it smaller to the left have a look have a look what's happening we are removing the bright areas of layer 1 from layer 2. that's all now if you work with the left slider the opposite would happen now all that is happening is that the areas are being removed based on the brightness levels of the underlying layer based on the brightness levels of layer 1 why because it is an underlying layer and we are working with the underlying layer sliders so here's a recap left slide off the underlying layer removes the dark areas of the underlying layer from the current layer right slide of the underlying layer removes the bright areas of the underlying layer from the current layer everything will happen to the current layer now here comes the current layer what if you want to remove the bright areas of the current existing layer from the current existing layer then you work with the current layer now we know that at the top we have a brighter orange at the bottom we have a darker Orange so let's say I want to remove the bright parts of just this current layer so if you work with this slider see the top goes away if you want to remove the dark areas do the opposite and there you go also as you can see the transition is Harsh once we do this have a look if we take the slider of the underlying layer from right to left we are removing the bright areas of the underlying layer from the current layer that is clear to you right but this transition is very harsh so how do we make the transition smoother we hold the ALT key or the option key click on the slider to break it apart and the more far apart you take it the smoother the transition will be so if you take it absolutely far apart the transition is very very smooth so that my friend is blendif in a nutshell now there are so many more incredible things you can do with it I think we already have 20 such videos on applications of blendif now before we get into some exciting projects with blendif thanks to the awesome envato elements for sponsoring this video whether you're just getting started with Photoshop or you have used Photoshop for a long time or you are a seasoned user and water elements is the best companion I personally use it and have used it way before sponsorships whether you need those amazing Photoshop actions to create incredible effects or you need photoshop brushes stock photos stock videos even video templates for animations like this graphic templates you have everything you need and the best part is it's unlimited for a single subscription fee you can download as much as you want as many as you want I highly recommend checking it out there also currently have a special discount for students check the link in the description to keep up with the latest pricing and discounts now one of my favorite things with blend if is adding shine and dimension and you can easily use this technique to add shine to hair it's just like going to the hair salon and getting a few highlights even better you don't have any side effects right here so first of all let's create a solid color adjustment layer click on the adjustment layer icon and then choose solid color for now just hit ok now we are not going to keep the highlights black let's turn it off let's double click on the symbol of the adjustment layer we only did it so that we can turn it off and open it again to sample the actual color of the Highlight so we'll sample a color like this that's fine if it's not sampling you want to make sure that sample all layers is selected from right here and you can choose a brighter shade the best part about it is that you can change it later the way we are doing it we are doing it absolutely non-destructively so hit okay once you're satisfied turn it on select the mask press Ctrl or command I now all you have to do is to take the brush you already know where we are going with this take a soft round brush make it slightly larger and just dab in the areas where you want to add the shine that's all so let's dab right about right here with white make sure the foreground color is white you can always press X to toggle between the foreground and the background color let's dab right here make sure flow and opacity are at 100 there we go we have some shine I know it looks odd wait for it let's add some shine right here some right over here some may be right here like that maybe in this area do you think it's more than enough I guess it's more than enough all right now how do we make the shine brighter because this is not going to make anything darker right it's a shine it's going to make things brighter it's it's a bright spot so what is the blend mode which makes things brighter we just learned it screen in the previous lessons do remember to watch it change the blend mode from normal to screen there you go this is bright the shine is there but it's still looking odd you know why it's looking odd because it's also brightening the dark areas so we want to take it away from the dark areas of what from the dark areas of the layer that lies under it or the underlying layer see where we are going with this now double click on the right hand side of the Highlight layer and we want to take it away from the dark areas right so we have to work with the left hand side sliders now dark areas of what dark areas of this subject layer or the underlying layer so we will work with which slider this slider right here underlying layer the left hand side so take the slider to the the right just like that but again this is Harsh so how do we make the transition smoother we hold the ALT key or the option key click on the slider to break it apart and take it apart like that have a look at the shine that is just incredible so I'm going to keep it about this way I like that it's subtle all around hit okay now here's the best part you can double click on the symbol of the adjustment layer this opens up the Color Picker and you can change the highlight color after the fact you can make it more saturated less saturated reddish yellowish it's up to you so I'm going to keep it this color maybe a little less saturated that's up to you you can make it brighter or darker this is so convenient now if you want to add an extra layer of highlight that is also possible you can have it of a different color but for Simplicity I'm going to have it for the same color let's select this layer press Ctrl or command J to make a copy we have some additional highlights so double click on the right hand side of the layer again and make it finer by the way if you want to reset the blend if you can right click on it and then choose remove where did that go it's hard to find sometimes there's so many things right in here clear layer style there you have it it removes all the layer styling that you apply to it it also means that it also removes the blend mode so let's set it back to screen double click on the right hand side of the limb and this time make it even finer so about this much hold the ALT key option key click on it to take it apart like this this is more precise highlights so here's the before here's the after now it also affects the skin a little bit so how do you take that away from it first of all I feel the Highlight is too much so I'm going to take the right broken slider all the way to the right hit okay and then we're gonna make a group of both of these so select the first one hold the controller command select the second one both of them are now selected press controller command G this creates a group and click on the mask button right here take the brush black as the foreground color and simply remove the extras that's all let's take a look so here's the before here's the after sometimes this can be too much we are human so you can always decrease the opacity to something that works for you we're gonna go for probably 74 and that's just fantastic now you can use the absolute same technique to add drama to the eyes have a look at it at the top we have the catch light so right here we would have some reflected light right so how do we add that first of all we add a curves adjustment layer by clicking on the adjustment layer icon and then choosing curves right here simply take it up nothing complicated right here now select the mask press controller command I this inverts The Mask take the brush take a soft round brush and just dab on the opposite side like this now nothing's happening because the color is black dab with white like this now I love this shine let's increase it even more now remove the extras first of all press X to toggle between the foreground and the background and remove the extras from right here now this by itself is looking great but we want to add some drama and we want to keep the brightness only to The Brighter areas so how do we do that again blend if so double click on the right hand side of the layer and take the slider of the underlying layer from left to right there you go that's nice now hold the ALT key the option key click on the slider to break it apart and take it apart and do something like this now have a look at the difference it creates it makes it more subtle it keeps it more natural and at the same time it looks dramatic hit okay and have a look at the before and after so here's the before here's the after now you can copy to the other eye nothing difficult so select the mask right here select the move tool from right here hold the ALT key or the option key and just drag it and drop it right here nothing complicated let's take a look at the before and after so here is the before and here is the after night and day difference now you can also use the same technique to Target a specific area have a look at the highlights if you think that the highlights are too bright and you want to bring more skin tone to it click on the adjustment layer icon and choose curves again and this time we're going to take it down so create a point in the middle and simply take it down I don't know why it is lagging for some reason anyway we want to limit this Darkness to the bright areas so how do we do that double click on the right hand side of the layer the other way to phrase it is that we want to remove the curves effect from the dark areas of the underlying layer and keep it only in the bright areas so to remove this effect from the dark areas of the underlying layer we will move the slider of the underlying left from left to right keep it only in the bright areas but this is extremely harsh so hold the alt carry the option key click on it to break it apart and I'm gonna just take it all the way to the right hand side and control this part that's about right hit okay let's take a look at the before and after so here's the before and here's the after that's pretty fantastic isn't it now you can go back right here and control the curve to your liking so I want to keep it probably this way and also it affects the entire image here's the before here's the after if you only wanted it on the skin you might want to select the mask press Ctrl or command I take the brush white as the foreground color and just paint on areas where you wanted it that's all now sometimes these can be too harsh so you also might want to decrease the opacity in this case we're going to keep it 76 here's the before here's the after that's a nice rich skin tone there are so many more applications and adjustments with blend if you can also add drama with it and you can check out this video in which we completely added drama in 3d effect to kind of a flat photo you might want to watch it later because we have so many more incredible things coming up starting with masking with blend if remember the very first example where we removed the sky now it's going to become clearer to you because now we are moving to different channels inside of plentif so first of all let's unlock the layer double click on the right hand side of the layer again to open up the layer style dialog box now up until now we were working with the Great channel right here we also have the option to work with the red green and blue channels so in this case since blue is the dominant color and we want to remove the Blues from the bright areas it's much better to work with Blues because if we worked with the gray Channel and we removed the bright areas have a look bright areas from the tree also go away so to avoid that you want to only target the blues and then when you do it the trees are fine for the most part now if you go extreme it will go away from there as well but for the most part most of the Blues from the back will just go away and to make the sorry about the construction work happening in the background I'm not sure if you can hear it and of course to make the transition smoother you would hold the ALT key or the option key click on the slider to break it apart and take it apart like this that's nice hit OK so here's the sky I have let's drag it and drop it into photoshop on top of the canvas let's make it larger something like this hit enter or return now we're gonna place it under this layer and we have this guy replaced now let's move it right about there or here that's up to you now it's not matching well because the original sky was brighter so we just have to make it slightly brighter so click on the adjustment layer icon and then choose curves everything is related to Curves and you can do a lot of things with curves it's very important to learn curves there's an entire video on how it works and you can Master curves using this one watch this after watching this video we have already covered the basics of Curves I think in previous lessons a little bit now let's make it slightly brighter like this and there you go this guy is very nicely replaced now can you turn whatever you created let's turn all of this off for a moment can you turn this into a selection because right now it's not actually a selection but some areas are just getting transparent the easiest way to do that for some reason if you wanted to is right click on it and choose convert to Smart object and now you can hold the controller command click on it and now that turns into a selection so if you ever wanted that that is the way to do it now moving on to a final example blendif is a great way to place any object on any surface and it's fun so let's say in this wall right here I want to place a logo or something exciting so I have this scary graphic right here which fits perfectly let's drag it and drop it right here this is transparent so let's adjust it to our liking like this let's keep it at the center we want to match it up to this line right here in the middle and maybe make it smaller large larger that's up to you if you're going to keep it this size maybe take it up like this hit enter or return now we have to think about it in terms of paint and lighting so the dark paint in here is going to darken the wall and the brighter paint in here is going to brighten the wall so first of all let's talk about darkening the wall but before we do anything just make two copies because we are brightening and darkening so here's the graphic press Ctrl or command J to make a duplicate turn off the first one this is for darkening so for darkening what is the blend mode let's not forget multiply change the blend mode from normal to multiply but we only want the dark paints to darken the wall and also it will be gone from the bright areas a little bit so first of all let's change the blend mode name to multiply so that we can keep track of things and double click on the right hand side of the layer now first of all what did we decide we only want the darker paints to darken the wall so let's remove the brighter paints from the current layer right so let's work with the sliders of the current layer to remove the brighter paints like this now this is going to be harsh so hold the alt clear the option key click on it to break it apart and something like this is fine now you can play with this later that's fine too now we have to remove the paint from the bright areas of the wall which is an underlying layer to add that shine off the wall so take the slider of the underlying left from right to left like this again of course this is Harsh so hold the all security option key click on it to break it apart and take it apart like this that looks absolutely realistic so we can leave it at that or go all in like this hit okay now let's turn this one on this is for brightening so what is the blend mode which brightens the screen so change the blend mode from normal to screen double click on the right hand side of clear for this one we only want the bright paints to brighten stuff so let's take away the dark paints from the current layer so take the slide of the current layer from left to right like this hold the alt carry option key click on the slider to break it apart take it all apart like this that's nice now we want to take this away from the dark areas to have those Shadows of the texture of the wall take the slider off the underlying left from left to right like this this is looking very interesting now hold the ALT key option key click on it to break it apart and take it apart like this okay now that is something damn that looks realistic now again the paint won't be so perfect and so sharp right so if you have to blur it a little bit so select the first one by the way this is screen right let's name the layers double click on the text to name it let's go to filter blur and then gaussian blur two pixels is fine hit OK you can actually copy the same layer right here hold the ALT key option key click and drag the smart filter and drop it right here as well both of them have blur in them now that's looking nicer realistic but do you think it's too much blur let's open up the gaussian blur double click on it and keep it probably 1.2 this one as well 1.2 that's nice okay now there's one more thing missing the paint wouldn't be so perfect right some areas would come off some areas would be scratched so how do we bring that first of all let's put both of them in a group so select the first one hold the controller command select the second one press Ctrl or command G now we have to introduce a grunge mask so this is an image I have with a lot of scratches let's open that have a look at it we can absolutely use this to hide different areas so let's just drag it and drop it into photoshop on a new document for now let's continue that's fine controller command a to select all Ctrl or command C let's come back to this this now let's create a mask by clicking on the mask button let's open up the mask by holding the ALT key of the option key click on the mask and then paste it inside of the Mask remember using an image as a mask we covered it in the layer mask lesson I recommend watching that lesson later if you haven't press Ctrl or command V hold the ALT key the option key click on the layer now most of it is gone why is it gone because we want the opposite of it we want in this mask the black areas to show up and the white areas to hide but that doesn't happen so how do we deal with that we invert the mask select the mask press Ctrl or command I there you go now the scratches and everything are black hold the ALT key the option key click on the mask again now you have all of these scratches so here's the before here's the after but it's also not very evident so first of all press Ctrl or command D to deselect now we want to transform this crunch texture which is inside the mask if you press Ctrl or command D and try to readjust anything the contents will get adjusted too we don't want that we want to adjust the mask separately so how do we do that we click on the link right here remove the link and then with the mask selected we press Ctrl or command T and then we bring it right here possibly that's looking nicer you can actually also resize it let this area be gone do something like that that's also nice hit enter or return now the intensity of this mask is not too much so how do we increase the intensity so select the mask press Ctrl or command M to bring up the curves adjustment and adjust it there you go it's becoming more and more intense we are just making the dark areas darker there we go we can even adjust it further like this see the intensity there I like it hit okay now look at it so without it it's all well and nice it's looking fake but with it you see all the grunts right there that's fantastic now to make it even more dramatic you can take it further by color grading so click on the adjustment layer icon and then choose color lookup that's one of the easiest ways to do it choose something like probably crisp warm and there you go that is just straight dangerous right here now this is too much so we're going to decrease the opacity to about 60 percent I believe we can add more drama to it and one of the ways you can do it is just under the color lookup let's create one more curves adjustment layer let's brighten it like this that looks nice now select the mask and with the gradient tool right here by the way you can choose the new gradients at the top choose a gradient from white to black choose a radial gradient and you can create a gradient like this that's interesting now you can control the curve make it brighter or darker now that looks very very nice now I believe that the color lookup is darkening these areas way too much so let's create one more curves adjustment layer and just add a faded effect take the left point up like this and create a point right here and take it down as well and for additional contrast you can take this point up as well so curves is a very fun thing to experiment with on top of it you can add textures by the way if you haven't yet check out do consider checking out the piximper effect compositing plugin it's a plugin where all of the steps of creating a composite is listed and every function is a shortcut for example you want to match colors of a subject to a new background just with two clicks here's a demo you can easily match the colors automatically inside of the plugin in the structures section you'll also find some overlays and textures so let's apply this one and there you go I love this texture right here and the best part is first of all let's click on this button to apply it this is seamless so you can double click on the thumbnail of the adjustment layer you can move it around and you can scale it if you like you can make it smaller or larger that's up to you I'm going to keep it smaller 45 sorry about the construction work in the background and there you have your dangerous tunnel where you don't want to be so that's all about blendif it simply controls which areas show up and which areas hide based on brightness levels I hope this video helped you and if it did make sure to give us a like and also don't forget to subscribe and not just subscribe ring the bell so that you my friend don't miss any other feature tips tricks or tutorials thank you so much for watching I'll see you in my next one till then stay tuned and make sure that you keep creating [Music] and somehow we get it right every time [Music] and I like it like that [Music]

Channel: PiXimperfect

Views: 187,633

Keywords: photoshop for beginners, piximperfect

Id: ysShyX50r6U

Length: 25min 5sec (1505 seconds)

Published: Thu Jul 06 2023